Neighbours showering at 1am - what can I do?

Snuggles

Im really surprised by the responses to this. Whilst I appreciate any noise nuisance can be difficult to live with, surely there are no legitimate grounds to complain to the council or the university (as one poster suggested) because people are showering in their own home?

It's really no one else's  business why they choose to shower at that time or whether they work shifts or not - as far as I know it's perfectly fine to shower whenever the hell you choose in your own home.

It would be different if they were doing something clearly disruptive and noisy at that time, but is it their fault the op's bedroom is adjacent to their bathroom and the sound insulation is poor? 

Sorry OP, I do understand this must be difficult for you, but I don't believe you can realistically expect to restrict people from using their own bathroom - they're not doing anything wrong.

lookstraightahead

Op the alternative is that you change your habits to fit around them?

lookstraightahead

My daughter is a student in a terrace and always sings in the shower. Her normal bedtime is about 2, maybe it's her 😂

she tends to sing songs from musicals.

ah no, she never puts the washing machine on 😊 can't be her.

2bFrank

Its horrible to go through when you focus on a noise, especially when you are trying to sleep, however I have to be honest here, there is very little you can do.

Having a shower is a normal thing to do, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a shower at 1am, sometimes I do it if I cannot sleep, a nice hot shower sometimes helps. I am sorry to say but this is your issue, not theirs (if it was loud banging music, then they are the ones in the wrong, but this is just everyday normal living) and it is absolutely nothing to do with you what time they shower, even if it does disturb you.

You really only have one option and that's to sell and move on, my best advice is to do it without raising a dispute, otherwise you have to declare it when you sell which can cause lots of issues. If you are renting, then find a new place and give notice. For the short term, do you not have another room you can sleep in, getting little sleep can play havok on your mental health, even if you have to swap the living room for a bedroom, just to get a good nights sleep.

pinkteapot

Agree with others - if the noise of someone showering is intrusively loud then the issue is the sound insulation, not the neighbour. Parties and loud music are a totally different matter, but showering should not be disturbing you. The issue is with the building so I would also just be looking at moving. 

Also, can't BELIEVE it took till the end of p1 for there to be a dirty comment. As soon as I saw the thread title it reminded me of a flat I lived in years back where the couple upstairs loudly enjoyed each other's company at exactly 10pm every Sunday. 

MoonChild91

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the responses, I unfortunately had another night of it last night - the 3rd in a row this week:

1.45am - thundering up the stairs, bathroom door slams, shower and fan go on. Followed by 25 minutes of shower noise, a solid attempt at singing Mariah Careys back catalog, shower door slams, bathroom cupboards slam, then 10 to 15 minutes of whoever it was clearly stood at the bathroom door having a chat with their housemate by shouting down the stairs. I didn't get back to sleep until 3am, and I am exhausted.
Honestly, the shower noise itself is bad but it's the accompaniments that go with it that might be worse. There is absolutely no attempt whatsoever to understand or act on the fact that is antisocial hours or try to be quieter - I'm sure most people who work shifts wouldn't thunder about when they get home in the early hours? I certainly wouldn't.

I understand students have had a very strange year (I work at a university to boot), are out of sync, and also living on their own for the first time and learning to be independent but at what point does this end and being wilfully ignorant of people around you start? And no, lockdown doesn't seem to have been a thing for most of them; in the postcode I live in it's been the worst year on record for student noise and antisocial behaviour and there's been at least 3 big parties on the street broken up by police. When I first moved in the area wasn't majority students, but now is, which has noticeably made it worse. 

I am almost certain they don't work shifts as I've never seen or heard anyone leave at regular times, and with the hours and days they've had parties or woke us up at 3am I can't see how any of them can have a work routine. Obviously people have been furloughed and this could change. Ironically the other side are all medical/radiography students who do come home in the middle of the night when they've been doing hospital placements and we never hear them - they woke us up once at 2am when one of them had been locked out after a shift, and came round the next day to apologise. 

There are 3 universities here, and whilst I know they don't go to the one I work at I'm not sure which of the other 2 they do attend. I suppose I could contact both to see, and also ask the council for a noise diary like people have suggested. I'm also going to look into a white noise machine, can anyone who has used one let me know how effective they are at blocking out sounds like this or are they more of a solution to low level noise like traffic?

