Noisey neighbours, friendly advice on what to do.

Aranyani

Zoe1345 said:

Aranyani said:

Getting_greyer said:

Well if it's excessive noise and you can't get them to stop then you're morally bound to tell potential buyers aren't you? I guess that's the crux of this thread. 

They won't though I don't expect, and they will get away with it, as most do, and as their sellers did. 

Well as I'm told by a number of people on the thread. I may be the problem and this is normal noise. So if that's the case, why should I jeopardise a sale and loose money for something that's apparently "part of living in a terrace". 

It’s very clear you don’t believe that.

It’s your conscience, not mine.

Zoe1345

Aranyani said:

Zoe1345 said:

Aranyani said:

Getting_greyer said:

Well if it's excessive noise and you can't get them to stop then you're morally bound to tell potential buyers aren't you? I guess that's the crux of this thread. 

They won't though I don't expect, and they will get away with it, as most do, and as their sellers did. 

Well as I'm told by a number of people on the thread. I may be the problem and this is normal noise. So if that's the case, why should I jeopardise a sale and loose money for something that's apparently "part of living in a terrace". 

It’s very clear you don’t believe that.

It’s your conscience, not mine.

No I don't. Yes it is. Personally I think its excessive. I also recognise I am not representative of everyone - and thus perhaps this does affect us far more than it may someone else. As I've said - if a buyer directly asks about noise, as we should have in hindsight and will do in future, I will tell them. If they directly enquire about noise it is obviously something that will concern them. But my judgement from this thread is that it isn't severe enough to warrant inclusion on a PIF/TA6. We will likely take advice from our conveyancer on this.  

Zoe1345

hopeitwill said:

Zoe1345 said:

mimi1234 said:

OP - I can sympathise.  We have neighbours similiar to yours.  The door slamming is horrendous, it's so loud it's like bloody torture, all day and night as well.   The sound proofing in this house is awful and I have lost so much sleep from the noise at night.  I would move in a heartbeat but it's Mum's house and she won't move from here!  I had to move back to care for her as she is quite old and frail now.

I have had to use earphones but even then the noise comes through.  

I hope you are able to get a happy ending and have considerate neighbours if and when you move.  

Sorry to hear you're experiencing the same mimi1234. Perhaps we should turn this thread into a support group instead for those with noisy neighbour woes and no easy out?! 

I would join that gladly.

One of our neighbour's children is profusely throwing tennis balls on the wall for the last week, this just started. They do it more when I bang on the wall for them to stop.

Maybe a letter would help?

Oh gosh how annoying. 
We are avoiding the formal route so as not to cause too much hassle prior to sale this time next year (hopefully). 

Norman_Castle

hopeitwill said:

Zoe1345 said:

mimi1234 said:

OP - I can sympathise.  We have neighbours similiar to yours.  The door slamming is horrendous, it's so loud it's like bloody torture, all day and night as well.   The sound proofing in this house is awful and I have lost so much sleep from the noise at night.  I would move in a heartbeat but it's Mum's house and she won't move from here!  I had to move back to care for her as she is quite old and frail now.

I have had to use earphones but even then the noise comes through.  

I hope you are able to get a happy ending and have considerate neighbours if and when you move.  

Sorry to hear you're experiencing the same mimi1234. Perhaps we should turn this thread into a support group instead for those with noisy neighbour woes and no easy out?! 

I would join that gladly.

One of our neighbour's children is profusely throwing tennis balls on the wall for the last week, this just started. They do it more when I bang on the wall for them to stop.

Maybe a letter would help?

Intelligent parents would help. Have you spoken to them?

hopeitwill

Norman_Castle said:

hopeitwill said:

Zoe1345 said:

mimi1234 said:

OP - I can sympathise.  We have neighbours similiar to yours.  The door slamming is horrendous, it's so loud it's like bloody torture, all day and night as well.   The sound proofing in this house is awful and I have lost so much sleep from the noise at night.  I would move in a heartbeat but it's Mum's house and she won't move from here!  I had to move back to care for her as she is quite old and frail now.

I have had to use earphones but even then the noise comes through.  

I hope you are able to get a happy ending and have considerate neighbours if and when you move.  

Sorry to hear you're experiencing the same mimi1234. Perhaps we should turn this thread into a support group instead for those with noisy neighbour woes and no easy out?! 

I would join that gladly.

One of our neighbour's children is profusely throwing tennis balls on the wall for the last week, this just started. They do it more when I bang on the wall for them to stop.

Maybe a letter would help?

Intelligent parents would help. Have you spoken to them?

The father is a professor at the uni near where we live but the mother won't speak to me directly (it's religious). He is a reasonable guy, he'd probably be helpful. Worth a try I guess

Shelldean

Zoe.
The thing is at 2am it should be quieter all around, so any noise made will sound louder.
For example at 2pm the stair stomping is somewhat softened by daily life, cars on the road planes in the sky etc. If you get my drift. A also your senses maybe heightened due to the anxiety.....waiting for the noise to start yet again?

