The layout of your house & its effect on neighbour relations?

NBLondon

PasturesNew wrote: »

I can sit all day and not hear my neighbours' cars coming and going .... but there's a woman at the end that has an 8 door car.

We used to have one of those.... On watching it turned out to be a rigmarole of (un)loading kids who forget things and change seats and jump out and slam the door before Mum opens it again to retrieve a bag or a smaller sibling...

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Mister, mister, what you doing?

• Watering the lawn with this powerful hose
• Testing my catapult
• Writing to the Prime Minister to ban children from looking over fences

dekaspace

I remember almost 10 years ago had a neighbour who complained about every tenant who ever lived above him in the 4 years he lived there, to point I went away for over a week and he was screaming at me even assaulted me claiming I had all night parties every night that week after I came back(the neighbour next to me liked their music so it was more likely he heard them)

But the reason he heard noise as by his own admission he never heard everyday noises in daytime was he put his bed in the kitchen! So everytime someone went to the toilet or to kitchen to get like a glass of water during night he heard it and thought that unacceptable.


After I moved in the end he moved into my flat and the person that moved into his old flat complained about his noise (he himself liked his music, smelly BBQ every day etc) and told the tenant that moved into his old flat "tough" (in colourful words)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Cheap flat pack/timberframed house here, with an identical one against it. They're a mirror image of one another and are completely open plan downstairs. This means that the bedrooms are against each other.

I know they have the same make and model of chest of drawers by the sound the runners make. They have a very posh blender that the husband uses when he gets up and when he comes in from work and when they had problems with the front door not closing properly, the occasional slam would make the entire wall shake.

Other than that, the kids make a bit of noise when playing in the garden and the eldest had a 'thing' about throwing things over the fence for a couple of years.


In return, the OH switches to headphones for recording by midnight at the very latest, we were subjected to the little girl and her cousin giving us a puppet show over the fence one Saturday and when we had a friend catsitting, the neighbour was out like a shot making sure that everything was OK and it wasn't somebody trying to break in.


It's probably worth bearing in mind that we own considerably more powerful audio equipment than they do - which they know - and more importantly, I refuse to damage my own hearing by turning it up too loud.


Compared to my previous flat, which was built around 1946 and was horrendous;

Concrete and breeze block under brick. Chimneys, pipework and airing cupboards all connected vertically. Solid brick separating flats horizontally. Different layouts, size and suchlike between throughout.

We had the family opposite screaming and slamming and banging and playing music at full blast from 6am.

The Bloke directly downstairs coming in from his night shift, getting drunk and maudlin and falling asleep to extremely loud Elvis. His wife dragging heavy furniture over to the heavy table for meals. His wife screaming at me for keeping her awake deliberately for 'throwing tools on the floor' and complaining to the council about me when I was actually in hospital - the actual noises were the people opposite me transmitting through the concrete stairwell. Their daughter howling at the moon (no, I'm not sure how that works either).

The woman on the ground floor hallucinating (very ill lady).
The woman on the ground floor across the stairwell - version one screaming and complaining to the council because I wouldn't take my shoes off to walk to walk up five flights of concrete stairs in bare feet to avoid the noise waking her child - version 2 - constant domestic fights, two kids less than 9 months apart, one extremely aggressive, - version 3 - domestic violence with his mother brought in to convince her to let 'the lad' back in on a regular basis - version 4 - nothing.

We heard every door shut, every drawer pulled, every light switched on, the washing machines, downstair's bum squeaking in the bath...

On the other side, no stairwell between, we had

Woman vacuuming at 2am.
Her putting a tumble drier on her balcony and running it from 2am - 4am every night.
The sound of every message her son received through MSN chat
The Corrs and Shania Twain every day
Her builder boyfriend replacing the carpet with laminate throughout
The 48" flat screen being installed and then being used against my bedroom wall with the balcony door open. A whole five foot between the balcony and my window.
Her poor bloody kitten being shut out on the balcony in the snow because it miaowed too much and her youngest was rough to the point of dangling it over the balcony by its tail. (The kitten ended up moving in with me because they were sick of it - still spoiled rotten 14 years later, btw - it doesn't miaow unless it has a bad dream)
Her bellowing out of the balcony door for her son to come in/if he wanted a drink/etc.
Her love life picking up.
Her love life not going well.

The girl below her sticking her little girl out on the balcony to sing to herself at 7am because she didn't want to hear it.
Screaming at the little girl for not getting ready for school quickly enough.


