What are your neighbours like?

[Sweetchocolatecandy]

We live in a terraced house, the neighbours on our left are a lovely older couple who we (my partner and I) always say hello to and have a chat with if we’re in the garden at the same time. However our neighbours on our right are an awful family who are always outside in their garden screaming and swearing at their kids and are really just horrible. We have low fencing on either side and it’s difficult to avoid them but I feel like I can’t even bring myself to even smile at them. Is that really bad of me? What are your neighbours like?

Neighbour to the right always slam their kitchen door going in and out of the garden, sometimes they are in and out a few times in space of 10 mins - why not just leave the door open! They also talk super loud and love to have phone calls at 7am in the garden with loudspeaker on and you can hear the entire conversation word for word.

What makes it worse is their voices are super annoying. Sound like chavs.

Upstairs are a twentysomething couple, very friendly and polite and were great when our ceiling leaked recently. DH is v sensitive to noise though so moans a bit about them but they’re honestly not bad at all except for being a bit heavy-footed! Plus they go to bed earlier than us so nice and quiet! In my opinion anyway.

Next door - parents and three children under ten, haven’t really interacted with dad, mum doesn’t speak much English but we smile and nod and say hi. Kids are v polite. They’re also hilarious to hear playing in the garden, the stories they play out. And the eldest is always telling his siblings they’re grounded if they annoy him, as if they listen

Mid-terrace.

One side is a rental property. Current tenants are a pretty quiet professional couple - no kids but a lovely dog. Other side is a single man in his 50's. He's okay, but a bit prone to thinking he's the local squire and we'll all do what he thinks is best for the street. We mostly humour him because he never follows through on any of his grand schemes.

Other than that, a good mix of lifelong residents, and incomers. Only one problem household - 3 brothers. The eldest is a saint and the youngest is his own worst enemy but pretty harmless. The middle brother is a prick who the entire street wishes were dead. Mostly due to the cavalcade of street drinkers and junkies he hangs around with and encourages to call to the house at all hours. Thankfully, there's half a dozen houses between us so I'm spared the worst of it.

I think we've got the nicest neighbours we've ever had, and I don't say that lightly. We have a lovely couple next door - when we moved in, they gave us a bottle of wine and flowers. When my cat did a runner, he printed out posters on his printer, went door to door with all the houses for two streets, and put up posters, to help find her. Then we have Mum of Man with a Van - they're absolutely gorgeous. And then we have young couple with the most gorgeous wee dot. On the other side, we have a just retired chap, who has recently moved in, and invited us to drinks to meet some other fellas that we hadn't met yet.

I do think that neighbours are friendlier in the UK. We had lovely neighbours in NZ, (mostly, we had some epic disasters), but we just got so lucky here.

Very lovely but... Far too friendly on the one side always head over the fence and leaning on it to chat. Had to put a trellis and plant a thorny bush and it can't grow quick enough!
Other side let you have your privacy thankfully but annoying by random pottering about noises by the man, chopping wood far too close to the house IMHO etc and kitchen door always open in the summer so always hear the clinking and clanking of the dishwasher being loaded etc... so although detached it feels like a terraced house! Buy nothings ever perfect!

I'm sure I'm just as irritating at times!

CFs and massively two faced. Always say they're there for you when it's always just used as leverage too stop you complaining about their stupid behaviour.

Quiet.

Which is lovely.

The problem of neighbors is terrible And the saddest thing is that most often it is impossible to guess with whom life will have to be so before buying an apartment or house.

I live in a mid terrace. One side is a late 30s couple who are generally very quiet. They have a lovely staffy dog who likes to say hi when I am in my garden. Their house is sold STC though, and I am kind of worried about who will be replacing them.

The other side is a single mother and her teen boy. Both shout and swear at each other all the time. The lad absolutely shouts the house down when he is losing at computer games. They recently got a puppy who they are "training" by shouting at it too. The mum is a ,massive gossip. I am always hearing her talking about every little thing I am doing, most of it absolutely untrue. Not once has she actually spoken to me or asked how I am (I have MH issues so nurses, police, ambulance coming to me is not uncommon).

Don't know yet, they moved in last night!

Hopefully better than the last one!

Have a medical practice on the other side, which is fab as obviously no noise after hours and very little during the day.

We live in a cul-de-sac of 20 houses. Everyone friendly and on talking terms. We have two lovely ladies opposite and one next to us - in all fairness the lady next to us is genuine and I'm sure she'd do anything to help, but we both find her really boring - I've tried making conversation, trying to draw her out of herself, get to know her better, but it hasn't worked - so to be honest if we know she's out the front, we don't go out. Her DH is lovely, very chatty, we always have a joke.

We got on very well without previous neighbours who we shared a drive with, but moved six years ago (I'd rather their garden which was covered in homegrown flowers and veggies while on holiday, in return they'd feed and look after our cats even going in to sit with them). We don't see so much of eachother with covid, but still have eachothers house keys, drop off birthday cards etc.

I had decent neighbors everywhere for years. We are quiet and do not bother with neighbors.

My favourite house was a terrace and had two elderly neighbors each side. One was really quite horrid but quiet and one became a dear friend. She moved into a home and then we had students.

We moved into the house from hell. One side not attached played loud music 10 hours a day every day, a smelly hot tub, parties throughout lockdown and would regularly shout at each other how much money they had, their holidays, how much things cost. The other side attached woke me at least 2 nights a week with screaming and shouting from 1, 2 or 3am for hours. She thought I was unreasonable to complain at 8am because it woke her. Neither side liked any noise not of their own making. We also had a neighbor the next street away at the back and they could be heard at the front of our street.

We are now in an apartment building and I get annoyed if upstairs are loud. The apartment building across has occasional loud music and shouting but also has a shouty man to tell them to shut up.

It is comforting how most of you have decent neighbors.

It's a real mixed bag on my street. Mixture of owned and rented. I'm in a semi, the house attached to mine is a rental but currently empty. I own my house. The bloke next door on the other side also owns and is nice, he's single and lives alone, works early shifts.

The house directly opposite mine is a house share and one of the tenants sells drugs so there's often some drama going on. Further down the street are a man and woman who are alcoholics and have an abusive relationship, always screaming and shouting at each other.

Mine on either side are smashing. I don't know anybody else further along the road. I don't have much to do with them now but when our kids were young, they socialised a lot. I keep myself to myself and don't bother them, rarely hear them, but if I needed help with anything they would step up immediately. Good people.

Can you build a higher fence or a wall, or set up some screening? You'll still hear your horrible neighbours but won't see them. When the weather changes you'll hear less of them.

What is it with people shouting and swearing at their kids? That's far worse than children laughing and playing in the garden, I'd hate it. You have my sympathy.