Noisy neighbour - sense check

Mac_70_

lookstraightahead said:

Mac_70_ said:

I wouldn't send a letter or ask a neighbour to sort it, that would just be too weak. The thing is your not being unreasonable, i love a party as much as anyone, and me and my wife have hosted our fair share of them (well up until 2019). 

Years ago when we first started having parties, we where like your neighbours, music going into the small hours of the morning. Our neighbours where at that time middle aged (sadly both passed away now), but i can remember being approached by my neighbour saying about the noise going on so late. In all honesty we didn't even think about the noise and the time, until he said about it. From then on the music became just back ground noise from 11/11:30 on (played very low).

After a while they started coming to our parties, and also some of our friends parties, until sadly time caught up with them (lovely couple).

I don't see asking your neighbours for a bit of respect as being confrontational, just be nice about it. 

 Very reasonable and problem sorted. 

How would you feel though if one of your neighbours had a baby and asked you to stop the noise at 6?

Everyone had different routines (my husband works nights and he had to block out day time noise with earphones etc as apparently day time noise isn't anti social).

So we'll just not make noise day or night to please everyone?

lookstraightahead

Mac_70_ said:

It's huge alright.

Yes it is. 🤷‍♀️

lookstraightahead

Mac_70_ said:

lookstraightahead said:

Mac_70_ said:

I wouldn't send a letter or ask a neighbour to sort it, that would just be too weak. The thing is your not being unreasonable, i love a party as much as anyone, and me and my wife have hosted our fair share of them (well up until 2019). 

Years ago when we first started having parties, we where like your neighbours, music going into the small hours of the morning. Our neighbours where at that time middle aged (sadly both passed away now), but i can remember being approached by my neighbour saying about the noise going on so late. In all honesty we didn't even think about the noise and the time, until he said about it. From then on the music became just back ground noise from 11/11:30 on (played very low).

After a while they started coming to our parties, and also some of our friends parties, until sadly time caught up with them (lovely couple).

I don't see asking your neighbours for a bit of respect as being confrontational, just be nice about it. 

 Very reasonable and problem sorted. 

How would you feel though if one of your neighbours had a baby and asked you to stop the noise at 6?

Everyone had different routines (my husband works nights and he had to block out day time noise with earphones etc as apparently day time noise isn't anti social).

So we'll just not make noise day or night to please everyone?

That's my point - no one would do that. And people work 24-7 now so why such antiquated laws?

Redscope77

Mac_70_ said:

Years ago when we first started having parties, we where like your neighbours, music going into the small hours of the morning. Our neighbours where at that time middle aged (sadly both passed away now), but i can remember being approached by my neighbour saying about the noise going on so late. In all honesty we didn't even think about the noise and the time, until he said about it. From then on the music became just back ground noise from 11/11:30 on (played very low).

After a while they started coming to our parties, and also some of our friends parties, until sadly time caught up with them (lovely couple).

I don't see asking your neighbours for a bit of respect as being confrontational, just be nice about it. 

I think I am going to have carefully think about my words and approach them.  I hope they are as nice and reasonable as yourself. 

Gavin83

Mac_70_ said:

lookstraightahead said:

JCarmello said:

lookstraightahead said:

It's only once a month. 

If there were screaming kids next door, dogs barking, engines revving, every day, that's different.

what about hedge strumming, garden mowing, drums beating.

most people make some kind of noise. 

Once a month, but 25% of your precious Saturday evenings....

My husband works nights so there are other times of the week that are precious to him. Should they have their party all day on a Sunday instead?

im not saying it's nice, but it is once a month.

seriously what about other noise? Round here you cannot sit outside on a nice day as everyone is mowing their lawn / strimming / building pergodas etc.

There is law, and there is reasonableness.   If you want a good relationship with your neighbours, you need to be reasonable.

my old neighbours are into month 9 of their renovations. They finish at 5pm but all day every day (except weekends) is not pleasant. Give me this guys neighbour anytime. I really struggled to do my job last year.

Nine months Monday too Friday, eight till five into a renovation. Some renovation.

To be fair when we lived in a flat they were renovating the flat above us. Took 6 months 6 days a week with similar hours for them to finish it. It was hell to be honest, put a massive strain on my relationship and made me ill to the point I had to go to hospital. When my current neighbours put in a planning application to have a massive extension built (more than 50% increase on house size) my heart sank but thankfully the council rejected it.

