To ask my neighbour...

[BrownBoobBear]

To stop hammering, drilling and loud banging at 7.30 at night? Or AIBU ?

Goodness mn is great! I started off thinking neighbour was being very unreasonable. Then posted on here and thought goodness, it's me! I'm unreasonable.

So seen neighbour had nice chat. Don't mind noise, know they have to get work done, not very well tonight and just wanted to know how long it would go on etc. Neighbour very reasonable, won't do it late on again, will do noisy work during day etc.

All very neighbourly and mature. Am very proud of myself

Well done you.

That's what AIBU is for, not?! [sarcastic emoticon]

That's what AIBU is for, not?! [sarcastic emoticon]

Good for you!

And now, of course, we can all admit it's fucking annoying and we hope it'll quieten down soon.

It's not your neighbours fault that you've got young DC who need to sleep, nor that you send them to bed so early. I would be really if someone asked me to pipe down at 7.30. Here you're supposed to keep he noise down after 11, and if you seemed in any way arsey I'd be informing you of that pretty sharpish.

If you seemed nice I'd stop the work though .

Dodie, as the OP's said, this is about hammering, drilling, loud banging - all of these are really intrusive, nothing like day to day living noises. It's not a 'pipe-down' scenario.

Yes they are. And 7.30 is still early.

7.30 in the morning - now that would be a different story

Well dodie if my neighbour was making the kind of noise we were enduring at day10.30 (within your time frame) tonight, we'd have been having a fist fight!

We may need at agree to disagree. I will never be swayed into thinking that starting to install steel beams into a loft at 7.30 at night is acceptable, DCs or no DCs. That said, I was very reasonable and nice as I do understand they need to do the work. We do get on well.

Ps. 7.30 for a 5 year old who needs to get up for school at 6, is not 'so early'

Erm, no, Dodie, they are not. Not according to people who have to listen to them, not according to EH, not according to (English) courts.

Thought you might find that useful info in case you're inviting mates around for a little early evening jamming on the sledgehammers and hydraulic drill, or something.

Hmm, fair enough. I'm sure others might agree. Have had some shocking neighbours in the past though, the type to threaten you and set cars on fire etc. plus have lived in a student area recently, so DIY is classed as 'good' noise to me.

Someone posted a link on here once about the guidelines local councils offer for DIY and building work noise at antisocial hours.

I think it was something like 8am to 7pm on weekdays, 9am while 5pm on Saturdays and no noisy work at all on Sundays.

It might be different for your local area, and it surprised me when I saw it because I didn't realise these guidelines existed. But knowing they do might make you feel a little less unreasonable about complaining to them or at least asking them to keep it down a little bit.

Perhaps you could have a look on your own local area website to see if they have similar hours. Every website I have looked at has advice along the lines of keeping noisy work to the middle of the day and quieter work, such as painting, for the earlier morning or evening, but some of them do give set times and they seem to be in keeping with the ones above.

Yikes!

Well I'm glad I didn't speak to you sharpish if I was wrong then OP!

I'm going to feel very inhibited next time I do late night DIY knowing someone could rightfully tell me to pipe down. Grr!

NoOnes - that's for contractors building work - not DIY.

Ah the relief! Though for a moment there both the OP and a poster had both admitted to BU on an AIBU. Surely that's a first?!

Ours LA permitted noisy work hours are 8-6 weekdays 9-12 Sat & nothing on Sun - so YANBU at all

& that IS DIY too - we've had similar, though worse problems, so I got to know this stuff :)

Chipping - No, on the websites it says DIY.

Direct quote from one of the websites:

Reasonable times for DIY

Tell your neighbours that you are going to be carrying out some work. Noisier work should be kept to these hours:

Weekdays - 8.00am to 7.00pm
Saturdays - 10.00am to 5.00pm
Sundays - No noisy work at all

If your neighbours have small children you may need to restrict your DIY even further.

Messed up my link and put it in bold. I'll try again.

Reasonable times for DIY

There are similar things on all the council websites but I don't know which one is the OP's so won't link them all. This was the first that came up in my search.

Maybe it varies from LA - LA - ours is DEFINITELY the times I stated above - though ours was DIY at a business address we have an ongoing problem with those hours were confirmed by EHL - mind you, DIY is the least of our problems with them now

I think it does vary rockin and some are a bit vague about giving actual times but say things like not doing noisy DIY in the 'evening' and 'early morning' and instead waiting until later in the day, which people can interpret a little differently. But still, I think by 7pm onwards nobody could really say that it wasn't evening etc.

That's why I think the OP should check her local guidelines. But luckily it also sounds like her neighbours were considerate once they realised the noise was a problem.

Wow - sorry, I have never seen that before?! I wonder if it's new? It always used to be for contractors. No work on a Sunday is archaic!! Those times are so limiting - how's anyone supposed to get anything done?

My neighbours have just put a new kitchen in - it took weeks - banging, drilling, all the usual... pretty much everynight and all weekend... The funny thing is, it's the size of a postage stamp!! It begs the question what the fuck were they doing??

NoOnes - I see that's Northern Ireland. Did you find any in the UK? I can't find any guidlines on my councils site.