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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be furious that neighbour put letter through door at 5am complaining about dd crying..?

470 replies

cheaperthantherapy · 27/09/2011 09:03

i need some perspective I think... Am 12 weeks pg, so hormones contributing to irrational emotions -AIBU....

We moved to new house in July, semi detached in London. Poor dd, 14 mo, has been unsettled since move and has woken up average twice a night crying. I soothe and put her back down within 15 mins. The past week she's been teething and waking screaming 6 times a night. So I have get in with me to quickly calm and try teething gel.

Last night 5am our neighbour (mid 20s woman) put a letter through our door saying she is fed up with dd crying, she has gone to doc for medication, and asking if she needs to move to get sleep...

My reaction was to write a note back suggesting in an offended and grumpy tone that she clearly has more issues if she needs to see doc because of crying baby and recommended she buy earplugs (I attached a packet of ear plugs for her).

Dh didn't let me put the note in her door - but am still fuming... AIBU?

OP posts:
Andrewofgg · 28/09/2011 12:49

Come off it Genevieve - I will don my heatproof jacket and say that if a dog is a nuisance to neighbours there are means of getting rid of the nuisance that day.

You cannot compare dogs to children. Children are what we are here for, they are entitled to love and protection. Dogs are just pets and compared to children the don't bloody matter!

Which does not mean that I do not sympathise with the neightbour who needs her sleep. What OP can and should do has been pointed out upthread and needs no repetition from me. But don't compare dogs to children or indeed adults like that.

IWillOnlyEatBeans · 28/09/2011 13:57

I think I disagree with the majority (only read 2 pages) but I don't think you are BU. TBH it sounds like your DD might be exacerbating an existing problem rather than causing a new one (if that makes sense). I live in a similar set up to you. Baby next door would cry lots in the night (in room next to ours) - but I quickly learnt to tune it out and sleep through it.

However, I do agree that talking f2f is better than sending a note back.

Hope you manage to get a resolution soon.

IWillOnlyEatBeans · 28/09/2011 13:58

by the existing problem - I mean your neighbour might be having trouble sleeping anyway, which is being made worse by the crying (not an existing problem between you and your neighbour).

piprabbit · 28/09/2011 16:03

I think the reason that the OP annoyed some people a little is that she posted about being furious to have received a note from her neighbour.

If I had been the OP, I would have been posting about being mortified to have received such a note.

Tempingmaniac · 28/09/2011 16:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

kerrymumbles · 28/09/2011 17:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TakeThisOneHereForAStart · 28/09/2011 17:59

We don't actually know the content of the note, the OP didn't post it word for word. And in her first post she doesn't call it confrontational or extreme or anything else.

The OP also admits that her own hormones may have made her own reaction to it irrational, so perhaps what she does say about the note's content is coloured slightly by her own interpretation of it.

And the OP's husband thought her response was wrong and stopped her from retaliating with a "offended and grumpy" reply, complete with some earplugs she just happened to have handy, so he can't have thought the note or the neighbour was in the wrong.

Plus the OP has said she has already apologised to certain neighbours but not others and has accepted that she does at least owe this particular neighbour an explanation.

We don't know one single thing about this neighbour, we don't know if she is ill or has a difficult job, if she is going through a hard time for some reason, if she has covered her own house in egg box insulation and tried earplugs before she complained or if she is just a moaning cow who hates babies. Or for all we know she has lost a baby herself and finds it hard to listen to someone else's child cry. We don't know. So it's not fair to judge her on the basis of her note, as even the OP believes she herself overreacted to it.

All we do know that the OP says the neighbour has kept quiet for weeks, without complaining, and has seen the problem get worse with no explanation for it. She hasn't complained at the first bit of a noise, she's complained after weeks and weeks of escalating noise through out the night. And as we don't know exactly what the note said, we don't know if it's tone was desperate rather than angry or even jokey rather than aggressive or rude.