I have no complaints about my cheap little flatpack and its layout, compared to where I came from.

pumpkin89

Our house is unusual in that the front is located on a busy street, close to the town centre, but the back garden runs down to a river and really feels quite rural.

The layout makes a massive difference here as our main living area (open plan lounge/kitchen/diner) is at the rear and so we are normally able to relax in peace. There can be noise from the neighbours' gardens, but they are really nice people and it's never intrusive. We probably create a similar level of noise, to be honest. If we had the living room at the front it would be a far less pleasant place to live.

Primrose

We used to live in a staggered terraced town house where our bedroom adjoined next door,s bathroom so we could always hear their nightly tinkling tinkling and loo flushing at 2 am.

Now we live in a detached house and have swapped that problem for the chap next door who leaves his car eng8ne runn8ng for ten minutes at 5 am every morning benfore he finallynally gets into it to do his early morning gym visit. I could understand this rsther more In winter if the windscreen needed defrosting but in summer when we sleep with our bedroom windows open it's really In insiderate and wakes us every morning. .

Wherever you live there,s usually somebody whose domestic behaviour will disturb you!

Callie22

PasturesNew wrote: »

I can sit all day and not hear my neighbours' cars coming and going .... but there's a woman at the end that has an 8 door car. No matter whether 2 or 3 of them get out of it there's always about 8 doors slammed - I'm sure others must slam their doors (1-2 door cars) ... but that infernal woman and her 8 door car drives me nuts.

When I look out of the window it looks like a regular 5 door car... but she always needs to slam 8 doors when she parks.

It's a running 'joke' between myself and the OH that our next-door neighbour has a 48-door car. I've puzzled over it for ages, I genuinely can't understand why you'd need to slam each door so many times every time you use the car. It makes no sense to me at all.

JustAnotherSaver

Callie22 wrote: »

It's a running 'joke' between myself and the OH that our next-door neighbour has a 48-door car. I've puzzled over it for ages, I genuinely can't understand why you'd need to slam each door so many times every time you use the car. It makes no sense to me at all.

That's another thing the neighbours did very well too.


They were going away and were filling the car. Now since it was a decent weather day then common sense to me would be if you're making a few trips and your car is parked pretty much at your front door then just leave your car doors open and fill the bloody thing. Especially as it was between 6am-7am.


Nope they decided to make 100 trips to & from the car opening and closing doors every single time.:mad:


It just amazes me how inconsiderate others can be.

Shelldean

We live in row of terrace townhouses. Built mid 70's
All are identical. Front Door towards the left with loo, further left. Right into kitchen and straight ahead to dining room.
So downstairs my kitchen wall has my right hand neighbour loo. While my loo had left hand neighbour kitchen.

Stairs are in the middle of the property. Living room and two of the bedroom stretches side to side. So are adjacent to neighbours identical rooms
Box room is top right and is against neighbour bathroom. And our bathroom is against left hand box room.

Occasionally we hear noises. But rarely. Until neighbour changed about five years ago
Previous neighbour had raised three boys in the eighteen years we were neighbours. And we only heard them when they rowed. Nothing else.
New bloke moves in and WOW we knew both his daughters names within a week. We knew that French was his preferred language. He heard doors slam, feet stomping up and down the stairs which due to the layout don't even touch our property.
The difference was amazing. One family were barely heard New family heard loads.

Thankfully after a rough few years it seems to have quieted down.
But my point is the house's remained the same. Just different families!!!

Gavin83

Primrose wrote: »

Now we live in a detached house and have swapped that problem for the chap next door who leaves his car eng8ne runn8ng for ten minutes at 5 am every morning benfore he finallynally gets into it to do his early morning gym visit. I could understand this rsther more In winter if the windscreen needed defrosting but in summer when we sleep with our bedroom windows open it's really In insiderate and wakes us every morning. .

I'm assuming it's some sort of performance car? Some cars like to be running for a few minutes before being driven. My friend used to own such a car and he'd always sit in it for a few minutes before driving off.

Savvy_Sue

Callie22 wrote: »

It's a running 'joke' between myself and the OH that our next-door neighbour has a 48-door car. I've puzzled over it for ages, I genuinely can't understand why you'd need to slam each door so many times every time you use the car. It makes no sense to me at all.

This isn't much of an explanation, but one of our car doors often doesn't shut fully. So you have to open it and shut it again. And it still doesn't shut fully. So you have to open it and shut it again ...

If you add children with bags into the equation, it's very easy to get to an 8 door car, at the very least!