What if you're the crappy neighbour?

[Everynow]

We're pissing our neighbours off. We're link detached with our garages. Their garage has been extended and half converted to be a dining room. The rear of our garage is being turned into a utility room. This wall adjoins their dining room wall. Consequently they can hear everything being done in our utility room. They have complained twice that I know of - possibly more to our builder. We have apologised and it won't go on for much longer but I don't know if I should offer some wine or similar as a peace offering. DP thinks that's unnecessary. We've apologised. We informed them of the work and it is only being done on weekdays between 8-5.

The issue is when lockdown is lifted a bit more and the builder can come in the house we're having more work done and they are fairly big projects. However the rest of the house is detached so hopefully won't cause too much annoyance for them but I don't want to fall out permanently. We have to all live here. What would you do if you were me or what would you expect if you were our neighbours?

it depends what you’re doing in your utility room, i guess. it’s a weird room to make a complaint about. it’s like complaining about next door’s airing cupboard.

Sorry I mean the work has been pretty noisy and they can hear it in their house. The work is just turning it into a useable space for us. We won't be making much noise in the utility room once the works complete. Just usual noise.

You’re hardly being crappy!! Work between 8-5 is fine. Did they make noise when they extended their garbage? Undoubtedly.

If your utility was is adjoining their dining room you might want to think where you place white goods because if the washer/dryer is against the wall they may start complaining about the noise whenever the machines spin.

How long has it been going on for and how long will it continue for? Is the noise just work noise or is it shouting and a loud radio as well?

If it's going on for more than a month and your builders are noisy fuckers then I think wine (or chocolate) might be necessary!

The washing machine is on an internal wall so hopefully shouldn't be an issue. The last owners had theirs there too. The whole house is a DIY bodge job so we're slowly correcting it. They haven't mentioned any washing machine noise thankfully. The work in total will take about 6 weeks. Lockdown put a stop to it for a few weeks. The builder listens to Jeremy Vine. I don't think anyone can be overly offended can they? But no he isn't shouting or anything.

We are 100% ‘the crappy neighbour’. My dh is
Smoking weed outside every day from mid afternoon to evening. Our children are loud and I’m trying to discipline them to a back round of Heart fm! Luckily our neighbours are far (village) cottages detached somnolent cares!

If you’re worried about washing machine noise you can get thick rubber matting to set the machine on top of so it absorbs the vibrations and reduces noise.

6 weeks of 8-5 noise when you're stuck at home wouldn't make me very chipper tbh. They'll just have to put with it though won't they - if they'd left their garage as it was then it wouldn't be troubling them would it?!

It's a bit silly of them to have converted an adjoining garage to a dining room. Even if you left your garage as a garage and a tually used it, there would be frequent, long term noise. Could they complain then? It's their house so they can obviously do what they want. But they're suffering the consequences of abad choice.

When we had an extension done we got our next door neighbours a bunch of flowers for her and some chocolates for him. Just for them having to put up with building noise, dust/mess and the inconvenience of building work vans etc.

They are maybe trying to work from home or maybe they are just complainers. Our other side adjoining neighbours are starting a big extension in a couple of weeks I am dreading that starting as I am shielding and DH and I and the teen kids are all trying to work from home (this is likely to be the case until September).

@MoonBaby1 you think it's acceptable for your partner to be smoking weed when you have kids at home?

How long did their conversion take, bet it wasn’t done in a day. I presume it was before you moved in so you don’t know. But they are a bit hypocritical if they think their transformation from garage to dining room was silent!

It would be nice to give them some chocs or whatever and let them know the estimated start and finish dates again after lockdown. If they get shirty just refer them to when theirs got done.