If you have a big extension to your home, AIBU to think you should consider the impact on your neighbours?

I think it ought to be a legal requirement that the people benefiting from the extension ought to also fully experience the disruption.

what a ridiculous idea that people would be forced by law to stay in a property with potentially no roof, no heating or electrics when the workmen are doing the renovation. Why would any government pass a law just to force them to suffer.

They ain’t randoms they are the men you chose

This!!

But you chose to have the building work done - your neighbours didn’t…

Not as disruptive as having other people’s noise and mess imposed on you without any regard to whether it’s convenient / whether you can still use house and garden in the same way.

Swanning off to temporary accommodation is your own choice.

So when their statutory notification visible from the street went up, and you put your objection in, was there even any response from them or the planning department?

Thats ridiculous, living in a house in the process of having building work with a range of random men coming in and out isnt remotely comparable to hearing the noise of nearby building work.

Yes, absolutely ridiculous. Having the people living in the house while major renovations are being done is also likely to slow the whole thing down considerably, if they have to work around rooms in which the family are living, ensure safe access, keep on all power and water etc.

Empathy to you, it is a bitter pill to swallow when you lose a view and have to put up with all the mess and dust only to end up with a worse situation at the end of it.

I don't think YABU at all to talk about it on here, unfortunately many people cannot afford to move house so instead they make improvements to what they have.

in the case of your neighbour, they may have bought the house with the intention to extend because they weren't able to find the accommodation they need at a price they could afford so they bought a property knowing they could improve it at a more affordable price (extending is almost always cheaper than buying a 4-5 bed property at a premium).

Give it time, you may find you come to terms with the loss of view and can still enjoy living where you do. If not maybe look at other properties in the years to come to see if anything else comes up that's better.

This is daft. The issue affecting the neighbours is noise. The issue that would affect people living in the property whilst it's being renovated is that doing so may be dangerous, may not have electric or water on etc. The disruption they have to live with is not having a house, and paying rent somewhere else while paying for a mortgage.

This is awful. I feel angry just reading it.

"No - I don't think I am BU. The most annoying thing is they've just moved in - if they wanted more room/space, why not buy a house that suits what you want."

Yes, you are being very unreasonable. It is extremely common (in London at least) for people to buy a house with the express intention of turning it into their dream home. Every house in our street that has changed hands in the last 10 years, with one exception, has had a big kitchen extension and loft conversion. Most moved out for three to six months. It is the norm.

We have banging and drilling going on next door right now for a kitchen extension. Yes, it is a bit annoying but it is only for a few months.

Did they have planning permission OP? Unless they are in breach of the conditions there’s not much you can do. Buy some noise cancelling headphones?

Where do you sit on full house renovations? We lived elsewhere when our house was being renovated as it meant the works were completed much quicker.

Bungalows normally have bigger gardens and get sold off as estate sales.

But I do agree there should be something where a bungalow cannot be turned into a full on house.

Nothing compared to living with the dust and dirt and noise and the loss of facilities no I don’t

I think most people are quite selfish when it comes to building massive extensions on their houses without any thought for how it might impact their neighbours. I remember that scene in a film called 'Friends with Money' when one woman realises the awful impact her building work is having on her neighbour and basically puts a halt to the whole thing... precious few people have that sort of capacity for compassion.

Around my way, there are loads of bungalows - that are becoming fewer and fewer as more people increase them to double-story buildings. Bungalows are, actually, what so many older people want and developers just don't build them as a matter of course in volume development schemes. I'm always a bit confused as to why people don't just buy a double-story house in the first place - rather than keep depleting a stock of housing that's in so much demand - you're effectively cutting off a huge area of resale potential.

But yes, OP, in general, I do agree with you that there's usually little consideration given to neighbours when homeowners plan massive extensions.

We've has an extension where we knocked down the garage and built on the side. Couldn't afford to move to anywhere more suitable but DS needed a downstairs bedroom and wet room as he was no longer able to get up the stairs. The builders tried to keep disruption to a minimum and we didnt move out. I dont see how its selfish to make use of the space we had at the time.

You don't think moving to temporary accommodation is disruptive then?

This would only slow the building work down and lengthen the time the neighbours are inconvenienced.

I'll add to the list of people asking about objecting to the planning permission
I would have put this in the OP

Did you live in the property while it was being extended?

I think it ought to be a legal requirement that the people benefiting from the extension ought to also fully experience the disruption.

Sorry but what a stupid statement.

Millions of people live in new builds. Are they selfish? Should they have moved into houses already built so that no building work took place to make their home.

We had a nice home in a quiet cul de sac. Then our lovely retired left door neighour moved out and a family with three indisciplined kids moved next door. The noise from 7 to 9am was very stressful. If it wasn't bad enough, our quiet neighbour on the right moved out because of the noise and a another daily of three kids moved in. I'd never experirnced noise disruption like it! We had no choice to move too.

Lovely house, house on the other side at the start of huge extension. We had noise all last summer. Then it was our turn although only one room and over the weekend. It's now all over and the quiet is heaven. I'll take construction noise with an end in time a 100 times over young children for potentially 10 years or more!

Sorry but yabu. We loved the location of our current house and we bought it due to the extension possibilities. We created 4 extra rooms due to this. Planning permission was lwgally granted. Neighbours had a chance to object. The work was completed within 4 months. Hardly major disruption.