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Original poster

Neighbour woes

9 replies

newbeemummy · 14/02/2011 11:57

Hi everyone,

I have an issue with our new neighbours and I just don't know what to do, I have posted a thread previously in AIBU, but the issue is still on going and I wanted to get some people's views on how best to deal with this situation.

A bit of history on the story, our new neighbours (dad + 3 DC?s ranging from 8 -12) moved in, in early December and for ages he was doing a lot of DIY, which is fine, but he always seemed to start doing it late in the evening, about 7 or 8 pm and would carry on until gone 11pm. This was causing me a great deal of stress, as we put our DD down to sleep at 8 and with this constant noise she often wouldn't settle well or wake up in the middle of the night because of the noise.

I didn't want to approach our neighbour as I didn't want my first meeting to be me shouting at him to keep it down, and DP made the valid point that it probably wouldn't last long as there's only so much DIY a person can do in a small house.

So I bit my tongue all December and most of January.

A couple of weeks ago, the neighbour popped round during the day and asked DP if we minded him doing some more drilling and DP told him sure but if he could make sure he didn't do it after 8pm as DD was put to bed then. All seemed well until this week when he started drilling on the shared wall at exactly 8pm, and then a few days later started drilling and hammering at 11pm.
Now this in itself was causing me a bit of stress, I probably am letting it get to me more than I should as I work in a very high stress job, so just want to unwind with my DD when I get home and then relax with my DP once she?s gone to bed, instead I find I now just get more and more wound up as soon as he starts his DIY.

This is not the only thing, a couple of weeks ago I assume one of his DD?s was playing up and he started shouting and screaming at her, calling her a little bitch, slamming doors and you could hear stuff being broken, this is at about 10pm, at the time I was a bit concerned, but it has also made me a bit scared to go and approach him, I?m not over reacting it was horrible to listen to and only didn?t call the police because of my DP. This was repeated this last weekend.

And the final straw is my neighbour has now taken to dumping his dirty cups and plates outside on their back lawn ? in clear view of our kitchen and dining room windows. They are removed by mid-afternoon (2-3 ish) but the food is left on the ground and I?m starting to worry about it attracting rats.

I know this has been really long so I thank you for sticking with me so far, but I just don?t know how to handle this, I don?t want to be on bad terms with him as we share a wall, but this stuff is really winding me up and I just find I cannot relax at home anymore. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this?

OP posts:
wellwisher · 14/02/2011 12:08

Do you/your neighbours rent or own? Is it council or private property?

Original poster
newbeemummy · 14/02/2011 12:26

It's a council property - so I guess it's rented through the council - I'm not sure how social housing works. I didn't want to mention it in my original post as I didn't want to be seen to bashing council tenants.

OP posts:
Original poster
newbeemummy · 14/02/2011 12:27

Sorry - we also rent, we've just extended our contract for another year, and we love the area, but can't afford to buy just yet, we had planned to buy this house at the end of the tenancy, but we're really not so sure now.

OP posts:
Original poster
newbeemummy · 14/02/2011 12:28

oh and we rent privately if that make any difference

OP posts:
ellina · 14/02/2011 15:02

I would be inclined to let it go. I can totally understand why you're upset. I just don't know if it's serious enough to fall out with him. I think at some point the DIY will stop. Re food in the garden and family arguments - just don't know if it's going to get you anywhere to complain to council/housing association.

Where we used to live we had problems with some neighbours in flats playing very loud music outside all through the night. Some of the neighbours in our close wrote to Housing Association and the noise stopped, but it caused a lot of bad feeling.

We also complained about a neighbour who was drug dealing and had boarded up all the doors and windows to stop other drug dealers getting to him. He used to bash them off with a hammer at 5am to get out of the house. We did complain to a housing association about him and he was eventually evicted.

He could be replaced with someone worse - is what I'd be worrying about.

Tortington · 14/02/2011 15:08

if you know the housing association you can contact hem directly and complain.

if its a council property ditto

if you dont know or aren't sure - the council can tell you who the landlord is.

thats a the formal method

you could just leae it and hope it stops

you could be uber nice and take him a 'welcome' package, say your sorry it wasn't sooner but you were skint or something, go and have a brew - you can alternatively perhaps 'pop' round to borrow some milk or something - get the relationship going,. hoping that he will be more thoughtful towards you as semi friends

if big n hard enough, your dh can have words Wink

you could fight fire with fire, get up at 5am and put iron maiden on full belt all day

Original poster
newbeemummy · 14/02/2011 16:28

Thanks for you comments - the pacifist in me feels I should just be nice introduce myself politely and hope it will eventually calm down. the stress head (who is currently running my life) feels I should kick his door down and beat him with his drill - quite extreme but at 11pm after one of teh most stressful weeks I'd ever had it seemed a normal thing to do.

I think I'll go for the former and see how we go from there.

DH - is unfortunately not "big" nor scary - so no chance of that route :)

OP posts:
sunnydelight · 07/03/2011 04:41

I worked for CAB for years and it really re-enforced the "hell is other people" thing. Neighbour disputes are horrible; what seems like a little thing can get to the point where it drives you to distraction and ruins your life. I like custy's nice approach and would definitely start there and see how it goes. Bring a cake round and ask how the DIY is going, you might also get some idea of timescale so you will know there is an end in sight.

If that doesn't work then yes, you need to find out who the landlord is and go through them. BUT, and this is the hard bit, once you start complaining officially your neighbour may well take it badly and make your life a lot worse.

SofiaAmes · 07/03/2011 05:13

I really do not understand why you didn't go over there in the first place and say really really nicely that his DIY after 8 was waking up your dd and could he please keep the noisy stuff to before 8. It's pretty unusual to have a load of kids living with their dad with no mom, so maybe there is a reasonable explanation for the behavior with the dishes. I would just ask him nicely if he could keep the noisy stuff happening before 8 and see what happens. I can imagine my dh doing DIY at 10pm and not noticing that it was waking up the neighbors.

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