Noisy neighbour

Brie

might a polite note through the door help?  "sorry to have to mention it but your friends were making a lot of noise last night and I have to work early in the morning.  Can you ask them to tone it donw?"

prettyandfluffy

I can see why someone has suggested putting a note through the door - less confrontational etc - but I would urge you to speak to this person face to face in the first instance.  Notes can seem passive-aggressive.  Rehearse what you're going to say, keep it brief and civil and hopefully it will do the trick. If not, you can follow up with other steps.

lookstraightahead

sevenhills said:

butterflysky12 said:

To add, I’m a female in my 20’s who lives alone. I find having groups of men outside the house quite intimidating late at night but I’m not sure what I can do about it or if anything can actually be done about it. I’ve just moved from a semi where the neighbour was constantly screaming at his child and overall he was not a very decent human being so I’m gutted that my new home isn’t more peaceful. 

You seem like a sensitive person; I don't believe you complaining will help the situation. Some people wear earpieces or headphones/plugs, is that an option?

Why wouldn't it help the situation, to me in seems like antisocial behaviour.

op, thankfully as you are renting you have more options and can always move if it doesn't work out.

in my opinion no on should put up with such noise. 

Sounds like your neighbour has recently found a group of friends who don't have their own places. There's a lot of people in their late twenties who still live with parents and can't go home behaving like this.

sevenhills

lookstraightahead said:

Why wouldn't it help the situation, to me in seems like antisocial behaviour.

op, thankfully as you are renting you have more options and can always move if it doesn't work out.
in my opinion no on should put up with such noise. 

Sounds like your neighbour has recently found a group of friends who don't have their own places. There's a lot of people in their late twenties who still live with parents and can't go home behaving like this.

The OP feels that "groups of men outside the house quite intimidating", that statement alone points to her being over-sensitive. "he seemed to glare at me", is there a reason for that?

"When he does enter the house he slams the door so loud that it shakes the house", shakes both houses?

Will these men see a note and think about going elsewhere, I don't think so.

Just a group of guys

Skiddaw1

Hmmmm.... I can really understand where the OP is coming from. Our previous house fronted a park and there was a period where a group of (mainly) young lads used to congregate late at night in the park car-park in their respective cars, play loud music, do dougnuts around the car-park, etc. It used to drive me nuts as it was always a school night (my husband wasn't so bothered by it and could sleep through it). I was most relieved when it finally fizzled out (I suppose they got older/started work/generally grew up).

OP, you have my sympathies. Realistically, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it but I think continuing to try to remain on outwardly friendly terms with the neighbour is a good strategy. Hopefully he'll either move on, develop a new set of friends or hopefully meet a nice girlie and no longer want to hang out late at night with his mates. Good luck. Pain though it is, at least you can- difficult though that may be- find somewhere else to rent if it really becomes intolerable.

Sistergold

At least you are renting. Best approach is to move until you find your best spot. Taking it you are not the problem you have indicated that they are avoiding you, slam the door in your face, make more noise when they know it’s more likely to irritate you. Which leads me to- Talking to the neighbor is truly a 70/30 against you I think. 70 in that with many problematic neighbours it tends to make them move the whole thing to the next level. If they are deliberately doing this it makes them worse, if they thought they were being “quiet” it makes them think oh well no need to try so make it worse. 

I would soldier on and move. If you bought the property well I would advise to talk to them as more costs are involved and it’s truly your house so best see if you can settle.  Since you are young and so are they, best not talk to them act as if you are truly not bothered. This might lead them to not do this deliberately(lost interest) or make them worse in which case the other home owners or neighbours will also get annoyed. They will worry about their children and come deal with it as they own their houses(maybe) and hopefully have more to lose etc. if they are older they will be more mature and the young man might decide to respect their complaint. Also the rest of the people may know each other already so they will support each other in dealing with this. They might know this young man already etc. For me at your age renting this will be an earplug furthest bedroom solution until I move situation. Just another view. 🤷‍♀️

Bigphil1474

OP, you can report it to the council (I see you are keeping a diary which is great). It could either be dealt with as a noise nuisance, or under anti-social behaviour legislation.

Noise nuisance legislation is pretty ineffective except in the most straight forward of cases. The noise of him moving around his house would be difficult to prove as a nuisance, whereas loud music is. Unfortunately, you would need evidence of a nuisance (either witnessed by the council or recorded on their noise monitoring equipment) before they can serve an abatement notice. Then you would have to get the same evidence to prove they haven't complied with the abatement notice before the council could take any action. The noise from the street would likely not be included.

Anti-social behaviour is a different kettle of fish. In my experience, if you get a sympathetic council officer, they pretty much do what they want when it comes to stopping anti-social behaviour. They can issue a warning notice pretty much without any real evidence, and if the issue persists, they can issue a further notice which makes it a criminal offence. They do work alongside neighbourhood police teams as well, so they might be able to persuade the police to do some road traffic checks on the cars. Might scare them away.

Does the neighbour own their property or are they renting as well? If they are renting, I would contact his landlord. If he owns, then the only avenue to complain is the council.

I was also thinking maybe someone else has complained about him, and he thinks its you, hence the glares and odd behaviour? I take it you don't know the previous tenants in your house - maybe they moved out for the same reason. Might be worth speaking to your landlord - if they keep losing tenants due to the neighbours, they may be more inclined to help resolve it.

Murphybear

NameUnavailable said:

A few suggestions - speak to him about the late night noise, explain that he's waking you up when he plays loud music in the car at 3am and the slamming of doors etc. He may not be at all aware of the noise he's making.

You could complain to your landlord and ask them to have a word - if they don't then you could make a formal complaint to the council and write to the landlord informing them (if they ever wanted to sell the property they would then have to declare the issue).

If this guy is coming home at 3/4 am what time does he get up? Assuming he likes to get enough sleep he probably doesn't want to wake up until 10-12am so get up and put loud music on and slam doors!

Ultimately as you are renting consider moving.

This is between you and your neighbour, it has nothing to do with your landlord 

Bigphil1474

The landlord has a vested interest in tenants being fairly happy in their home, otherwise they risk losing good tenants and having to keep reletting the house. In social housing, there are usually T&C's about anti social behaviour and causing nuisance. A good landlord would want to know, and as above, any formal complaints would come up in searches should the property be sold.

TBagpuss

butterflysky12 said:

sheramber said:

How do other neighbours in the street feel about it?

I was considering speaking to them but wanted to put a feeler out for advice first. Yesterday it was the same where he had blocked the road with his friends, music blasting and they seemed to be filming each other stood next to their cars and I could see a neighbour opposite watching from her window. I’m thinking of speaking to them to see how they feel. 

Since he was OK towards you at first, I wonder whether one of the other neighbours has made a complaint and he assumed it was you because you are new?

It's definitely worth speaking to the other neighbours. Quite apart from anything else, it may be that it's more likely that the council will be able to take action if they get multiple reports from different people, so it would be useful for you to know if others have also made complaints or raised concerns. 

I don't think your concerns are unreasonable - blocking the street and  loud nose at unsocial hours are thing which most people would have a problem with.
Unfortunately, there's also things that are difficult to police or change - noise nuisance come under the council (I think environmental health, but may be wrong) it may also constitute anti social behaviour which the police can address but are unlikely to see as a high priority .

In the short term, you might find it useful to look at a white or brown noise generator an/or wax earplugs, to see if those help yu to block out most of the noise at night.