Spidookly, Riven, Evildead, Chocolatesanta & MrsNonSmoker - please come and live in my street anytime. I love you :)
I think posters are split into two camps. One who believes that everyone should have the right to live peacefully in their own home at all times. That's me. And the other, who believes that everyone has the right to do as they like in their own home, whether or not that impacts on neighbours.
I don't mean to imply that those of you in the second camp think that it's okay to have noisy parties all the time. I accept what many of you (purepurple, Mrsschadenfreude, valhalla etc. say - that 'it's only once a year'. And I can, or course, live with that. But, without making it a life-or-death matter, I still think that loud music till 4am once a year is unreasonable. I don't think it's unreasonable to have a party in your house (in fact 2 of our neighbours' other non-resident children had parties in the same week - but parents didn't go away, music wasn't loud, and party finished at a reasonable time). We were completely fine with that.
So rudolf, I don't expect him to cut his party short because I'm pg. I expect him to cut it short/turn it down because I am a human being who lives next door. The fact I have small children and am pg should perhaps make him more considerate, but if I was single, I still deserve to sleep in my own home.
rockinrobin, ewe, hatesponge etc. - it seems to me more unreasonable that my whole family should have to go somewhere else for the night, than that his party should be restrained. We have no family nearby, and taking very small children elsewhere - where? a hotel? - for a night is hardly the recipe for sleep. It's our home. We live in a residential area on the edge of a town - lots of pubs/bars/clubs only 15mins walk away. I think that those who want to party loudly all night are well-served there.
laquitar - no, I don't have parties at home. Friends round sometimes yes, but not loud music to late hours. I don't agree with your point that I don't work. I do work. I worked (in my job) all day on NYE, and I worked (taking care of kids) all day on NYD. I am entitled to a night's sleep in between.
Skyswept and others. I take your point that our small children may be audible next door. As I said in my previous post, I do ask neighbours about that every so often and have been told there's no problem. If there is, I'd do what I can about it. In our previous house, we asked our neighbour who said he could hear our newborn crying at night sometimes. I realised that the nappy change area was right against his bedroom wall - so moved it and neighbour was happy. He was a big DIY fanatic, & sometimes woke baby up from naps with DIY, but always stopped making noise before 8pm, so we both felt the other was making concessions.
Sorry, very long post, but wanted to respond to people. Hope I have not misrepresented anyone's views. In case anyone's interested in outcome, I have mentioned the lateness/loudness/impact on us in an email to parents. I take bicnod's and others' views that email is easily misconstrued. But neighbours and I tend to communicate about house-related stuff by email - in fact that's how they told us there was going to be a party. And I needed to write an email to them anyway, with details of a friend who's offering some help with something they asked about. I haven't made a big deal of it, just let them know what happened. I also said that we should have telephoned at the time, but didn't, so it's more for future info than doing anything about it.
My first AIBU post. I feel like I have completed an initiation rite...