How do you manage living in a noisy/crime area?

[tiredtrumpet]

I apologise in advance for how long this will be, I will try and sum it up!
A few years ago DH and I bought our first home. We completely renovated it, sold it, and used the profit to buy a house we normally couldn't afford in DH hometown. It's beautiful. It's near good schools. It's a stones throw from natural walks. It's near local amenities, everything in walking distance.
Over the last 2 years, it's become a bit of a nightmare. Our car was badly keyed from some local youths. Rubbish is constantly thrown in our garden. The neighbours at the back have been having constantly parties all summer long. You can hear them in my DC bedroom when he is asleep. A faint thudding of music, people screaming, smashing glasses. There's a drummer at the back, who plays a non soundproofed professional drum kit every day from 4pm until 9pm sometimes. Again it's very audible in my dc room when we are putting him to bed at night.
We sit down for dinner as a family to the sound of drums and it sends me mad.

The area is filled with families which we thought would be a good thing, but the people round here don't seem to care about others, their kids are out screaming (seriously, what's with the screaming) till about 11 at night in the summer in their back yards, tearing up and down the street etc.

Next door (attached) moved in this year and it's awful. They bang, slam run about and SCREAM obscenities at each other. In my DC2 room you can hear everything that comes out that vile woman's mouth. She yells telling the kids she hates them and to fucking leave her alone. This is every single morning at least. Quite often it's at dinner as well so as well as sitting down to the sound of drums we are hearing next door slamming doors and screaming. I've considered phoning SS because the content is so bad.

Regular drilling and noisy work at 7am, it's not a massive problem but just shows how little people seem to care around here about others.

There's regular police cars getting smashed only a few streets away, and this week there was a mass brawl at the end of my street with over 100 youths that made the papers.
I was up at 4am today because there was someone outside shouting to be let in to the house across the road, not the resident, someone very dodgy looking.

I think I'm short it's turned out to be the wrong decision, the wrong thing to do for our family, which is a bit hard to swallow.

DH doesn't want to move due to expense, the fact we wouldn't get a house as beautiful as this in a nice area and the upheaval for the DC. He's slowly had enough though.

We can't move for about two years as we are paying off a loan that we got when we moved to this place, and I don't, for my own mental health, know how to cope with all this racket and crime.

Has anyone been through this that has tips on how to cope, or how to pay off debt fast so we can leave?

Is it worth truly spreading ourselves super thin to get a nicer area?

I feel like it's all consuming and I'm just sat waiting for the next party to start or hoping the drummer has broken his arm

RosaWaiting

I live in a close and my car was in the private parking bays behind the blocks of flats. The guy spent two days going over every street, private car park, cul de sac and driveway.

Apparently he didn't slash a car that was in a disabled bay though, so he's not all bad

Neighbour noise nuisance is a very real issue www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publication/sick-of-noise-the-health-effects-of-loud-neighbours-and-urban-din/

Unfortunately as the people who are supposed to deal with these types of issues (politicians) are unlikely to ever have to deal with the antisocial noise themselves, I suspect that any change will be a long time coming, my local council & housing association were just not interested & as soon as I became aware I'd have to declare this when selling my house I withdrew my complaints...... it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better (if it ever does) because the authorities just don't seem to want to deal with the issue, meanwhile loud music, DIY at inappropriate times, yipping dogs 24/7, loud screaming parents & their loud screeching kids, low level vandalism and crime will become the norm.... It also makes you stop trusting people who live near you, even though most of them are probably ok ..... it just makes you want to go off & live on a deserted island doesn't it?

“it just makes you want to go off & live on a deserted island doesn't it?”

It really does.

@LilyR2019 yes I want to go off and live in the middle of nowhere. It's made me second guess everyone around me regardless of wether or not they have made noise.

I was woken at 6.50am by next door (the screamers) hammering. I was hanging out the back window, nightie on, hair disheveled waiting to catch a glimpse of him in the garden so I could scream at him to shut the fuck up (he's building a huge hut/shed thing at the end of the garden).

And that's how I started my day

As Lily says, entitlement is a real issue. I live in a very desirable bit of London but have issues with youngsters having parties or being loud in their gardens and being bolshy when challenged. Here there are lots of renters and people work very long hours in the city so there just isn’t much caring about neighbours which makes me sad.

I previously lived in a very rough bit of London but there was a core of neighbours who really looked out for each other and the junkies would apologise and promise to move on soon! I remember the gang kids offering to help us shift some furniture upstairs. I think middle class entitlement can make people behave badly so there can be and people wherever

Not the answer that you want but we have snapped and are moving. Last straw was the communal bike shed being broken into by local kids and wrecking our bikes. We're waiting to exchange and it is killing me. I need to be out of here and feel safe and relaxed walking around outside my own home.

We get regular fly tips- everyone thinks that the best way to get rid of old furniture/mattressess when moving or decorating is to dump.it outside on communal space. The uncleared dog shitting. Loud music at all times of the day. Frequent antisocial BBQs outside flat windows. The smell of cannabis. Scratched cars.

I was living in a desirable area with noise and crime problems. I thought I couldn't afford to move then it got to the stage I couldn't take any more so I decided I had to find a way of moving.

My mortgage was portable. I moved from a desirable area where everything is in walking distance to a very quiet estate that is not very near anything except a large park. My new place is a bit smaller and cost less than my old one so I had the money to cover all the moving costs and we are so much happier. A million times happier. It is quiet and peaceful, no noise, no litter, don't feel scared of neighbours.