Outside my house is like a noisy circus....

[Nomorewineever]

Again.
And I am absolutely sick of it.
Every single nice day we have and we just can’t sit indoors with the windows open or outdoors (not a hope!) without the cacophony of other peoples shitty levels of noise. And it’s not just one, it’s most houses, possibly in at attempt to drown out the others they don’t want to hear.

One side is playing music with their kitchen door open and their three dogs, one of whom is a noisy little yapper has yapped endlessly today. And their radio. And yesterday they sat in the garden for 3 hours with a speaker out with them shouting to each other to talk because the music was so loud. Not only do I not want to hear their music but I also don’t want to hear their conversations. Behind them is a house with a radio on in the garden. To the other side of us is a family with two kids who have got some gaming going on with all the windows open, noise and music and a lot of shrieking and swearing. To the back of us is a house where a man who lives alone (and therefore could easily put some headphones on) plays music with a horrendous base sitting on a bench for hour and hours and fucking hours. I’ve spoken to him more than once; he did turn it down but it’s back up again and I really don’t think I should have to go knocking on his door every single time because I’d be there every day it wasn’t raining.

Please please please don’t tell me to go and live in a field - I would love nothing more than that. But we need to be near the city we live on the edges of for work. I feel like we just got back luck. I’ve got friends with similar houses 2/3/4 streets away and they all say they have lovely peaceful gardens. We also had every intention of moving in the next 12 month anyway but now the market is going to be all over the place it probably won’t happen. We’d need to get full value for ours and anyone viewing with this crap going on would run a mile.

Genuinely I don’t foist myself upon people. I don’t want to. I don’t want to annoy people and I like peace. So why do so many people think it’s okay? Why can’t I just have a bit of quiet? Why are people such dickheads?

This is an age old question. Why can't you just behave like a normal person? After spending years trying to compromise with noisy neighbours I gave in and moved. Best decision ever. No one can understand the effect on your mental health, unless you have gone through it. If you can't move, invest in noise cancelling headphones.

I think there will be a number of houses going on sale following lockdown.

I feel you. Same here. Just so, so noisy. We try to be considerate when we have the windows open or are in the garden but for some people it just seems to make them louder.

many people would put pigs to shame, sadly. If you are in earshot of anyone (and most of us are) it is indoor voices, headphones for music (especially if it is doofy-doofy-doof but any music really) and with dogs - train or shoot.

Yep same here, people can be inconsiderate arseholes. My neighbour has just bought an outdoor film projector! Why!! Just watch it indoors like normal people! I think it’s so arrogant that they think the whole street want to listen to the same shit as them.

Yup, absolutely agree - there should be a law that your music should not be able to be heard outside your own property boundaries.

Thank you for answering @poundpup

It’s really affected me. The irony is we live in a detached house. We’ve been here 5 years and moved because we lived in a house with paper thin walls which used to drive us nuts. We thought detached was the answer. But it’s detached and close to other houses which is just not the tranquility I hoped for.

I can’t work out if it’s ignorance that people think we don’t mind hearing their noise, or a ‘care less’ attitude. When it is quiet it’s lovely. The rest of the time less so.

I really don’t know what to do, but I don’t think it’s okay that we have this constant intrusion preventing us from enjoying our small outside space.

And thank you everyone else. What can we do? I’m tempted to pump out opera at 6am but it’s just reducing myself to their level 😔

We moved because of one nightmare neighbour. Best decision ever, and we now live very rurally with very few neighbours as a direct result of that experience. Rural living has its own challenges, but I would never live in a densely populated area again.

We've got a Jack Russell who barks if he hears a leaf fall from a tree 3 counties away. If you live near us please forgive us. You will hopefully have noticed that we ALWAYS make him stop barking as soon as we possibly can, and you will also, I hope, take heart from the fact that he loves his sleep and is asleep most of the time, and definitely from 9pm to 7am sometimes longer.

Well if you were my neighbour @joystir59 then I would. But the relentless yapping every time someone speaks, moves a chair, opens a window or even when my phone rings starts to wear thin after a while. And I’m fairly sure by your mild manner that you therefore won’t have taught your jack russell that every time he wants that ball kicked, he has to bark for it. Whereas my neighbour has. Pavlovian response at its finest. Not.

In my head I’ll put my crochet bikini on, cover myself in glitter, act like the birdbath is the pool and rave for 12 hours tomorrow. Except I won’t.

I’ll just want to drink tea and read my book in peace, maybe do a bit of weeding, crochet, hand feed the robin, listen to the wind in the trees.

Fat. Bloody. Chance.