I do sympathise as we live in a terrace, and have done for coming up 23 yrs. Ours is rented local HA. about 8years ago, one set of neighbours moved. A single mum with four boys! Rarely heard them, occasionally when she lost her rag but wasn't often. New family move in and OMG!! the noise was awful. I swore the HA had taken part of the shared wall down. The noise difference between the original family and the new one was astronomical. We could hear them on the stairs, door closing conversations, washing machine, toilets, etc. Stuff the previous tenants must've done and we never heard. And the dad's voice was SO LOUD. Drove me absolutely mental. absolutely loved the summer they spent the whole time away, was bliss. And we knew they was home before We even saw them! We raised complaints, but was told it was household noise so nothing could be done. We even went to mediation to try and resolve. Btw this was one bloke and two girls. Things did slowly approve and now we rarely hear them. Usually the father shouting as his voice is particularly deep.
The house the other side heard nothing

Then three years ago, the other side of us  did an exchange, and again these new people were so much louder than previous. But this was partially due to increase in family size. Words were spoken both from us and the other side of them, and things are mostly better. Still hear them, which is weird as we never heard the previous tenants! Again washing machine and toilet, the previous tenant must've used these items, yet we never heard them previously!

I'm the same person  in the same house as I've always been. Yet I've perceived the neighbours differently.
And I did find the more I stressed the louder they seemed!!!

hopeitwill

I really can't understand how people can say "just because it's not your routine at 2 am". Banging doors should not be anyone's routine at any time.

I can maybe understand the stomping, some people are stompers without realising they are, my partner being one too, and he is a petite guy. They would need to be warned about it.

And their shower door may need to be banged so it's closed properly. Or their doors. Then they would just need to be fixed. Those would be simple solutions than a change of behaviour though.

And I can definitely agree with Shelldean on senses being heightened. I know our neighbour's kid comes home from school around 3pm and start playing with the tennis ball, that makes me nervous, especially while working from home.

Or the bed time on the other side, their children spend their last half hour before bedtime playing, laughing in their parents' bedroom right next to ours, and the walls are so thin. Again my senses are heightened at that time.

The stupid thing is we are 12 weeks into buying this house (we're renting normally) and I am only doing it because it's in an amazing area with prices going up all the time and it's so close to my OH's workplace. Otherwise, a detached house would be the best solution for people like us the "noise haters". For now I am going with "better the devil you know".

Zoe1345

Shelldean said:

Zoe.
The thing is at 2am it should be quieter all around, so any noise made will sound louder.
For example at 2pm the stair stomping is somewhat softened by daily life, cars on the road planes in the sky etc. If you get my drift. A also your senses maybe heightened due to the anxiety.....waiting for the noise to start yet again?
[...]
I'm the same person  in the same house as I've always been. Yet I've perceived the neighbours differently.
And I did find the more I stressed the louder they seemed!!!

Absolutely not denying that of course, I am well aware that the relative quiet of 2am, compared to 2pm, will somewhat amplify noise. But, EVEN factoring this in, the noise level is disproportionate to that made during the day, and that made by other neighbours. The anxiety that I may begin to drift off to sleep at 2am, only to be woken with a jolt at 2:30 by someone crashing about or shouting, a common occurrence, does certainly hinder my ability to easily get off to sleep. Said anxiety is generally proven just though when the noise begins again!

I'd not argue your case has anything to do with you being the same person or perceiving them differently - it's that you have different neighbours, who's actions have different effects. The fact that a family could do all those every day things with you barely hearing them, and then another (smaller) family could do those things with such an astronomically different level of noise, I would argue is indication that the means by which they were going about those activities was not taking into account the level of noise they were making - and the fact that this continued after discussing it with them, means they are executing those activities with little concern for their neighbours. Your perception hasn't changed, the neighbours have.

hopeitwill said:

I really can't understand how people can say "just because it's not your routine at 2 am". Banging doors should not be anyone's routine at any time.

I can maybe understand the stomping, some people are stompers without realising they are, my partner being one too, and he is a petite guy. They would need to be warned about it.

And their shower door may need to be banged so it's closed properly. Or their doors. Then they would just need to be fixed. Those would be simple solutions than a change of behaviour though.

The stupid thing is we are 12 weeks into buying this house (we're renting normally) and I am only doing it because it's in an amazing area with prices going up all the time and it's so close to my OH's workplace. Otherwise, a detached house would be the best solution for people like us the "noise haters". For now I am going with "better the devil you know".

Agreed re: banging doors. We have a few hall cupboards that don't close easily, you have to slam them. If we open them at night/late, say after 10pm (which we do our utmost not to), we simply just push them a jar slowly, and don't fully shut them, otherwise it would massively disturb our neighbours (the quiet neighbours the other side). Some of our doors have loose hinges too, which means they can slam on occasion - again, we are aware, and at night, we are more conscious that we close them gently (the doors are all being changed soon - hence why they haven't been "fixed"). If their shower door needs to be slammed that hard to close it - they need to fix it (It also makes a horrendous grating sound - we think as they are pulling it closed, before the slam - which gets in your bones!)

