Neighbours... Next step?

HKH

Hi all, I’ll try and keep this history as brief as possible but a bit of background to my question.

Myself and my Mum live together, our house is council owned and we’ve lived in it for about 20 years. About 3 years ago, a couple bought the house next door to us (it’s attached ) When they first moved in, they were lovely. They had one small dog and when they’d have the odd party, they’d let us know with a note beforehand. As the years went on, they got themselves another little dog. Now both dogs are prone to barking a lot. The couple work part time but are always in and out of the house all day, leaving the dogs on their own. They take them for about a 10 minute walk twice a day and leave them the rest of the day. They let the dogs look out the window whilst they’re out, and they bark at every person that goes past. The walls in the houses are paper thin, so even speaking loudly can be heard.

Myself and my Mum put up with this for a long time, but it came to breaking point last year. My mum is a care worker, works long hours, often 24 hour shifts and I have 2 jobs, one of which I have to be up at 5am for. We were working a lot, coming home after long shifts and not being able to relax because the neighbours would be out and the dogs would be barking constantly. (Sometimes they’d go out at night and not come home until late, leaving the dogs to bark until then too) The first time we said something we put a very civil note through the door letting them know of the issue and the shifts that we work. They posted one back and were very understanding and apologetic and for a few months, they made an effort to stop the dogs barking. They even got a dog walker to take them out during the day. But after a while, they stopped the dog walker and started leaving them alone and in the windows again. The same issues started arising again, so I personally spoke to them the second time. Again, both sides were civil and they said they’d not leave them in the windows from now on. 

All has been quieter until a couple weeks ago one Friday night, when my mum had just finished a 24 hour shift that morning and I had also been in work that day. They decided at 1am to bring about 15 of their mates back to their house for a party and the noise was horrendous. Now, besides from the dogs, they are a very noisy couple, very early in the morning, all through the day they are doing everything loudly. Of course we are not asking anybody to be quiet all of the time, but their constant noise, on top of the dogs which was causing us to lose sleep had built up and up, and this party was the tipping point. We both went out and said something to one of them. Admittedly, our tempers were frayed due to the long build up of disturbance, along with their total lack of respect bringing loads of people back for a party (this wasn’t the first time either), and in the middle of a pandemic. Up until this point considering everything over the years, we have been very tolerant. Despite one of them saying they would keep the noise down, the party went on until 4am. Since then, no apology has been given, they won’t even look at us if we happen to pass them. We have been nothing but respectful to them since they moved in, we have made an effort to be quiet because they have a young baby, and they have not returned the same courtesy. The day since they moved in, I have been unable to sleep without ear plugs because I know a good nights sleep is not guaranteed without them. (Hearing intimate details of their relationship at all hours, losing sleep, their room is next to mine and they know how thin the walls are but this is another aspect they are obviously not bothered about.)

Since then, the dogs have started to be left in the window yet again and the barking is starting up. I really genuinely believe they do not care now. Twice we’ve asked them to keep them quiet and they keep ignoring us, they disregarded our requests to stop the party a couple of weeks ago. I think they just have zero respect or consideration for anyone else now, so it’s beyond asking. 

Does anyone have any advice on where we could take this now should the barking start to get as bad as it used to be? I’m a bit unsure because they own their house but ours is council, what rights would we have? Thanks very much if you read this far and for any help you can offer. 

kasqueak

Sorry to hear you’re going through this. Having had loud inconsiderate neighbours in the last myself I can completely understand how it makes you feel. 

Sounds like you’ve tried the first route which is to have a word and they haven’t changed. 

Next step I would speak to the council. Do you have a housing officer? They can help you. The council can install sound equipment in your house and if the house next door is having unacceptable levels of noise they can help. Also worth keeping a diary as all the evidence you can get will be helpful. If they own the property it’s slightly different to if they were tenants as you don’t have any landlord etc to consult. But just because they own it doesn’t mean they don’t have a responsibility to keep noise levels to reasonable ones. I’d start with the council and go from there. Good luck with it. 

AdrianC

There's two routes to go down.

1. Get the noise reduced. Your council will have an environmental health department, whose job is to work to stop inconsiderate and unreasonable noise. Of course, they're utterly swamped - especially at the moment...

2. Move. Talk to the housing office about moving to a different property. Of course, that's no guarantee your new neighbours will be any different...

RelievedSheff

We lived next to noIsy neighbours for 12 years so you have our sympathy as we know how utterly soul destroying it can be.

Approach your local authority with regards a noise nuisance. They will ask you to keep a diary of events and will eventually install sound monitoring equipment to assess the noise levels.

