Can you hear your neighbours

[AlwaysSomethingThere]

Those of you in semi or terraced. How much activity can you hear through your walls? Screaming kids, barking dogs, slamming doors, music etc. I'm looking for a house (unfortunately my budget doesn't stretch to a detached house on an island with a moat, a 12 foot fence and a drawbridge) and the first thing I do on viewings is pin my ear to the party wall as I'm so terrified I'll end up with a shit neighbour.

I suffer with anxiety and EXTREME misophonia so I find it very hard to judge when it's me being irrational or them being inconsiderate.

Interested to hear the measure of what other people think \ have to cope with?

1950s semi, concrete walls. I too am very sensitive to noise and I'm moving because I can't stand the noise from next door any longer.

Hammering up and down the stairs, dogs barking constantly when left alone in the house for hours, teenagers learning electric guitar, DIY till 10:30pm, random noisy garden parties till 3am, playstation with surround sound and bass turned right up, slamming doors, plus no carpets in (adjoining) hallway and on stairs. Shouting at each other, music on loud at random times, music on in the garden in the summer.

I can even hear them in the far end of the house because the noise travels through the cavity wall. It's made me so anxious that I am now really worried about my next house being the same.

I lived in an 1860's terrace. I wouldn't recommend that.

We used to live in a new build and didn't hear a thing. Now we are in a mid terrace built in 1905, I naively thought it would be the same due to thick walls but oh how wrong I was!

Semi built in early 1900s and lived here for 20 years with same neighbour.
I once heard the (then) teenage daughter playing Phil Collins in her bedroom, and last night their adult son came round and I heard him sneeze. It must have been a doozy 😂
That's it other than hearing their dog occasionally when he's outside.
The walls are very thick though

I live in a 25 year old semi - can occasionally hear DIY, but nothing else.

1970s terrace woman on one side hear her tv and dog constantly yapping other side couple with child about 4 id say always rowing slamming doors thank god they go out a lot so we only have to manage small doses of that

1950 middle terrace. I can hear both sides. It's pretty bad. But then I have three teenagers so they will hear loads of noise from us. I am surprised at people with older houses with bad noises as I always thought a Victorian house would be more soundproof

I’m in a 1970s semi and we can hear most things. I’m upstairs at the moment and I can hear her hairdryer as I type this.

My neighbours are lovely tho and we are both careful to keep the noise to a minimum after about 7pm. We have 2 small dc so I expect they here us more than we hear them.

A detached is the only way to ensure you don’t hear neighbours I’m afraid

1930s semi, had a lovely couple next door who we only heard when their grandson was over.
Then new family moved in, the mum worked nights and dad didn't do bedtimes so they would sit up screaming and singing at 1am etc. My heart would sink when I saw her go off to work as I knew we wouldn't get any sleep.
Thankfully we've moved and live in a detached house now. I'd say if you don't want to hear people's noise then a detached house is the only way to go.
All the other houses I've lived in I've heard noises but I've liked my neighbours and it hasn't bothered me.
The last family were horrible people and hearing them constantly made me feel constantly stressed.

We live in a semi built in 1989. It's surprisingly well soundproofed. We barely ever hear our neighbours. Sometimes if we're in the kitchen simultaneously we can hear them closing a cupboard, and sometimes we hear them open or close the sliding patio doors, but otherwise nothing. We have a 13 month old who cries a lot and they say they never hear him.

Our first house was a 1910 terrace, I had lived in one previously with solid walls so mistakenly assumed this would be the same. We could watch tv with the sound off the neighbours tv was so loud. It was miserable. We moved to a 1950’s semi, asked during viewing if they could hear the neighbours, they lied. We could hear them in every room in our house-no escape. I’m talking sneezing, opening the cutlery drawer, having sex cutlery on the plates (yes, they could probably hear us too) AND they got up at 5am every bloody morning but still watched TV at full blast until 11pm. I was on their verge of total breakdown.

We Totally overstretched ourselves financially and moved to a wreck of a detached house that we can’t afford to do up but It’s bliss. It took over a year to stop feeling they were just the other side of the wall waiting for the noise to start.

Can’t speak for terraced, but we live in an Edwardian semi-detached with an adjoining wall which is only the width of a brick thick. That said, it’s fine because there’s only one actual room adjoining - the rest is just hallway (and the downstairs loo), so it’s completely fine. Sometimes hear the neighbours in the hall but once you’re in a room, not a peep. So I think layout is important too..

