Shocking impact of noisy neighbours *Content warning: mentions suicide*

The lack of wall insulation is the problem alot of the time.
I used to live in a Victorian Semi. You coukd hear next doors phone ring, the toilet flash, the alarm clock going off.

Oh, oops, hadn't spotted that

The thread is 2 years old I’m afraid.

I haven't read the thread so apologies if this has been covered

But why can these people not be repeatedly charged for breach of the peace?

There are few things worse than really noisy neighbours. We lived in a suburban semi some years ago, in a street that you’d think would be quiet.The family on the other side of the dividing wall liked to do karaoke, music came on at all hours, you could never predict when it was going to start. Meanwhile in front of our houses was a small green space on which 20 or 30 local kids used to gather after school every day, all weekend, and every single day of the holidays - football, screaming, shouting until dark and sometimes later, you could hear it all through the house and in the back garden. I developed anxiety to the point I couldn’t eat anything (lost tons of weight) and for years after we moved I was hypervigilant about noise, especially when I heard music coming through the walls in other places. We now live in town - not much traffic, blissfully quiet!

Im in four in one block,no privacy at all,next door moved her friend another woman,2years ago,its been terrible made living room a bedroom never out of it,sit 24/7 with a tv,got a humidifier 3 months ago on night and day,no respect for me.

I’ve been on the receiving end of noise and have also been accused of being overly noisy by a neighbour who ended up sending us a threatening letter after the council noise equipment turned up nothing. I agree with the previous poster, it can be anyone being unreasonable, some people need to assess their own noise sensibility and move/adapt their house accordingly, others need to be more considerate about noise making.

I agree that the housing stock in this country is woefully prepped in terms of sound proofing, it needs to change so people can live without anxiety.

What I find interesting is that noise can be perceived differently depending on who’s making it. My first house was a terrace with lovely neighbours, we’d be woken by one set screaming at their kids to find their shoes and the others would spend evenings with friends singing folk songs, because we really liked both sets we were fine with it. Had we disliked either it would’ve been a problem. It sounds ridiculous but our later noise sensitive neighbour liked us until we got a particular car which he remarked on being ‘expensive’ and it started after that, I think he disliked us from that point and any normal noise was then amplified by his own dislike. So if someone making noise is threatening to you then try to find something - anything - you can find likeable about them. Know that’s impossible with some.

I lived in an apartment with excellent soundproofing (because it was modern) after I left the neighbors from hell and still heard unreasonable volumes of noise. But in the main even though I was surrounded by much more people it was quieter

Years ago I lived in houses converted into flats with no soundproofing and we were just considerate. There was some noise, just everyday living but when you've got loud music, shouting and people going out of their way to make noise soundproofing isn't going to help.

Having a city that is weak and will not tackle noisy neighbours means you are stuck. Even the police didn't stop my noisy neighbor from screeching for hours and waking everyone up.

I can remember feeling trapped and hopeless. I couldn't hear any music or loud voices. I cried most days. It left me with constant anxiety. But I could move and this gentleman couldn't. Because it didn't affect the HA.

My ex neighbors are selling up and I hope it's because they are now by noisy neighbours. That's what these people need.

We've all got to live together so it means being considerate.

Sounds like this is a soundproofing issue, not the neighbours' fault.
I've been on the other side of this - living in an upstairs flat and receiving repeated complaints about being "noisy" for carrying on our daily lives. Our washing machine/tumble dryer /dishwasher were apparently so loud the neighbours couldn't hear themselves think, let alone sleep through it. The TV at a bearly-audible-to-us volume apparently sounded like it was on full blast in their own living room. Us walking around sounded like we were jumping up and down, and caused their ceiling lights to shake. We were "ridiculously unreasonable" for making the most of our economy 7 electric and using appliances at night. We were "wholly inconsiderate" for using appliances during the day when they were on night shifts (that we didn't know about..).
It was a nightmare for everyone involved! Flats need better soundproofing, there should be minimum amounts of soundproofing by law.

The thing is that twats will be twats. It doesn’t matter how good the sound insulation is if someone is the kind of dick that plays shockingly loud music at 3am.

There should be better legislation, more teams of people who can actually do something about it. It should be possible to call someone at 3am and they come and get them to turn it off. 3 call outs and a prosecution.
To get this sorted would require proper funding and changes in the law. I do think though that a political party could put this in their election manifesto and it could sway the vote.

This is completely unrealistic.

