Depressed about new house

RelievedSheff

GiantTCR said:

Right so now after 9 pages we're arriving to say that detached houses are not good either and the chance of hearing noise is just as bad as in any semi/terraced property.

OP, have you thought about living on a boat? If there's a party yatch one night, you just sail 100yards away. Also, free white noise forever and potentially free fish.

The boat idea is a no go. Having had one for 13 years you are just as likely to find yourself with noisy neighbours as you are with a house!!

GiantTCR

OP, can you afford a space shuttle?

Woolsery

GiantTCR said:

Right so now after 9 pages we're arriving to say that detached houses are not good either and the chance of hearing noise is just as bad as in any semi/terraced property.

No, we're not saying that. While the chance of being disturbed by neighbour noise is less in a detached house, it's still possible. Exact circumstances to do with location will probably play a part, as will luck. A house that's 'quiet' may become a noise affected house at any time, but how bad the situation is will also depend on what triggers the owner.

As an example, the elderly lady who owns the field next to me had a quiet dog, but she died, and now I've a dippy dog owner with 3 rescues she has no control of. These bark furiously at every vehicle in the private lane and attempt to scare it off, and they start whenever it gets light. Now, that dog noise doesn't bother me because I get up early and it lasts only a short time, but it might upset someone who wants to lie in, is scared of dogs or dislikes the aggressive sounds.

GiantTCR

So become deaf is really the only solution for any noise scenarios. Interesting.

Woolsery

GiantTCR said:

So become deaf is really the only solution for any noise scenarios. Interesting.

Precis isn't your strong point, but I think you may have other talents. I'm out!

Murphybear

HRH_MUngo said:b

I had a terraced house for forty years and never once had a noise problem. It helped that we had the same neighbours on either side for most of that time.  In the beginning we  all had small children.

We bought a house in Spain with what in this country would be called a creeping freehold; one bedroom was below a room in next door's house.  They were hardly ever there (theirs was a holiday home, we lived there full-time).When they were there, the noise in our bedroom was like a herd of elephants rushing through.  I'm sure they were not any noisier than anyone else, it was just the way the houses were built.  Fortunately they were not there too often and the bedroom was only a guest room anyway so we could ignore the herd of elephants when they arrived.

We now live in a bungalow (in the UK), which is only joined to next door  at the bedrooms and we are both couples in our 70s.  Neither of us hear any noise.

All I can say is, if the noise bothers you, all you can do is move to a detached house.  People have to live their lives, after all.

We had a herd of elephants above us briefly.  It was a 3 storey house, we had the 2 lower  floors and the neighbour had the top.  Our lounge was below hers and she started practising her tap dancing.   . You’ve never heard anything like it.  I was sent up to have a quiet word as the diplomatic one and she was embarrassed and apologetic as she hadn’t realised how noisy it was.  Anyway there was a tap on the door later and she was there with a nice bottle of wine.  We invited her in, got the glasses and we were soon chatting away like old friends.  She found a room in the local community centre to practise.

Following a few years next to the neighbour from hell we moved to a farm on the edge of Dartmoor.  The only sounds were baaaaaa and moooooo and our cat loved it.  So did I, I was brought up opposite a field of cows, they are wonderful.

Landlord was a complete t*****  but that’s another story.  

Skiddaw1

Our first home together was a flat (converted Georgian building done on the cheap as you discovered when you'd lived there for a while) and the sound carried something chronic. There was a couple in the flat above us who performed some sort of martial arts of a morning (we assumed that's what it was anyway ) and the entire flat used to shake. When they moved out another couple moved in, along with an entity we christened 'the scuttling thing' because that's what it did. You'd hear it scuttling across what was our ceiling on and off all day. We had a sweepstake on what it was. My money was on some form of giant spider but we eventually discovered it was a very sweet cat.

GaleSF63

Skiddaw1 said:

 When they moved out another couple moved in, along with an entity we christened 'the scuttling thing' because that's what it did. You'd hear it scuttling across what was our ceiling on and off all day. We had a sweepstake on what it was. My money was on some form of giant spider but we eventually discovered it was a very sweet cat.

The house I grew up in had wooden floors upstairs. We had our own herd of elephants that you could hear rampaging through the house. Cleverly disguised as cats.

lookstraightahead

GiantTCR said:

Right so now after 9 pages we're arriving to say that detached houses are not good either and the chance of hearing noise is just as bad as in any semi/terraced property.

OP, have you thought about living on a boat? If there's a party yatch one night, you just sail 100yards away. Also, free white noise forever and potentially free fish.

To be fair a boat / caravan / rent will probably be quieter than a detached house. I would actually love to live on a boat.

lookstraightahead

RelievedSheff said:

lookstraightahead said:

andy444 said:

With all respect, it's all very well to say go and buy a detached house if you don't like it, but depending where you are in the country, it could cost you an extra £100-200k for a detached property which is not an insignificant sum. Plus if you live in a big city like London it's virtually impossible to suddenly upgrade to a detached place.

I think there's a mix of responses on here stating detached houses aren't always best, which is my experience as well. I'm at my mums at the moment and her house is detached. I always sleep with the windows open in my semi and there is no noise. At hers now with the window open I can hear cars and dogs already. Her neighbour is also building a pond which I presume will continue any minute.

Most expensive is not always best. It might sound better (like lots of things). New detached houses are often built in a very poor way as well, but it's to spread the net wide to those who "will only buy detached" irrespective of quality. 

Our 3 year old detached "new build" is built far better than the previous 1930s semi that we lived in. That was atrocious quality.

Sitting in our house now we can hear absolutely no neighbour noise, or outside noise, which is sheer bliss compared to the last house where you could hear absolutely everything going on next door from any room in the house.

The two houses are a world apart, polar opposites. 

We love the house we are in now and it would have to be something very special, and detached, that made us move from here.

Which proves my point. Our experiences are opposite so it's not always the type of house. And not always the same type of noise that affects people.
I think I've says before there's a new build estate by me that has the motorway one side and a retail park the other. There's some big houses on that estate but the road noise must be horrendous as soon as you open a window.
Conversely, some people hate hearing their neighbours from inside.