Ultimately laws are there to protect the majority. Noise does need to be made sometimes so a blanket ban is impossible. Given the majority of people work during the day and sleep at night the current laws seem fair. If you work nights it's unfortunate but I think you need to work around it. In the OPs case I don't think asking the neighbours to turn the music down past 11pm is unreasonable. If it was a one off I'd let it slide but if it was regularly I'd expect the neighbours to be more courteous. 

lookstraightahead

Gavin83 said:

Mac_70_ said:

lookstraightahead said:

JCarmello said:

lookstraightahead said:

It's only once a month. 

If there were screaming kids next door, dogs barking, engines revving, every day, that's different.

what about hedge strumming, garden mowing, drums beating.

most people make some kind of noise. 

Once a month, but 25% of your precious Saturday evenings....

My husband works nights so there are other times of the week that are precious to him. Should they have their party all day on a Sunday instead?

im not saying it's nice, but it is once a month.

seriously what about other noise? Round here you cannot sit outside on a nice day as everyone is mowing their lawn / strimming / building pergodas etc.

There is law, and there is reasonableness.   If you want a good relationship with your neighbours, you need to be reasonable.

my old neighbours are into month 9 of their renovations. They finish at 5pm but all day every day (except weekends) is not pleasant. Give me this guys neighbour anytime. I really struggled to do my job last year.

Nine months Monday too Friday, eight till five into a renovation. Some renovation.

To be fair when we lived in a flat they were renovating the flat above us. Took 6 months 6 days a week with similar hours for them to finish it. It was hell to be honest, put a massive strain on my relationship and made me ill to the point I had to go to hospital. When my current neighbours put in a planning application to have a massive extension built (more than 50% increase on house size) my heart sank but thankfully the council rejected it.

Ultimately laws are there to protect the majority. Noise does need to be made sometimes so a blanket ban is impossible. Given the majority of people work during the day and sleep at night the current laws seem fair. If you work nights it's unfortunate but I think you need to work around it. In the OPs case I don't think asking the neighbours to turn the music down past 11pm is unreasonable. If it was a one off I'd let it slide but if it was regularly I'd expect the neighbours to be more courteous. 

I don't disagree with most of what you are saying - and the renovations thing drove me mad too - I moved.

but once a month is 12 nights a year. That's much less than day in day out over a long period of time. And it's only til two - so about 3 hours a month of excess noise? If you live in a semi or a flat you probably hear your neighbours getting out of bed in the night/dog barking/telly for that amount of time.

There are very many emergency workers who work nights and need their sleep. Night shifts are getting more and more frequent now. People also work around their responsibilities more. I have no idea about the last time the law was updated, but it appears to be related to when most people worked daytime. We now require 24 hour everything.

It would be impossible to have a blanket ban on noise, but given the working arrangements of the modern world, we have to give and take.

TBagpuss

Redscope77 said:

Mac_70_ said:

Years ago when we first started having parties, we where like your neighbours, music going into the small hours of the morning. Our neighbours where at that time middle aged (sadly both passed away now), but i can remember being approached by my neighbour saying about the noise going on so late. In all honesty we didn't even think about the noise and the time, until he said about it. From then on the music became just back ground noise from 11/11:30 on (played very low).

After a while they started coming to our parties, and also some of our friends parties, until sadly time caught up with them (lovely couple).

I don't see asking your neighbours for a bit of respect as being confrontational, just be nice about it. 

I think I am going to have carefully think about my words and approach them.  I hope they are as nice and reasonable as yourself. 

I hope they are. I've just been reading the thread and I do think that a polite chat to ask that they keep the noise down late at night is 100% reasonable - it's likely that they haven't really thought about how it affects neighbours, and it's possible also that they have have mis-calculated how far the noise the travels. 

Mardle

OP maybe you could ask them to turn the bass down as a first step. 

A few years ago we had noise problems with a family across the street. They would put music on inside their house with the back door open . We couldn't have our windows open because it was so loud and we could feel and hear the bass inside our house with them closed. We wouldn't have minded music at a reasonable level but the bass was just too much for us. My daughter bravely went across to speak to them and just asked them to turn the bass down as that was all we could hear inside our house. They turned it down straight away but she had to ask on a couple more occasions when it got loud again. They were also warned by a PCSO who happened to be passing on foot patrol when they had their front door open. It wasn't bothering us that time but the PCSO obviously thought it was too loud. Occasionally we can hear music coming from their house but we can live with that. We've had no more problems with excessive bass.

Brie

Redscope77 said:

I think I am going to have carefully think about my words and approach them.  I hope they are as nice and reasonable as yourself. 

I wouldn't over think it too much.  Just start as you started this thread with a "I know you'll probably think I'm a grumpy old man but would you mind turning down the bass when you have a crowd around?"  Smile, be friendly.  

Skiddaw1

Do let us know how it goes @Redscope77 and good luck!