It makes no difference that they own their home. The complaint procedure is the same.

Do bear in mind though that the local authority are likely to say that some of the noise is just day to day living.

Comms69

Realistically you're better off moving. This is mostly normal day to day noise, with a few occurrences of late night noise. 

Also 24 hours are unlawful. It's as simple as that. 

giraffe69

The RSPCA might like to check on dogs that are left alone a bit and show "signs of distress" 

MoneySeeker1

Sounds like the best bet would be to go down the "official route" of complaints to deal with them. The RSPCA is certainly worth trying for instance.

But bear in mind they must think you're both pushovers - you're not both women are you by any chance? (ie neither of you being a big hefty guy....) #beingcynical about women getting treated worse.

With a party going on till 4 a.m. - I'd have been on the phone to an emergency out-of-hours Council person (or the police if that wasn't possible) reporting a "breach of Lockdown" (and I'm not in Lockdown and never have been/never will be personally). But "Lockdown" would have been a darn good excuse to get that party dealt with.

So - try the "official route" (firmly!!!!) and, if that doesn't work - then my own personal take would be to fight fire with fire (as they've not proven reasonable - after you'd first been very softly-softly and then "gone official" and neither way had worked and it would be LOUD music back straight through the walls at the baby's sleeping time for instance for however many days it took for them to be dropping of exhaustion from a tired/fractious baby disturbing just when they wanted to have a sleep themselves. Hopefully that would get the message home at last of "You hit me with disturbance - you will get twice as much back" and they'd have to be pretty stupid not to draw the connection between their bad behaviour and your even worse response back.

But - definitely official route first and report any further Lockdown noise on the spot.

ashe

RSPCA won’t do anything if dogs are healthy and looked after, so you’re wasting your time going down that route. 

HKH

MoneySeeker1 said:

Sounds like the best bet would be to go down the "official route" of complaints to deal with them. The RSPCA is certainly worth trying for instance.

But bear in mind they must think you're both pushovers - you're not both women are you by any chance? (ie neither of you being a big hefty guy....) #beingcynical about women getting treated worse.

With a party going on till 4 a.m. - I'd have been on the phone to an emergency out-of-hours Council person (or the police if that wasn't possible) reporting a "breach of Lockdown" (and I'm not in Lockdown and never have been/never will be personally). But "Lockdown" would have been a darn good excuse to get that party dealt with.

So - try the "official route" (firmly!!!!) and, if that doesn't work - then my own personal take would be to fight fire with fire (as they've not proven reasonable - after you'd first been very softly-softly and then "gone official" and neither way had worked and it would be LOUD music back straight through the walls at the baby's sleeping time for instance for however many days it took for them to be dropping of exhaustion from a tired/fractious baby disturbing just when they wanted to have a sleep themselves. Hopefully that would get the message home at last of "You hit me with disturbance - you will get twice as much back" and they'd have to be pretty stupid not to draw the connection between their bad behaviour and your even worse response back.

But - definitely official route first and report any further Lockdown noise on the spot.

Thanks so much for all of the advice everyone! Bit late in catching up. And MoneySeeker, you're right, we are both women. I know for a fact if one of us was a big feller they wouldn't be doing this! I've a feeling the guy in the relationship dictates everything and he's very arrogant. Personally I think his wife may be a bit intimidated by him on the quiet. She's very meek and not the type to stand up to him. He looked very shocked when we confronted him about the party, as if he's not used to women talking back to him. 

I have tried in the past on the occasion of fighting fire with fire (the loud music route) but it seems nigh on impossible to exhaust them. Neither of them are working so they're never tired and they have their baby about 4 days a week (the rest of the time they take her to nursery despite them both being home all day, or they're leaving her at her grandparents.) They seem very very lazy, I'm always too exhausted to even try to fight back. 

I am going to start keeping a noise diary now and then we will go to the local council. I would love nothing more for us to move but this has been our home for 20 years. We've never had a cross word with any of our neighbours, I don't want to be pushed out by inconsiderate and immature people like those two. Hopefully the council route will work, I don't think either of us can take much more. 

HKH

ashe said:

RSPCA won’t do anything if dogs are healthy and looked after, so you’re wasting your time going down that route. 

That's what I thought, and more often than not the RSPCA are useless anyway. The dogs are healthy from what I can see but I really do feel sorry for them. The amount of time during the day they are left alone, barely ever let out in the back garden and some days they don't get taken for a walk at all. 

greatcrested

I've eaten dog stew while working in China. Delich!