Neighbor expects me to be quiet at 7pm

Ergates

PasturesNew wrote: »

The reality is, nobody here can tell you.

Some people are really noisy - but don't know they are. They think they're "normal" and it's "normal noise". They've simply normalised their noisy and chaotic, neighbour-annoying, ways.

Only by having somebody impartial next door .... can anybody actually say "You're noisy" or "The neighbour's wrong".

You can't, however, be noisy and just flounce out "just normal noise", because it's the easy route.

"Just kids" "just a normal family" "just normal noise" are stock phrases. You MIGHT actually be "the noisiest family within 1/4 of a mile", or "the noisiest family in the whole town".... but you've normalised it.

I live next to neighbours where I hear absolutely nothing through the walls, ever. When the previous owners moved in, she told me she'd spent her first night crying herself to sleep because of the noise that came from the previous owners of my house (luckily for her, I bought mine less than a week after she'd moved in and there was zero noise from me).

Except the question wasn't "Are we a noisy family" it was "Is it reasonable for the neighbour to demand we be quiet from 7pm onwards"

BappyBrunette

I think expecting someone to be quiet in their own home from 7pm, is a bit much. 9pm, yes ok, but 7? Nope. I would block the number and ignore

candygirl

BappyBrunette wrote: »

I think expecting someone to be quiet in their own home from 7pm, is a bit much. 9pm, yes ok, but 7? Nope. I would block the number and ignore

9pm's still early , especially if it's normal day to day noise. If it was 24/7 DIY it's be a different matter entirely

Stoke

She is being unreasonable in my opinion. I live in a semi and my neighbour has a young daughter. She's never asked me to keep quiet, but obviously there's just certain rules isn't there? I tend to keep the volume down after 9pm, but I don't make a whole lot of noise anyway.

7pm is utterly ludicrous. Your washing machine. hob hood, fan oven etc will all make noise for example that could easily slip through a wall... how are you expected to do your daily jobs? If you work the hours I do, it would be impossible. If she gets more and more unreasonable, I would explain that you are unable to do anymore and leave her to make the next move. I suspect she'll do nothing.

As for a Saturday.... lol. All bets are off, surely? What happens if you want to go out and have a slightly later meal than usual.... come on. She's being unreasonable now. I'd block her number (or change yours).

anfieldred

Tell them where to go.

We live in a semi, we can hear them talking, sneezing, farting, hear their tv, hear their dog running round. They can probably hear the same as us to be fair.

If it was in the middle of the night then fair enough, but at 7pm, that's a joke - clearly a snowflake.

Stoke

anfieldred wrote: »

Tell them where to go.

We live in a semi, we can hear them talking, sneezing, farting, hear their tv, hear their dog running round. They can probably hear the same as us to be fair.

If it was in the middle of the night then fair enough, but at 7pm, that's a joke - clearly a snowflake.

I think it's just someone with a massive false sense of self-entitlement. "I should be able to put my kids to bed at a ludicrously early time and expect everyone in the street to be quiet for my needs". I'm afraid it just doesn't work like that. What if you worked night shifts, or evening shifts? Good chance you'd be opening the door in the middle of the night and little Tommy next door be awoken. What is she going to do? Demand you get a new job?

There's an old phrase I was told by someone at work.... not entirely sure how true this is but it goes: 'you are treated the way that you allow yourself to be treated'. I suspect it started by a nothing request, that you were happy to oblige with and slowly, you allowed yourself to become more dominated and they've taken advantage of that. You should have put them in their place 6 months ago really, but now is better than never.

gilett

Have to agree with the other posters. It does sound like this neighbour is now bullying you because the have got away with dominating you for far too long.

Definitely block their number for a start. Are they home owners or tenants? If they are tenants I would consider contacting their landlord and telling them you feel you are being bullied/harassed by them and want it stopped.

If they are home owners speak to your own landlord for advice, but definitely do not allow them to get away with this any longer. What they are doing is completely unreasonable and I would have put a stop to it a long time ago.

For the record I can hear my neighbours making love. Should I be telling them not to have sex after 7pm?

antilles

It's completely unacceptable to expect you to be quiet at 7pm. This is normal day to day noise, there is nothing they can do; and the Council or Police won't take action as you aren't being anti-social and playing loud music, etc.

I think your options are:

1. Put your foot down and tell them to get lost, and make normal noise until a reasonable time (I'd consider this to be 11pm).
2. Move house if you can.

I've experienced a similar situation. I lived in a terrace with thin walls and had similar issues - the neighbours on one side used to bang on the wall or come round on the bounce if I dared to play music, watch a YouTube video on a tiny laptop speaker, or make any kind of noise after about 9-10pm. I also have a disabled child who cries a lot and wakes up regularly in the night, which didn't help matters.

And yet the neighbours thought it was reasonable to keep me up every Monday night with a noisy party (they didn't work and it was social housing), regular slanging matches between them, playing loud music in the day, and noisy s*x sessions in the early hours.

