fed up with terraced house living this morning (grump/whine/vent)

[matildasquared]

Please stop reading now if you're not in the mood for a good old vent! I am fortunate to have a good home and this is definitely not the biggest thing I have to worry about. Just feel like venting my spleen.

Normally I really enjoy my neighbourhood. I live in a row of terraced houses in a northern small town. I get along with all my neighbours. Because we're all cheek by jowl I do my best to keep relations good: I give them baked goods and extra tomato plants, always say hello and wave, offer rides if I see them walking to the bus stop. I'm mostly chilled out about the smoking or the occasional football landing on a flowerpot.

But here's what happened this past week:

1. I'm eating tea and I hear BEEP BEEP BEEP outside. I finally go look and it's a car in front of my neighbour's house. I give the driver the stink-eye and he gets out and knocks on the neighbour's door.
   

1. Next door neighbour's boyfriend stays for a few days with his adorable little dogs. Lovely dogs except YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP. At midnight! I nearly pounded on the fucking wall. I guess I'm supposed to speak with her about it but I rather think the default is to NOT allow a dog to yippity-yap all night. I really have to explain that I'd rather not hear it?
   

1. Last night I had a quarrel with my husband and so was not sleeping that great to begin with. At 1:30 I wake up to loud laughing and talking. As well as a fug of cigarettes. Neighbours two doors down probably had football party, two young women out in garden obviously forgot how late it was. I went out in my bathrobe and said, "Hey you woke me up! Could you be quiet out here?" Then went back inside muttering to myself. It was the first time I've ever just been outright shirty with a neighbbour but I was just at the end of my rope. Do you not notice that there are houses all around you? With people in them?
   

I would so dearly love to live in a little cottage up on the moor in splendid isolation with husband, cats, chickens, maybe a dog. But my husband likes being close to town. He has a point, especially as we get older.

But I'm fed up with always being the considerate one.

[AwkwardSquad]

I feel your pain. Us too - fed up of being the considerate ones. We should live in a very, very detached house but finances do not allow.

Most people are reasonably considerate, though - it's just when you live in very close proximity, the ones who aren't considerate can really get on your wick.

[matildasquared]

Maybe I should just go in a different direction and make complaints to the council all the time instead of going over to discuss the matter with a crumble and a friendly smile.

[matildasquared]

Fuck you neighbours! The Crumble Era is over!

[kalidanger]

Fuck alone knows what my upstairs neighbours in this conversion are dragging over their floor but whatever it is, it's the reason I'm moving to a purpose built block

Only a week to go!

[MehsMum]

YANBU. But unfortunately it's the way of the world.

It's not just terraced houses, either: it's also narrow streets and open windows in the summer. Thoughtless noise at anti-social hours drives me up the wall. Someone skateboarded down our street at 3a.m. last night (I was awake anyway, but now I wonder if that's what woke me up at 4a.m. the other week...)

After years of barking dogs, snoring DH, thumpy music, late-night revellers shouting about who slept with who and why Emily/Chloe/Bethany is a slag and Connor/Tom/Ollie is a wanker, etc, I just jam my earplugs back in, take a deep breath and nod back off. I always feel mortified if our dog has a barking spree at 2a.m. (about once every two years, usually sparked by Emily/Connor et al having a loud conversation by our back gate) or if we have to leave for the airport at 4a.m. ('Shhh! Shh! Now, I am going to open the door, DCs,and you are going to get silently into that car...')

I do so understand. Have a in the nice sense, having had a justified one in the other sense!

[mumteedum]

I feel your pain. Like almost all neighbours but not the ignorant twonk we are unfortunately attached to. Mahoosive lorry /van waking me up,same vehicle cracking drive, smokes like chimney and stinks our garden /house out in summer, screams at his kids.. Kids are sooo loud cos parents are loud. Moany moan.

Maybe one day we'll move. No guarantees though. Parents live in v naice area and they've had share of problems too.

No help am I?

[matildasquared]

There's some sociologist who wrote about this phenomenon. People who benefit from society's agreed norms whilst placing themselves outside the norms. I can't think of the citation because I'm grumpy today.

[matildasquared]

I know I ought to close the windows and/or have earplugs. But if I have to resort to earplugs in a naice terrace row then the terrorists have won.

[matildasquared]

Yeah, if we lived in a posh neighbourhood with all detached houses we'd probably have a whole different set of problems.

Aw hell, we probably wouldn't. That would be awesome.

[somedizzywhore1804]

You have my absolute sympathy OP. I live in London and it's so crowded here that there must be about 40 of us for every square foot. We live in a town house in a terraced row with garden terraces off the living rooms. The terraces are lovely and well concealed from one another.... Until someone coughs and you realise how close they are!

[matildasquared]

I actually don't mind the day-to-day noises so much. Coughing, kid playing, baby crying--all of that is just part of life so I can't complain. I've actually come to enjoy hearing the family next door larking. (The dad is a typical taciturn Yorkshire man in public, but we can hear him racing up and down the stairs with his little ones at home. There's even a song: "I win, I win, Daddy Daddy wins!")

It winds me up when people take the piss. There's no excuse for having a yippity dog, or playing music loud, or shouting in the garden at night. You want to do that? Go live somewhere isolated.

[EnglishRose1320]

I live in a nice row of terraced town house style newish builds and the sound insulation is non existent!

I know that my neighbours here my sons tantrums because they knock on the door and complain.

