Help noisy neighbour driving me mad, ahhhhhhhhhh

[marne]

Hi,
Just moved house two weeks ago, realy nice house, lovely location. First week was realy quite, just a bit of music comming from next door.. now its got louder and louder, sounds like a whole band playing in our sitting room, just took me 3 hours to get my 14 month old baby to sleep and its driving me mad. We realy dont want to fall out with our neighbour but we cant put up with it for much longer. Last night it went on till 11.30pm.

Should way go round there, if so what do we say to him?

Any advice, please help!

[sunnyskies]

Phone the environmental noise pollution people - should be listed somewhere in local council info - they can deal whether you are in private/own your house or council house

[kid]

the noise pollution have guidelines they follow. If the noise can be heard in a childs bedroom after 8pm, in an adults bedroom after 11pm or if the noise causes a disturbance in the living room at any time of the day or night (ie having to turn the TV up, close windows) then they can take action.

I had to use them for a neighbour where I used to live. I never approached the neighbour myself as we had already fell out!

[marne]

We live in a rented house,
How do the enviromental noise pollution people stop them from doing it, i meen if they came to his house and told him to stop, what stops him from doing it the next night?

[maisystar]

it might be that they don't realise how loud it is in your house. i used to have a next door neighbour who played really loud music because he hadn't realised how much the sound came through. i asked him to turn it down and he was fine about it, really apologetic actually, but i let him play it fri and sat nights befor he went out!, but it had to be turned off by 7

[astonished]

Have been in your position and we actually ended up moving. I regret it totally, not because i don't like my new house but because we let them win. All I can say to you is try to be nice i was suffering from PND at the time and was probably a bit too proactive and it ended up with insults being thrown in front of my kids over the fence. Good Luck and you have my sympathy.

[maisystar]

do your neighbours seem approachable?

[marne]

Only seen him once, single 50(ish).
Was told by landlady that he is very quiet and we wouldnt hear a sound from next door. Think i will go over tomorow and have a word ( would do it now but im in my dressing gown)
Have a feeling the people that lived here before had probloms with him, nobodys stayed here for more than a year.

[nutcracker]

If you complain to evironmental health they may ask you to keep a diary for 2 weeks ,in which you note down every bit of noise they make which is too noisy.
Then you send it back, they read it and deicde what to do. In our case they installed a monitring equiptment in our flat (micrphone on a stick basically) and then record any noise.

It didn't work for us because on each occasion the neighbours saw them bringing the equiptment in and were as quiet as mice.

We were told though that if they were found to be making highg levels of noise especially music then they would be warned and if they didn't co-operate the stereo would be removed.

[kid]

When I reported my neighbour, they said they needed to witness it themselves. They told me what time they would be coming, told me they would be discreet and phone when they were near by. As it turned out, we moved home so it never went any further.

[expatinscotland]

i've been chased out of several abodes by loud neighbours in the UK. it was easier to evict peeps in the US for noise, and the one advantage of a police state is that the police are proactive about noise polluters.

i don't bother trying to negotiate w/noise polluters. i now visit every property we rent at least 5 times - two of those being weekend nights on separate weekends, weekday mornings, a weekday evening, and a weekend afternoon. if i hear music at all i walk away.

[bubble99]

Is there any chance that he's being disturbed by your 14 month old? I say that only because we were in a similar position a few years ago and some reverse psychology did the trick. Go round, smile sweetly and explain that you've recently moved in, that you have a lively 14 month old child and that if he's ever bothered by noise from your side he should let you know. This will get you onto the subject of noise in general without getting his back up and you can both moan about poor soundproofing, thin walls etc.

This approach worked a treat for us with no nastiness at all and resulted in our elderly neighbour getting a hearing aid so that she didn't have to have her TV on full blast, despite denying for years that she needed one. Good luck!

[marne]

Sent dh over to have a word, he didnt know we have a baby. he said to bang on the wall if it gets to loud and he will turn it down so fingers crossed it should be ok.

[bubble99]

That's good to hear marne. It's always so much easier if you can get things sorted without falling out.