Paper thin walls, how to approach neighbours?

Really? I doubt it's anything near as severe though as sharing walls with a neighbour.

I had soundproofing fitted in all my shared walls. It is fab. I suggest she gets that costed up then see if it’s easier to move.

was about 1k a wall maybe more. There are multiple options, depending how much room you want to give up.

I have single brick walls.on my terrace. One side is quiet just someone on their own. Otherside is family and kids lucky only share kitchen wall but my God they are so bloody loud I can be furthest point in my house and still hear them talking. When their kids screaming and boy do they let.them scream for ages I just turn my music so it's loud enough to drown it out and wwll it might piss them off hearing it but why shoikd I have to hear the screaming

I am saving up for sound proofing on the side with my quieter neighbour as we share bedroom and lounge but I know he is ever moves and a family move in it's gonna be alot more noisy. So if I cant move to a detached house at least I can soundproof. Lucky I can lost the space just about so will be building a false wall as that is the best way, obv sound could travel via joists but it'll be a huge improvement

I live in a small Victorian terraced house. One neighbour has the tv so loud we can hear it word for word unless ours is on quite loud. The other side have kids that thunder up and down the stairs all the time, a dad who slams the front door so loud you can feel our house shake, and we can also hear their phone ringing quite clearly. Then there’s the kids screeching full volume in the garden every summer.

Ahh. 😆 They are nice people on both sides and this is the reality of living in a terraced house. We are hoping to buy a detached home next.

@increasinglyconcerned I can’t remember but it was something like “high density acoustic wall covering”. It’s black and rubbery, and so incredibly dense that it’s very heavy. Then there was rock wool then the false wall which was just plasterboard on a wooden frame, then papered and painted like you would a standard wall.

Soundproofing is going to be much cheaper than moving!

She needs to at least tell them that she can hear everything. She’s creeping around and not mentioned it so how will they know? As a pp said tell her to mention in conversation how awful thin the walls are. They might not be able to be completely silent but they might be more considerate when the dc are shouting in the evening.

That's the way it was back then I guess. I lived in an old Victorian semi detached once.

You could hear next doors phone ring, the light switch going on and off. The TV.
It's just people living their lives, I wouldn't choose it again though, now I know what I know.
Live and let live. Same for everyone living in those types of houses.
Mentioning it, will only cause an atmosphere.
Neighbours could then get worse by being deliberately louder.

Are you the friend?

What's this stuff called? Our bed is up against neighbours bed? Separated by a thin wall and the same floorboards. We have carpet and paid for an insulated plasterboard when we renovated but not helped.We hear him having sex and imagine he he's our DCs! We can't have them in our bed on the weekends in morning as we would wake him at 6/7am.
Before he moved in we had neighbours who pulled their kids in at 7am and screamed the house down in bed playing and we were kid free, it drove us loopy.
We don't want to do the same back to him but really what to have DCs in our bed! Would like to invest in this!

people always jump on these threads to make this absolutely idiotic suggestion and "if you don't like noise maybe don't live in a flat" etc.

Yep I'll just upgrade from a semi to a detached with that spare two hundred k I keep in the bank.

Most people would LOVE to live in detached houses, they don't live in flats and terraces because they get some illicit thrill from noisy neighbours but because detached houses are a) usually the most expensive and b) the rarest type of homes - and c) - particularly relevant in OP's friend's case, also usually the largest houses so least affordable for someone on their own.

You can also reassure her that the children will grow out of the screaming stage (hopefully) quite quickly. Just don't tell her that they also grow into the 'playing loud music' stage or, if she's unlucky, the 'learning the recorder' stage...

But seriously they don't stay small for long, and the noise is unlikely to be permanent. But putting bookcases/furniture against the connecting walls will probably help.

On God I live in one of these and it's a nightmare, but a nightmare which becomes easier to bear over time. For the first year I literally tiptoe around, had the tv on volume 7, whispered when I was talking, took phone calls outside, made all visitors sign up to a no bad language policy!!.... You can literally hear every single word being spoken, a sneeze or a fart! It made me feel intensely uncomfortable to talk about personal, private matters as I knew my neighbours would be able to hear the entire conversation... Over time though, my panic DID dial down to a normal level and accepted that neighbours wouldn't be especially interested in my conversations and they'd have to be sat very still to listen in. It is still shit and I'm still mindful of not having the tv or music too loud and I do lower my voice of discussing certain personal matters, but otherwise I get on with normal living. However, I am fortunate in that my neighbours aren't especially loud people and they're obviously aware of the paper thin walls too so keep the noise down. When they have a few visitors over into the early hours, it does drive me bonkers but they've got to live their lives in their own home and it would be massively inappropriate of me to complain. Your friend will get used to it, but she really doesn't have the right to say anything!

She needs to sound proof. They sound like they are living normally, not wild parties every weekend. They clearly need the tv at that level or it would be quieter. Anyone living in an attached house or flat needs to expect some noise, but she can dp things to reduce it. Unless she has enough for a remote detached property, she can't keep moving every time someone lives next door.

Yes, then you just get the noise from the parties in the gardens. Wet summers have advantages...

But what nobody is asking is WHY is the soundproofing so poor! Houses should be built to such crap standards!

Firstly she needs to have a normal level conversation with you in her house. Watch tv. Make the normal noise she would. Then after about a month she can approach them with a "I'm going to get soundproofing in do you want it done on yourside?"

Oh don’t I know it! I only have neighbours on one side and they’re twats.

They might split the costs of soundproofing. For privacy reasons really. Worth asking nicely.

Soundproofing should work out far cheaper than moving, given stamp duty.
I have friends in a semi that was previously part of a larger stone house, they could hear the neighbours a lot when they moved in.
They put in soundproofing, I've stayed with them in the room that is against the party wall and never heard a thing, it was like being in a detached house. So it hopefully will be possible for her to get a good result.

I think I'd be looking at how to soundproof the rooms that most affect her. If she was to put up soundblock plasterboard on the party wall that would definitely help, as do soft furnishings, so carpeting, rugs, curtains, etc.

If her neighbours are a family, even if they are aware of how much noise is passing through the wall they aren't realistically going to be able to keep their DC silent, and nor should they. So the onus is really on her to soundproof her property if the noise is bothering her that much.

I agree it's likely to be about soundproofing

I live in a not so soundproof house but people have a right to live lives in an ordinary way. If it's say music late at night, excessive noise then it's completely reasonable but ultimately if it's just everyday noise then there's no way of stopping it

I currently can hear my neighbours kid wrestling, but ultimately he's allowed to wrestle. He's not making excessive noise and in reality they can't make a 5 year old tip to round the house for fear of upsetting me

If it's the kids yelling and crying that gets to her most, she's shit out of luck as it'll likely be taken as a criticism of their parenting.

I'd look at noise deadening. Furniture on the dividing walls etc.