I lived between 2 sets of noisy neighbours and I was made so very sick by it all. I would cry at the grocery store at the thought of going home. I was sleeping maybe 3 or 4 hours a night whilst working through lockdown because one side would play very loud music in their hot tub from 2pm until midnight and then the other side would start screeching and screaming from 2 or 3am all morning.

Nothing I or anyone said or did made a difference. Our city is weak. They didn't care although both hated others making any sort of reasonable noise (like mowing). Like others have said there was no consequence for them.

I moved and it took me years to begin to recover. I'm still anxious even thinking about it.

The housing association had a duty of care towards this man. But probably just like everyone else if you don't experience it you don't get it or you don't care.

People who knew and even heard the noise minimised how I felt whilst they raced back to their nice quiet homes.

When you buy or rent, you should get a 'soundproof rating' on your property just like you get an energy rating. It is not hard to put in proper soundproofing but it can be expensive and many house builders don't do it properly.

It is quite possible to live well in apartments if there is good soundproofing

I can’t quite imagine any country having the space for that, i.e. for everyone living in a detached house - unless I misunderstood PP?
I always thought UK’s housing stock was already quite spread out and taking up more space compared to countries where the majority of people live in apartment buildings.

Don’t you have any apartment buildings in your country? I’m just wondering which country it is where everyone lives in a detached house.
Were I lived in Europe most people were living in flats. Now in the UK we have a terraced house and the sound isolation between us and our neighbours is definitely better than in some of the flats I’ve lived/ been to in Europe.

I read this story too. That poor poor man. I am also a victim of noisy neighbours. Although I eventually moved, I still hate them to their bones for what they put me through.

It can also work the other way.

I bought a solidly built rural Victorian semi. The only noise I ever heard from next door was if they plugged something into a socket in the party wall. No problem.

However the man next door raged that he could hear my (very ordinary) digital alarm clock at 7am. I moved it away from the shared wall, I changed the ring tone, it only ever rang for 3 seconds anyway. He got so aggressive about it I had to call the police.

He insisted I was 'doing it on purpose', that I was harassing him, when I was just getting up and going to work like anyone else. Some sounds are just normal life, and not unreasonable at all.

i lived with noisy neighbours on either side of me. One who was fond of slamming doors and jumping down the stairs and another who sat in her hot tub screaming. Awful people, if I hadn’t moved I’ve no doubt I’d be dead. Condolences to this man’s family.

That must be very nice but we really don't have space for that here, unless we want no countryside at all.

The article suggests it was the lack of soundproofing rather than the upstairs neighbours being excessively noisy that made this poor man's life intolerable.

We’ve been unfortunate enough to experience noisy (and antisocial) neighbours in two properties now.

We had drug dealers next door in one of the houses - loud people coming and going at all hours, full volume music all night, aggressive whenever we tried to speak to them.

We live in a detached house now after years of saving to be able to afford one. I still get nervous whenever I hear a car drive past playing loud music. I still have flashbacks of the sleepless nights and the constant anxiety of returning home.

Home should be a safe space, and when you have awful neighbours (and/or terrible soundproofing) it’s difficult to feel safe and settled.

@Eastie77Returns having lived below very noisy neighbours (playing decks at full volume from 2 or 3am to 6 or 7am most weekends or any time their favourite football team played, and inviting all their friends back to join in) I'm now hypersensitive to potential night disturbances much more than I ever was before. I don't think anyone realises how stressful nuisance noise really is for those living with it, or at least the threat of it, daily.

I have worked in housing for 30 years and my literal job s partly sorting out this shit.

In every noise compliant there are three factors: the home, the noise producer, the noise sufferer. One, two to three can be unreasonable.

I've seen homes with no soundproofing, fucking awful. I've met people who produce so much noise, banging all the time and all hours. But also people whose expectations are unbelievable. I've been sent recordings of someone talking quietly at 5pm as 'noise issues'.

In any noise situation, everything and everyone can be unreasonable. Never assume anyone is in the right.

I lived beside an illegal airbnb, that was just constant hens and stags all summer and random other groups the rest of the year, some perfectly quiet but not knowing if they would be a good group or a bad group and if I would sleep that night caused me so much stress. They advertised 18 people to stay in a 4 bedroom.

It was so stressful I started getting migraines. The council were aware but the owner said her tenant was only airbnbing on occassion and since she replied through a solicitor the council were cowards and backed off even though they could see it was advertised as full time online. It only stopped when a group set off fireworks and almost lit another neighbours shed on fire.

I was genuinely suicidal at points, it went on for almost a year