The only other room in the house I could sleep in is our living room, which gets very cold at night time with it being open plan, and a sofa rather than a sofa bed so not the most restful sleep. I've slept here previously when there's been big parties on the back street, but it's just not a feasible longterm solution. I can't change my bedtime/wake up hours because of my job.

Most student contracts here seem to end in July, so I potentially have another 3 months of this if I can't find another house (I rent, I don't own this house), and I am honestly at the end of my rope with it. I know it might seem unreasonable to people to complain about this but I am just desperate to be able to sleep properly and it's getting to a point now where it's really affecting my wellbeing. 

nyermen

pinkteapot said:

Also, can't BELIEVE it took till the end of p1 for there to be a dirty comment. As soon as I saw the thread title it reminded me of a flat I lived in years back where the couple upstairs loudly enjoyed each other's company at exactly 10pm every Sunday. 

Oh Agnus, it's that time of the week again...

Actually curious - is there decent sound insulation that can help with party walls?  Our neighbour (semi) is a quiet gent, and I'm worried that future potential children are going to disturb him

elsien

MalMonroe said:

MoonChild91 said:

I currently live in a through terrace with neighbours on each side; in one of these properties the bathroom is next to my bedroom, with the shower and extractor in the corner behind my bed. This hasn't been a problem previously (I've been here just over 2 years) but I'm now getting consistently woken up 4 or 5 nights a week at 1-2am by the neighbours showering. I can hear the fan, the shower itself, and often a good deal of singing, slamming the door etc. Their washing machine is also in the bathroom which can sometimes be very loud, but this happens less frequently. This has been going on for about 2 months. 
I am looking to move for many reasons, but haven't found a property yet and coronavirus has impacted my finances which leaves me with a more limited budgets and options than I would like. I also can't move the bed due to the layout and dimensions of the room, and whilst previously I've been sleeping in ear plugs every night I now can't thanks to a very chronic ear infection and it being against doctor's orders. They're all students and none of them seem to work, so I can't think of a reason for them to be showering so late at night - if say, we lived nextdoor to someone working shifts it would be more understandable. 
We have previously spoken to the neighbours about the noise they make and asked them not to run up and down the stairs, slam doors etc late at night, and have previously had the council's noise team out when they've had a party or just suddenly decided to start blasting music at 3am, so they know they're being disruptive and we can hear them. None of this has ever made a difference and in some cases has just seemed to spur them on.
Can I report this to the council as a noise disturbance? When I've previously looked into it they've suggested it's 'daytime domestic noise' which it clearly isn't, but also isn't something I'd be able to call the out of hours night time team about, so seems like a bit of a grey area. Whilst I'm aware with any luck I'll only have to put up with it for another couple of months its getting to a point where it's really disrupting my sleep pattern and affecting me quite a lot, I often struggle to get back to sleep afterwards and now rarely get more than 6 hours a night. 

If they're students, they should all be moving out soon as it'll be end of semester/term in a couple of months. (Haven't they been locked down?)

But yes, I'd definitely complain to the council because they will have the landlord's details and can get on to whoever that is. They'll probably ask you to keep a diary though and will take their own sweet time doing anything about it. That's what they did when I had the neighbours from hell. (I moved, as I see you are intending doing. 

I'd also, as someone else suggested, contact the university's accommodation office to let them know that their students are a nuisance and even though they've been asked to tone things down, they continue to ignore your pleas. 

I'm not sure what you expect the landlord to do about it. Firstly it's not down to the landlord to police their tenants behaviour and secondly even if they were minded to evict (and I can't see why they would), that's potentially going to take longer at present that it is for the OP to find a new house and move.

Scotbot

@MoonChild91 I would have gone round in my PJs at 1.45 am, knocked the door down till someone opened it and told them in no uncertain terms what I think of Mariah Carey

This may have made no difference but it is equally possible that at least one of them would realise the impact they are having.

MoonChild91

Scotbot said:

@MoonChild91 I would have gone round in my PJs at 1.45 am, knocked the door down till someone opened it and told them in no uncertain terms what I think of Mariah Carey

This may have made no difference but it is equally possible that at least one of them would realise the impact they are having.

I was very tempted! One of the girls can get a bit aggressive from what I've seen which has always put me off. Last time we had the noise people round about a party she was stood in the street screaming at them that they weren't police, they couldn't do anything, and they could fine them if they liked, she didn't care and wouldn't stop...but in more colourful language of course.

We've spoken to them about the noise before asking them to tone it down, so they definitely know what they're doing, it just seems like they don't care or think they can do what they like.