We only settled for a terrace due to my need to commute into the city - we could only afford a "fixer upper" terrace, a semi-in a worse area where I'd have to bus it to the train station, or a flat. Part of me wishes we'd gone with the semi in a worse area and I'd just have had to deal with the added bit to the commute. My husbands business could really do with extra space - a garage, an outside workshop - it was all location really for us at the time. Detached for us next time 100%! 
 

hopeitwill

Zoe1345 said:

Shelldean said:

Zoe.
The thing is at 2am it should be quieter all around, so any noise made will sound louder.
For example at 2pm the stair stomping is somewhat softened by daily life, cars on the road planes in the sky etc. If you get my drift. A also your senses maybe heightened due to the anxiety.....waiting for the noise to start yet again?
[...]
I'm the same person  in the same house as I've always been. Yet I've perceived the neighbours differently.
And I did find the more I stressed the louder they seemed!!!

Absolutely not denying that of course, I am well aware that the relative quiet of 2am, compared to 2pm, will somewhat amplify noise. But, EVEN factoring this in, the noise level is disproportionate to that made during the day, and that made by other neighbours. The anxiety that I may begin to drift off to sleep at 2am, only to be woken with a jolt at 2:30 by someone crashing about or shouting, a common occurrence, does certainly hinder my ability to easily get off to sleep. Said anxiety is generally proven just though when the noise begins again!

I'd not argue your case has anything to do with you being the same person or perceiving them differently - it's that you have different neighbours, who's actions have different effects. The fact that a family could do all those every day things with you barely hearing them, and then another (smaller) family could do those things with such an astronomically different level of noise, I would argue is indication that the means by which they were going about those activities was not taking into account the level of noise they were making - and the fact that this continued after discussing it with them, means they are executing those activities with little concern for their neighbours. Your perception hasn't changed, the neighbours have.

hopeitwill said:

I really can't understand how people can say "just because it's not your routine at 2 am". Banging doors should not be anyone's routine at any time.

I can maybe understand the stomping, some people are stompers without realising they are, my partner being one too, and he is a petite guy. They would need to be warned about it.

And their shower door may need to be banged so it's closed properly. Or their doors. Then they would just need to be fixed. Those would be simple solutions than a change of behaviour though.

The stupid thing is we are 12 weeks into buying this house (we're renting normally) and I am only doing it because it's in an amazing area with prices going up all the time and it's so close to my OH's workplace. Otherwise, a detached house would be the best solution for people like us the "noise haters". For now I am going with "better the devil you know".

Agreed re: banging doors. We have a few hall cupboards that don't close easily, you have to slam them. If we open them at night/late, say after 10pm (which we do our utmost not to), we simply just push them a jar slowly, and don't fully shut them, otherwise it would massively disturb our neighbours (the quiet neighbours the other side). Some of our doors have loose hinges too, which means they can slam on occasion - again, we are aware, and at night, we are more conscious that we close them gently (the doors are all being changed soon - hence why they haven't been "fixed"). If their shower door needs to be slammed that hard to close it - they need to fix it (It also makes a horrendous grating sound - we think as they are pulling it closed, before the slam - which gets in your bones!)

We only settled for a terrace due to my need to commute into the city - we could only afford a "fixer upper" terrace, a semi-in a worse area where I'd have to bus it to the train station, or a flat. Part of me wishes we'd gone with the semi in a worse area and I'd just have had to deal with the added bit to the commute. My husbands business could really do with extra space - a garage, an outside workshop - it was all location really for us at the time. Detached for us next time 100%! 
 

In my mother tongue, we'd say "get the right neighbours rather than the right house". That really resonates with me.

As I said before, people have this weird entitlement these days, when they own something, they think they can behave in any way they want to without respecting basic social rules. It drives us gentle, sensitive souls crazy.

And, I lived in flats in different countries, all my life until about three years ago. I never had any problems with my neighbours.

I was living in a flat when I first moved to the UK with a beautiful view of a reservoir. My neighbours were never the problem but the people who parked next to the reservoir playing window banging music in their car were the biggest problem.

Sometimes it's just luck really, unfortunately.

Slinky

You mention mother shouting up the stairs, and doors banging. I'm wondering if the door banging is deliberate rather than accidental, as in the person banging the door trying to make some sort of point.

I feel for you. We live in a linked detached semi where ours and our neighbours garages are linked. Our garage back door swells in the damp and we have to slam it to shut it, and the up and over door is old and clangy. We have no internal door from the house as a route in and so anytime we go in the garage our neighbours will hear us. They have converted the back of their garage to a dining room with patio doors, and the front has much quieter doors than ours, so we rarely hear them. The previous occupant of our house was an elderly lady, so we probably make a lot more noise than her. Hopefully our noise levels will reduce as we plan to have an internal door installed, and new front and back garage doors. They've never said anything about us disturbing them.