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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to sit in my garden on a sunny weekend and listen to the birds rather than lawn mowers, shredders, chainsaws and other noisy machinery?

42 replies

apprenticemum · 15/05/2011 01:39

It' been a lovely spring and theres nothing better than a coffee, book and deckchair in the garden but the racket these blasted machines kick up make me sooooo mad. I know gardens need tending but perhaps there should be an arrangement where machinery can only be used between the hours of noon - 7pm on Saturday and 7am - noon on Sunday so that peace can reign for part of the day.

OP posts:
Gooseberrybushes · 15/05/2011 01:41

Tis spring that's why, wait a few weeks and it will be much quieter

I think the idea about noise restriction is a good one.

Tenalady · 15/05/2011 01:41

Ha ha I feel your pain. Jolly old England doesnt get much good weather but when it does we are out there doing all the jobs we know we cant get done tomorrow. Another irritation of mine is that when you get your washing out to dry, some neighbour thinks its good to have a bbq.!

Gooseberrybushes · 15/05/2011 01:47

There's something I find quite appealing about it though. I love the idea of everybody out in their gardens doing the same thing. Currently we have fencing, shed building, cement mixing and shredding going on in neighbouring gardens. Everybody's having massive sheds built, big enough to live in.

AgentZigzag · 15/05/2011 01:48

We've had a little woodpecker having a go at the tree over the road in the morning.

Twatting noisy featherd fucker Grin

Definately prefer him to the sound of machinery though.

AgentZigzag · 15/05/2011 01:50

Especially love the fact that I'm relaxing in the garden while the neighbours are nackering themselves out working in theirs gooseberry Grin

Bigglewinkle · 15/05/2011 01:53

In Germany when I was little, it used to be illegal to mow your lawn on a sunday so you got some peace!

Gooseberrybushes · 15/05/2011 01:53

heh heh am planning huge shed for the summer so when they are bbq ing in their perfect gardens my builders will get my revenge for me

Gooseberrybushes · 15/05/2011 01:54

in belgium still is, you can't mow on a sunday and boy do the belgian neighbours let you know about it

i mean, you know, quite right too and all

diabolo · 15/05/2011 06:49

I moved to the middle of nowhere because I love peace and quiet. Only 1 house nearby, BUT, he has wired up his garden for sound and has music blaring away from 9am til 9pm every nice day.

I wouldn't mind garden machinery, but WTF has this man moved to the country for?

Drives me crazy

fartingfran · 15/05/2011 06:54

I quite like it tbh, everyone beavering away. Sound of summer, innit? OP, have you got a lawn, and if so how do you cut it - scissors? Grin

MumdiddyMum · 15/05/2011 07:20

tell me about it. My neighbour spent almost all of last saturday jet washing EVERYTHING. Decking, driveway, car, brickwork, teenage children etc I was ready to give him a colonic with that *** thing.

ChippingIn · 15/05/2011 07:31

Diabolo - he moved to the country because all of his suburban neighbours told him that's where he should go if he wanted to play music like that Grin I do really feel for you, it's bad enough in suburbia being forced to listen to other peoples music - but if you're out in the country with only one neighbour your expectation of peace and quiet is quite justified :( Have you tried talking to him? Maybe he doesn't realise how far the noise music is travelling?

I don't mind gardening noise or even building/renovating noise really - it's just life going on around you - but if the same people are constantly playing their music so you can hear it, that does annoy me after a while because they're doing it for fun/their enjoyment with no consideration for others.

springydaffs · 15/05/2011 07:45

oh now you've hit a nerve!

I just can't work out when would be best to get out the noisey machinery and had planned to use the hedge-trimmer today as I was out all day yesterday and the hedges look terrible. Should I use the hedge trimmer on a sunday? I should start a thread.

springydaffs · 15/05/2011 07:48

where did that e come from

compo · 15/05/2011 07:53

Er you're suggesting using noisy machinery at 7am on a Sunday morning?!? Not everyone has little kids that wake up that early you know

greenlime · 15/05/2011 07:54

Lots of housing in the UK - it's just simply too tightly packed and this is just one of the consequences. (I'm including my own in this statement!).

greenlime · 15/05/2011 07:55

Oh and just to add, if I used a mower at 7am on a Sunday, my neighbours would go BESERK!!

greenlime · 15/05/2011 07:55

Understandably.

WidowWadman · 15/05/2011 08:01

I rather listen to machinery noise than JLS on full whack (as played by my neighbours' kids every bleeding weekend)

FellatioNelson · 15/05/2011 08:28

Well YANBU to wish for that, but unfortunately the only way for our environs to look pleasantly manicured and well kept and loved is to DO all that stuff. I sometimes stand and listen it it going on around me at weekends as well (my DH and his bloody thousand decibel leaf blower and strimmer are the worst Grin) but the road would look the worse for not having them.

Maybe there should be some kind of loud machinery amnesty from 12 noon onward on a Sunday or something.

echt · 15/05/2011 08:34

Ah there's noise and there's noise. My cross-the-road neighbour mows his nature strip (fnarr fnarr) with an old mechanical mower which has a mellifluous whirr.

I can't bear the fecking leaf blowers which the oldies use to blow away possum shit. Sweep it up and put it on the flower beds. Sorted.

loubielou31 · 15/05/2011 08:40

Like Belgium, Germany also has the no noise on a Sunday rule, also over lunch time and after I think 7pm during the week. There are times when it's a pain because the lawn needs mowing and it's the only time you've got but can't do it. Generally it's lovely because the peace and quiet it maintained and even during the week I the baby gets peace for her nap.
(You're also not allowed to hang your washing on the line on a Sunday.)

iscream · 15/05/2011 08:42

If anyone mixed their lawn at & am, I'd be annoyed. My husband doesn't get home from work until 2 am, it would be the middle of the night for him. There are a lot of shift workers around here though, so nobody does that, usually.

iscream · 15/05/2011 09:02

Mowed, I mean.

beesimo · 15/05/2011 09:04

THE jOY OF NATURE

We had the second hard hard winter here last year and by Spring I'd just about had it, the water courses were hard frozen and we were having to get up at 3.30 or rather DH and the lads were to see the stock were watered as well as fed. You expect a week or two of it but not week and weeks. My DSs couldn't ride out and we couldn't even get off the property. Everyone was getting mardy with each other and B was sick to her back teeth.

Then one dark cold morning lying in bed, tears of self pity rolling down my face oh my God not another bloody day of it, the hark what is that a poor little bird twittering away to its sad and mournful self for a minute or so, he stops for awhile to listen -totally silence, is he the only bird to survive the winter this happens twice then on the third time of asking another little bird starts her song. First bird goes berserk with joy and the pair of them sing their little hearts out for the next 5 minutes.

Beesimo starts to laugh through her tears swings her legs out of bed and say 'thank you God for the birds that sing'.

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