More of a wwyd - not sure whether to respond or not.
A letter was pushed through our letter box on Sunday from next door (terraced). It complained about the noise coming from our house and specifically our dd's bedroom. The noise identified was scraping of chairs and banging of doors, which the letter said was preventing next door from working or resting.
Next door has a number of adults living there, all 40s, in a 'rent a room' not a voluntary house share situation. At the moment, there seems to be a single woman who has lived there for a few years, a couple who are newer and a single man who knows the couple has just moved in. The letter came from the single woman (as she mentioned which room she has) but was signed as 'from all of your neighbours'. She has English as an additional language, which is probably may be why she wrote rather than knock on the door? We haven't seen her for months, so possibly shielding.
The problem (sort of) is that our house is very, very quiet. The complaints were all about the noise coming from dd's bedroom. She's 13, obvs not been at school, only ever plays music through headphones. She does open and close her door a few times a day, and moves her desk chair to her desk but you're allowed to do that in your own home! We have carpet upstairs btw, so no scraping. the loudest noise from her room is screeching with laughter when she's on Facetime with her friend, and we do ask her to tone it down.
The houses are solid 1920s so very little sound carry through. Dd rarely has her window open, as she hates flies etc.
We talked it through and decided to ask the children to be as quiet as they can, to be mindful of noise ourselves but decided against sending a letter back. We're not sure of the dynamics there, and didn't want to put through a letter that someone other than the occupant of the back room read.
The same letter - with a heading of letter 2 - was put through our door again this evening. The house has been super quiet today - dd has been downstairs most of the time.
So it looks like she is expecting a response. My instinct is to knock on the door and have a conversation, but I worry that that might be intrusive. So maybe a letter, but saying what? I don't feel inclined to agree that we've been noisy (as we honestly haven't) and I honestly can't promise that we'll try to be quieter - the only way to do that would be if we all stopped moving or went on holiday!
Suggestions as to what to do please, with a view to ensuring that neighbour feels heard, but not 'admitting' to making an unacceptable level of noise.
TIA.
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Letter from neighbour
157 replies
christinarossetti19 · 09/07/2020 20:02
OP posts:
Am I being unreasonable?
666 votes. Final results.
POLL
You are being unreasonable
2%
You are NOT being unreasonable
98%
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