Noise - again!

Nicki

I know there have been a few threads about noisy neighbours, and also parking issues, but would be grateful for some advice about whether there are any rules or guidelines about when noisy development work can be carried out.

We recently moved into a semi-detached house, the other half of which was "under development" but no work had been done on it for several months. The vendor had said that the people who owned the house were quite reasonable about scheduling the work.

Today a contractor turned up in a huge 4x4, which he merrily parked in our driveway (which is not shared with the other house) in such a way that we couldn't get into our car, much less drive it out, without a by your leave, and told my husband that work was going to start again next door, that the work would be major structural work (including shoring up the basement) which would take at least a year and that they would "do their best" not to work in the evenings or at weekends.

We have a 6 year old child with autism who is very noise sensitive, so would prefer to try to come to some kind of arrangement where they try to do all the very noisy stuff between 8 and 4 weekdays (even though I will be at home then) while she is at school. The fact that the contractor started off with parking the way he did though doesn't suggest much hope for a considerate working relationship...

We don't want to make life difficult for our new neighbours, and we recognise that they are entitled to do up their house, but as they are not actually living in the house, and we have never met them, also don't want to start the relationship off badly. We were thinking of dropping them a nice letter care of the contractors introducing ourselves, and asking them nicely if the contractors would stick to agreed hours to do the work and not park on our property. (there is space to park on their property but they have put a skip in front of their house and also boarded up their access to their own parking presumably to keep vandals out. There is no on-road parking as it is narrow one way street.

It would help before we did this if we knew whether there are any rules or guidelines about what time of day/days of the week work of this nature can take place, and what view Environmental Health would take if the noise levels were very high, bearing in mind that although it is building work not music we are talking about, that the work is estimated to take a full 12 months.

We don't want to be unreasonable or bad neighbours about any of this, and in fact good relations with our neighbours have always been important to us wherever we have lived, but feel that it is better to try to sort a compromise out at the beginning rather than wait until we run into trouble. Any advice?

zeddy_2

Hi

Looking on the internet I found this information...
Work on a building site can be between:
Monday to Friday: 8am-6pm
Saturday: 9am-1pm
With no working on Sundays or Public Holidays.

However, if the work is DIY on a residential property then they advise:

"If you are a householder doing some or all of the work yourself, you will probably want to a lot of the work at weekends or evenings.
In this case, please try and restrict the noisy and dusty operations to Saturdays and, in any case, to daylight hours.
Remember that your neighbours normally expect peace and quiet at weekends and may have young trying to sleep."

Got this info from: http://www.reigate-banstead.gov.uk/public/Environment/EH/EP/Noise/Advice/developers.asp

I think I would approach it as you have suggested you are going to. Explain your situation. Equally you want them to complete the work ASAP so the noise stops sooner, maybe tell them you will inform them in advance if there are Sundays, holidays etc that you are not in the house on so they can carry out work. Communicate face to face because if they are reasonable people this will probably get the best results as your message will be heard loud and clear!!

PasturesNew

Nicki wrote: »

We have a 6 year old child with autism who is very noise sensitive

Most people won't appreciate what this means. I have this. When my neighbours in the flat above me walk across their floor (laminate) my heart races and I am super-alert and anxious.

Even the times when noise isn't going on, you become hyper about the potential for noise.

And until it's all stopped, never to happen again, you can't do anything. It interrupts sleep, makes your mind race and can make you irrational and have other feelings/behaviours I can't even put into words as it's complex to explain the full range.

But it's a bit like being under siege for your life and every noise makes your body go into "flight mode" ready to flee.

I hope they are very reasonable about the hours/noise.

Nicki

PasturesNew wrote: »

I hope they are very reasonable about the hours/noise.

Me too! We know how much it distresses her (and impacts on her physical and mental health). We can't stop them doing the work but if we could get them to just let us know when it would be happening, we would take her out of the house before it starts. That will be a pain if its every weekend for a whole year, but evenings have to be non-negotiable I think

We'll try the nice route first and if it doesn't work, then we'll have to think again.

Thanks for your perspective.

pulliptears

Have a look here and see if anything is relevant:

http://www.considerateconstructorsscheme.org.uk/htm-howtoreg/index.html

I've heard OH mention this scheme before, but I dont know a huge amount about it and unfortunately OH is out

PasturesNew

Nicki wrote: »

Me too! We know how much it distresses her (and impacts on her physical and mental health).

Yes, distress. That is one of the words I was looking for.
Noise, is intolerable.
It's difficult to put enough similar words into a sentence to describe it.
But noise scrambles the brain ... mentally your thoughts start racing and the heart rate increases, the anxiety increases. Shaking and crying is a possibility. Every noise has the same effect as some cymbals being crashed by your ear, that "eardrum piercing feel", but without the noise and from the inside (wish I could make that make sense). So every bump and bang is like a jolt.

It's evil.

It can take me a couple of days to get over any similar noise. The noise itself is physical pain in the brain. But the thoughts too are hurting. And there's no escape as the brain gets in a loop about the situation. Shallow, fast breathing; increased heart rate; shakes; distress; anxiety ... and pacing about unable to settle.

You certainly can't be distracted by other activities while it's ongoing.