I however never complained when they hoover at 10pm, when their teenager daughter comes home drunk and very loud in the early hours of the morning, when they have get togethers with friends till the early hours or when their dog barks because I am very aware that it is very hard to make no noise and I have lived next to much worse neighbours.

It is such a tricky thing, I think if the same neighbours cause a problem regularly and it is something avoidable then you are well within your rights to be annoyed and complain about it. I also think it is polite to let neighbours know and vice versus if you are expecting to have a louder night than usual- dc's 18th for example.

I just look at the savings account and work out how long before we can afford a detached house in the country- mostly the length of time depresses me- but it should happen before we retire!!! :)

[EnglishRose1320]

hear* not here- terrible typo sorry!

[matildasquared]

Yeah, that's what I mean about being tired of being the considerate ones! We recently had work done whilst we were away and I told all the neighbours in advance, told them to text us if it was too disruptive, brought them all presents to say thanks and sorry for any bother.

We tell them in advance if we're having a party.

Do any of them extend us the same courtesy? No.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

I live in a detached but it is on a main road. Only traffic going to villages so not too busy, but there is a convenient bus stop where youths walking home at 3am choose to stop for a rest and a bit of a chat, or an argument. And taxis tend to stop on the road rather than drive up or down the lanes to deliver their fares, cue much banging of car doors and shouted good byes.

I am a crap sleeper anyway but really pisses me off.

[GemmaTeller]

Been there, got the tshirt, got out and never going back....

Lived in a terrace and spent two years listening to next door endlessly shouting at her kids.
Lived in another terrace and always heard one neighbour singing in the bath and sadly had to call the police to the other neighbour beating seven shades of shit out of his gf.

Moved to a semi and lived next door to a vile couple with numerous dogs howling all day and night bothe couple and the dogs.

Moved to a detached in a 'sought after' area and its bliss...the only tiny downside to this area is there are a lot of wealthy retireds with top of the range power tools and too much time on their hands - but better this than the others.

Sadly these experiences have ruined our outlook on life and we would never ever move back to an attached house, our next move is 'non estate' location

[matildasquared]

Oops. I do sometimes hoover at 9:00 PM. But that's just good housekeeping surely?

[LadySybilLikesCake]

I can hear my neighbours even with the windows closed. I asked the previous tenant about the noise before I moved in, and I was assured it was quiet and any music was off well before 10pm. That was bullshit. I'm woken by one neighbour hoovering at 7:30am, or her DH running the engine to his van (he then pisses off back into the house for half an hour). If it's not the hoover it's their DD running around upstairs. Then there's hoovering throughout the day and the dog barking. If I go outside, the dog's barking or the other side have their music on (loudly). 5pm onwards the DD is outside with the dog, yelling (and the dog's barking). Then they stick the music on (it's not every night. If there's no music there's more hoovering and more running around on floorboards). Dog's still barking. Father is sometimes outside belching Nice! I can't use the passageway between the houses as it's full of their shit stuff, so things have to be dragged through the house. I'd like to get someone to clean the windows but there's no chance of that because of how much stuff they store in there. Also their cellar floods when it's raining and there's huge cracks at the back of my house (it's rented). I keep asking what they are doing about it so I can pass the details on and they have done naff all.

I work from home and lost a client because I couldn't concentrate. Ds goes off to uni in a couple of years so it's daft to move now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they go on holiday over the summer. Other than this, they are lovely

[chocoluvva]

Excellent vent OP. You sound lovely and thoughtful.

I sympathise. A bit more space here but I've been furious recently with someone having bonfires in the middle of the morning just after I've hung out washing.

[MyUsernameIsPants]

I have a different complaint/whinge/rant (would never say it out loud because my neighbours are lovely)

I live in a detached house in the most desirable part of town (over looking a lake and a beach at the end of my street. Oh and rented, I could never afford to buy here)

My neighbours are forever doing work to their houses. Extensions, solar panneling, landscaping their gardens etc) the noise is horrendous sometimes. My house vibrates most days. One set of neighbours finish the work and the scaffolding comes down, only for the neighbours on the other side to start knocking walls down

I'm only whinging because I'm jealous

[mumteedum]

Choco don't get me started on burning things. Asthma just recovering from ydays carcinogens! It's like this town's favourite hobby.

[PossumPoo]

We are end of terrace and our attached neighbours are so quiet we never hear them which also means we cant judge the sound proof! The house is 100 years old and I think fairly solid but just dont know and DH and DD mess around terribly at dinner time that I really do feel sorry for our ndn. I'm always saying be quiet but DD is a fog horn and I and apparently talk very loud like all Aussies

[matildasquared]

Oh that's not at all what I'm talking about Possum. A family talking a dinner is a charming sound. If I couldn't cope with that I wouldn't have moved into a terraced house.

[matildasquared]

talking during a dinner, I mean

[StinkyWhizzleteats]

The neighbours opposite us are a pair of unemployed alcoholics. In summer they sit on deckchairs on the pavement in front of their house ALL DAY smoking and drinking cider.

When their side of the street goes into shade in the evening, they move their deckchairs to our side of the street RIGHT OUTSIDE my house. So we can hear them swearing and smell their cigarette smoke whilst watching cbeebies bedtime hour

The old lady behind us keeps her dog in the garden all day & evening. I can tell when it starts raining because the poor thing barks and howls constantly until it stops :(

Everyone else is friendly and considerate though.