Basically they only cared about themselves. This sounds very much like your neighbours, Strangely, my neighbours on the other side were perfectly reasonable people and didn't once mention any noise.

Eventually the relationship between us and the neighbours broke down and they were regularly banging on the wall at the slightest noise. I eventually found myself tiptoeing around my own house and telling my own kids off if they were noisy.

I suspect there will be no happy end to this situation, and you will probably find that the neighbours start listening even more and more for noise. And you will find that your mental health will start to be affected.

Unless you are prepared to take a hard line, then I think you may have to bite the bullet and seriously consider moving. Whatever you do, don't start any formal disputes or complaints, as you will have to declare this when moving and it may make the house difficult to sell.

In the end I sold up and bought a detached house - best thing I ever did.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Stoke

gilett wrote: »

For the record I can hear my neighbours making love. Should I be telling them not to have sex after 7pm?

Hahah, yup. I've also heard my neighbour getting up to rumpy pumpy once or twice. Do I go round and politely ask them to make love at designated times?

The neighbour is taking the !!!!. It's all about give and take. I routinely hear my neighbours daughter playing her piano (and trust me, she's bloody tone deaf). She will no doubt occasionally hear my television. I like to think by maintaining a good relationship there's no reason why noise has to be a factor.

The OP's situation is akin to bullying, as you said.

Stoke

antilles wrote: »

It's completely unacceptable to expect you to be quiet at 7pm. This is normal day to day noise, there is nothing they can do; and the Council or Police won't take action as you aren't being anti-social and playing loud music, etc.

I think your options are:

1. Put your foot down and tell them to get lost, and make normal noise until a reasonable time (I'd consider this to be 11pm).
2. Move house if you can.

I've experienced a similar situation. I lived in a terrace with thin walls and had similar issues - the neighbours on one side used to bang on the wall or come round on the bounce if I dared to play music, watch a YouTube video on a tiny laptop speaker, or make any kind of noise after about 9-10pm. I also have a disabled child who cries a lot and wakes up regularly in the night, which didn't help matters.

And yet the neighbours thought it was reasonable to keep me up every Monday night with a noisy party (they didn't work and it was social housing), regular slanging matches between them, playing loud music in the day, and noisy s*x sessions in the early hours.

Basically they only cared about themselves. This sounds very much like your neighbours, Strangely, my neighbours on the other side were perfectly reasonable people and didn't once mention any noise.

Eventually the relationship between us and the neighbours broke down and they were regularly banging on the wall at the slightest noise. I eventually found myself tiptoeing around my own house and telling my own kids off if they were noisy.

I suspect there will be no happy end to this situation, and you will probably find that the neighbours start listening even more and more for noise. And you will find that your mental health will start to be affected.

Unless you are prepared to take a hard line, then I think you may have to bite the bullet and seriously consider moving. Whatever you do, don't start any formal disputes or complaints, as you will have to declare this when moving and it may make the house difficult to sell.

In the end I sold up and bought a detached house - best thing I ever did.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

I disagree that normal weekday noise should continue till 11pm. I like to think that the unwritten etiquette is that after 9pm, loud music, banging etc, is kept to a minimum (if possible). Obviously I'm not going to moan at music at 9:30pm once or twice, but if I was in bed at 11pm with an early start the next day, I'd be a little frustrated if music was blaring out.

Your story sounds very similar to one I experienced with my previous partner. Her family lived nextdoor to a very hostile family, who would fall out over anything you can think of. Parking? Yep, to the point they drew a line on the road outside the house. Fences? You bet. They routinely moaned about the colour, style, height of the fence, despite it not being their border and even demanded the fence be replaced. Gardening? Unbelievably, yes. They complained about what days my ex-girlfriends dad should cut his lawn. Apparently, Saturday's and Sunday's are not for doing your mowing..... Sure enough, noise was a constant thorn in their backside. My ex's family weren't an overly loud family, but they got a small dog (bichon) and it would occasionally bark, never in the night but during the day. It wasn't a loud bark, but obviously it was louder than silence.... Any time the dog barked, they hammered the wall as hard as they could, which naturally caused him to bark more because he got scared. This came to a confrontation when they once came round and furiously complained about the barking and asked the dog be put down. Serious over reaction right there?

Anyway, to cut a long story short, this went on for a while, and then their youngest daughter turned 18 and started hosting weekly house parties when the parents went away to music gigs or to friends houses on the lager These parties usually lasted until 4-5am, often involved 20 to 40 people turning up, ridiculously loud music (they actually used decent monitors you might see on a stage), young lads openly urinating in the street, both men and females throwing up in the street, takeaway wrappers everywhere and the police were routinely called by several neighbours as these weren't at the weekend but usually Monday's or Tuesday's. Ultimately, this totally undermined their parents and subsequently resolved the issues