Tbh I would have expected new builds to have better insulation than older properties, but I guess that depends on the builders. We're in a 1930s semi and had an elderly neighbour living alone. I could hear switches being pressed on the party wall of the living room, and I could make out her TV. I think that was because her hearing was starting to go so she had it turned up a bit louder? But that was all I heard from her, couldn't hear anything else ever. She sadly died and her DD lives there now with her partner. I can hear their indoor cat miaowing first thing in the morning, and have heard - quite faintly - a TV in one bedroom. I heard them once both shouting at the cat - maybe he started to wee on the rug or something - and that's been it for them. They are very pleasant people and I hope they don't move! I don't know how much they can hear of us, probably me yelling to DS to get a move on (until I remember the neighbours ) and definitely DS's cornet practice...

Previous house was a terrace from the same era. Could hear neighbour on one side a lot, although it was our halls and stairs adjoining; he was just quite loud, although a really nice neighbour for all that. Other side's living room was separated from ours by a gunnel - a passage through from the front of the houses to the back - and I could still hear them watching football in their living room. Every time something significant happened there were loud screaming roars of joy or fury, could never tell which. They also were unaware I had had a baby until they passed me in our road with a pram, so I guess they had never heard any crying.

Previous house, late 60s estate build. We were there 13 years with a variety of tenants next door.

1 Okay, barring teenage kid playing loud music from end of school until parents came home (worked FT back then so only experienced it when off sick).
2 Couple with baby. Obviously babies cry, understandable but still disturbing at 2am. Didn’t stay long.
3 Party people. Nice lot, but loud. Once had one half of the actual Weather Girls at a party singing Its Raining Men.
Intermission - house was empty for a year when DD was a baby. Sometimes great - no one for us to disturb with her crying, no one to disturb us - sometimes a pain - owner took the opportunity to do lots of noisy dusty construction work over the summer of my mat leave.
4 Family with two daughters, there for nine years. Loud parties. Two barking dogs. Screaming fights when the girls hit their teens. Dad yelling and slamming doors (all the fucking doors) after the pub. Telly, plugs, the lot.

It was a mirror image semi with living areas and main bedrooms next to each other. Made worse by next door having the living and dining rooms knocked through with laminate flooring. Ugh.

Solid 30s semi, but very loud neighbours!
If the teenage NDNDS is home he plays his music so loudly we can hear the words through two brick walls and a room away.
Goodness knows how loud it must be next door!
I have found a method of getting him to turn it down, I put my speakers to the party wall and play classical music for a couple of minutes until their music stops.
I can hear their dog, their arguments, NDNDD's temper tantrums (she's 9 so should really have grown out of them by now), they seem to live their lives at top volume.
I doubt they've ever heard anything from us though, despite teenage DCs we're a quiet family.

We stay in a semi detached farm house cottage with nothing but fields for miles, neighbour is elderly and deaf so only annoyance is his dog which barks at all hours of night for an hour at time, 3 am the other day! But other wise don’t hear a peep it’s blissful

I’m in an old terrace (not sure how old, but definitely Victorian if not older). It’s small but the walls are thick, we can hear some noise but it’s very muffled and doesn’t bother us.

When in halls my neighbour asked me what I was reading one morning as she could hear me turning pages into the early morning!

I am in a semi and as I post this I can hear my neighbour's grandchild visiting next door and peoples voices talking to her word for word. I used to be detached and I find it really intrusive, however there is nothing to do but suck it up unfortunately.

We're in a row of terraced cottages, but they are nearly 200 years old so have thick stone walls.
We can hear very little of our neighbours as our walls are so thick which is just as well as DS is a guitar maniac

Victorian Terrace and we very rarely hear our neighbours - only when we're in the garden in the summer.

Interesting thread but from reading it would appear that no semi / terrace of a particular era comes out tops. Having recently moved I am shocked by how much day to day noise I can hear. When viewing it was a worry about finding myself having to live with other peoples noise, but as has already been said on here you can ask the vendor the question but they will never admit to living with neighbours noise. I do not think there is any solution unless you ask to spend the weekend in a prospective house to gauge it for yourself, but that is never going to happen. I have lived in an Edwardian semi, doors in the middle so that reduced the noise you could hear from the living area. However the bedrooms were a different story as I could be asleep in bed and be startled by them walking in to their own bedroom and yes the early morning cupboard drawers slamming and the loud sex. Living in a terrace I do not recall hearing the neighbours but I think both sets were elderly, although one played the organ! When you live in a detached I think from experience you take the peace for granted.

20 year old Townhouse/Terrace - no noise at all

Detached house. My ex neighbours were very, very noisy and completely destroyed my pleasure in using my back garden and even the back rooms of my house. The noise was so intrusive, way beyond normal conversation. The new neighbours are lovely. I hardly ever hear them. So it's not the house, it's the people.

I am surprised that new houses do so well, my 15 year old house is much improved on the Edwardian town house I owned 25 years ago.

My detached houses without neighbours in the intervening 20 years didn’t have neighbour noise either but that isn’t what the OP is asking!

Built in 1928, Terrace
Solid walls throughout.
Cannot hear new born or toddler or their dog.
Really lucky