As someone said up-thread (think it was KerryMumbles), if you know you are causing your neighbour distress and disturbance, even if it is something as natural as a crying baby (toddler in the case of the OP's child, not a newborn) then you should at the very least apologise and try to do something to stop that disturbance.

And in this case, when the noise is a crying child, it's not unreasonable for the suggestions to include the OP trying to insulate the wall in some way, move the baby away from the party wall or look into the possibility of medical help to stop her baby from suffering so much pain. It's not like anyone has suggested she gag her child, they've suggested wall hangings and changing bedrooms and a quick trip to the doctor to see if the OP's child might have an ear infection rather than teething problems.

Which isn't a bad idea considering I thought my LO was teething this week and it has turned out to be a throat infection he is now taking medication for. I took him to the doctor today, following two disturbed nights, nobody laughed me out of the surgery and we just might have caught his infection before his tonsils turned septic (as the doctor so nicely put it). And yes, this morning I did ask my neighbour if we disturbed him and he said no.

BerylStreep · 28/09/2011 19:37

Takethisonehereforastart - thank you for such a measured and sensible post.

Smile
ilovesprouts · 28/09/2011 19:43

she needs to get a grip babys cant help crying bet shes glad my ds2 not in the roon hes screams every nite but he has sn tho :)

RIZZ0 · 28/09/2011 19:55

She's gone you monkeys!!!

This thread is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet it's maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace!
'It's metabolic processes are now 'istory! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off it's mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-THREAD!!

OpinionatedMum · 28/09/2011 19:58

Personally i think she should...

RIZZ0 · 28/09/2011 20:00

wibble.

SoupDragon · 28/09/2011 20:01

And yet, RIZZ0, you still feel the need to post on it. why is that do you think?

RIZZ0 · 28/09/2011 20:10

Hee hee, look at you all supercilious and special!

Ok, I'll play. Because it keeps popping in in my Thread's I'm On. And because it's annoying when people don't read the thread and see that OP fucked off ages ago. And because it's fun to quote Monty Python.

You just posted too so nerr.

fit2drop · 28/09/2011 20:35

RIZZO I may be bluffing but

I see your post
and raise you a complete and utterly useless bump post.

[poker face emoticon]

Witchofthenorth · 29/09/2011 12:34

I see your bump and raise you "need to go out for a bit but will check in later OP hope all is well" and a further "how to make things better scenario"

Wink
PANCHEY · 09/10/2011 22:18

How did this all pan out in the end? Am very interested as I am in a similar situation but am not inclined to speak to my neighbour since her children had drunken parties twice a month for the first three years that we lived here, with not a single apology.....

We are also in London.

doesntsurprisemeanymore · 23/05/2017 05:07

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

LiviaDrusillaAugusta · 23/05/2017 05:14

@doesntsurprisemeanymore You acknowledge it's a ZOMBIE thread and you still had to treat us to your sparkling insight? Hmm

Cheby · 23/05/2017 05:24

That is a spectacular rant at something that happened 6 years ago. Christ almighty. What kind of person spends the early hours of the morning looking for events half a decade ago to get angry at?! More than a little bit bonkers...

StrawberryMummy90 · 23/05/2017 05:26

cheby

I was about to say the same thing!

Completely bonkers.

user1471452804 · 23/05/2017 05:28

Don't upset her too much or she may go to work leaving a radio on all day with the sound turned up full volume!

doesntsurprisemeanymore · 23/05/2017 05:30

Zombie thread or not: what's written here remains relevant because it's a polarising thread, and it's also my choice to write my opinion.
It's not the early hours for me where I am.

doesntsurprisemeanymore · 23/05/2017 05:31

Sorry, *it's my right (as well as my choice) to write my opinion.

LordRothermereBlackshirtCunt · 23/05/2017 05:33

it's also my choice to write my opinion
Bully for you, how empowered you must feel.

But the opinion on here is generally that zombie threads are really fucking annoying.

Swipe left for the next trending thread