Loud DC and unhappy neighbour. Would you move?

The stuff of horror films?

What a wonderful way to talk about disabled people.

Oh no you might have to encounter them, or even accept them or tolerate them.

They're not zombies.

Your lack of empathy for anyone other than families of disabled people is staggering. Do you not feel any sympathy at all for @jenrobin

Again with the drama.

Go for a lie down, in your big quiet house 😂

It's really the stuff of horror films. I've found this thread quite unsettling. Unless we live in a detached house, this life-ruining scenario could happen to any of us at any time, and we'd have no control over it.

And even in a detached house it’s no picnic having antisocially loud people next door.

It's really the stuff of horror films. I've found this thread quite unsettling. Unless we live in a detached house, this life-ruining scenario could happen to any of us at any time, and we'd have no control over it.

It's really the stuff of horror films. I've found this thread quite unsettling. Unless we live in a detached house, this life-ruining scenario could happen to any of us at any time, and we'd have no control over it.

I know @jenrobin . Couldn't make it up.

So what are you suggesting then? All these posters telling her to move when there is probably no where suitable are laughable

As I explained upthread I lived with this exact same hellish situation for some years. As the child got older, stronger and heavier, the noise increased.

To suggest we who have lived next to this sort of uproar lack resilience is insulting beyond belief. As many people have rightly pointed out, even during rare moments of quiet one is on edge for it all to kick off again. It wrecked my hitherto perfectly sound mental health and like pps ended up on medication.

Things I tried

Reconfiguring my beautiful cosy home totally so I spent less time in the rooms adjacent to the ones he was in most.

Calm conversations asking them please to at least shut the windows when he was bellowing. The houses were large stone Edwardian terraces on stone streets in a conservation area and the result was a sort of hideous echo chamber. So neither I nor my neighbours could ever open our own windows in hot weather. This was largely ignored as was a plea to at least put down some sort of floor covering to absorb the noise.

Ear plugs. Tried everything on the market up to high grade industrial models. Nothing worked.

Noise cancelling headphones. ££££ Nope. It just dulled the lower register of grunting noise. Piercing shrieking, stomping and yelling unaffected.

Radio 3 turned up to full volume. That drowned out some of it but wasn't pleasant to live with.

Soundproofing. I got several quotes but none could guarantee a solution as every square inch of wall, incl the staircase would need to be covered and that would narrow the stairs to such an extent that it would contravene fire regulations. They said my problem was one of the most common they dealt with.

So I sold up my precious place at the cost of many tens of thousands and moved. Only to discover on completion day they were splitting up and moving out.

But she is housed where the HA has identified her child’s needs are being met. The HA is required to met the needs of the child not the neighbour. In the unlikely event the HA did decide to find alternate housing because the noise is impacting the neighbours a three bedroom detached house is a like finding a unicorn.

Shouldn’t be at the expense of the neighbours though.

But she is housed where the HA has identified her child’s needs are being met. The HA is required to met the needs of the child not the neighbour. In the unlikely event the HA did decide to find alternate housing because the noise is impacting the neighbours a three bedroom detached house is a like finding a unicorn.

The thing is she could look to move somewhere more suitable. It doesn’t have to be a detached house but could be a house why DCs room is on the outside of the house rather than adjoining - where there is a front garden to play in, where there is a downstairs room to use as a bedroom.

Tbh the situation will now never be solved with this neighbour. There fight or flight response has been triggered by the amount of stress caused and they will be hyper vigilant to the slightest noise which will probably send them into a panic. From OPs description they are likely showing many of the responses of a trauma (and it is likely the situation has become a trauma esp through lack of sleep). It is likely to take the neighbour some time to get over.

I don’t think OP has any choice but to move and learn from this experience. She has been lucky before with her previous neighbour - she needs to start somewhere new that better meets her needs of being able to minimise the impact on neighbours.

Or construct some state owned villages where suitable sound-proofed homes exist that can be used by families with these needs? The advantage might be also that you can have better delivery of services in a focused area and maybe better support networks of people in similar situations in the local area. It's a big ask and has heavy set up costs, but longer term, worth it.

I have two babies plus another child in school that were also being woken up nightly. Every night multiple times plus during daytime naps.

Do they wear ear plugs?

Are my DC less important because they are not disabled?

As a parent you expect everyone to accommodate your child, which I get, yet you expect everyone else to do that at the detriment of themselves and their own families. Realistically that’s not going to happen. Your child is your child, you need to find a way to not let them impact those around you.

You make a fair point. We can’t be kind to all the people all the time, there are many here being kind to the neighbour and not OP.

We all have to pick a side. I’ve picked the side of an exhausted SENd parent trying her best to meet the needs of a vulnerable child, who has had days now of being told her son is inconvenient and a problem to others.

It is a mast I am happy to nail my colours too. A hardship that I know, understand and can get behind.

I don’t doubt that it’s difficult for those of you who have lived alongside children like ours, but blaming them for that hardship isn’t reasonable. She’s not at fault for birthing a disabled child, or living where the HA put her.

This is the situation exactly. If it were possible to make things quieter for the neighbour, OP would do it and IS going to look into sound proofing. Let's hope that works!

Other than that, this thread has been full of completely impossible and illogical suggestions, and when it's pointed out that OP doesn't have a spare detached house she can pull out of her arse, or the ability to rebuild rooms onto the other side of the house, or the ability to make her child less disabled and therefore quieter... people refuse to believe it.

Whenever the impossible is pointed out, people don't use this to reassess suggestions into something more possible, they panic and go into a full on flounce. The very idea that someone could be in a position that is actually this difficult to solve has given people a full on conniption.

There’s no solution that involves the child always being quiet, and I don’t believe moving him is the answer.

Soundproofing, regulatory activities, things in that house that can have an impact - maybe will help. OP has said she’ll speak to her professionals for support - is that not enough?

Wearing earplugs to get some 4am sleep really isn’t a hardship.

I’m just thinking about how housing projects that try to group people with similar social needs together have gone in the past. There’s a reason why council houses now tend to be scattered among houses for sale/rent on the general market, rather than all grouped together on one estate. Historically, while the initial impact can be very positive, lack of ongoing investment coupled with ongoing social and socioeconomic difficulties for the people housed this way has led to issues. Things like schools getting a reputation as rough, leading to families who care about education trying to get their kids into schools out of that area, which then compounds the social disparities and widens the gap between areas deemed nice and areas deemed rough.
I do think your idea of better thought out housing specifically reserved for families with disabled family members is great. Even the idea of proximity to suitable schools is good. It’s just the idea of a whole village designed that way has the potential to go quite badly wrong with time and lack of ongoing financial support.

Actually the trouble is, by being kind to the OP you are advocating for the continued pain and misery for another family, pain and misery that is so bad myself and I think at least 2 other poster have experienced to such and extent it’s made them suicidal, if you were being kind to them you’d tell the OP it was best if she moved and needed to make sure that her neighbours weren’t impacted. The trouble with #bekind is that it nearly always impacts someone else to their detriment