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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed at the noise of children playing outside.

77 replies

shewhowines · 06/04/2013 13:14

My children are now older and have just stopped playing in our garden and are venturing further afield. I have been looking forward to a peaceful summer drinking wine relaxing in the garden.

Today there are young kids, belonging to the new neighbours, making an absolute racket in their garden, which I can hear through the closed windows. My teeth are clenching.

I am so being unreasonable, aren't I?

OP posts:
ChippingInIsEggceptional · 06/04/2013 20:23

Grants - that sounds lovely - we had something similar with friends when we were kids and it was great!

Shelly - he has a point Grin They start about 4am here, loudly!, in the summer and I love it.

cherrycarpet · 06/04/2013 20:24

YABU. They've got to be able to let off steam. At least they're not inside cooped up in front of the TV....

QOD · 06/04/2013 20:27

We had a really nice family opposite us up til recently, truly nice. But 6 kids, and the 4th one just did NOT stfu.
Shouting his brothers names over and over and over and over .... Drove me nuts

cathpip · 06/04/2013 20:32

I am forever apologising to my older neighbours about my small children playing squabbling/screeching in the garden, they love listening to all the noise apparently.

DMCWelshCakes · 06/04/2013 20:39

Had a paranoid freakout that you meant me and my DCs until I realised that I only have 2.

(We've not long moved & DCs were in the garden playing this afternoon. They were on a trampoline but it's a very small one with a handle on it, designed for the under 3s. DiddyCakes can get fairly loud when he's screeching with all the frustration of a 2yo who wants to do what his 4yo DSis can do. You can see why I panicked. Grin )

ThinkAboutItOnBoxingDay · 06/04/2013 20:42

Better children having fun than 3 competing R&B tracks, which is what I get!

Shelly32 · 06/04/2013 21:10

Chippinginiseggceptional I know, I know! I may be a misery but 4am is just wrong. Those birds have no respect! Grin

RhinestoneCowgirl · 06/04/2013 21:15

I was round at a friend's house today for lunch and play out in their garden. Four children between us and much shrieking, great fun, sure the neighbours hated us! Grin

Although I would much prefer shrieking children (especially those I'm not responsible for) than grown-up neighbours having stand up shouty rows full of effing and jeffing.

Wishiwasanheiress · 06/04/2013 22:02

Chickens are dreadful. Cockerels worse. My grandad bought geese and peacocks. One was bad but both were horrendous. He did own a farm. Used them as guard birds, more trustworthy than dogs and a worse bite...

marjproops · 06/04/2013 22:07

seriously, those who live next to animals, please swap houses with me. any day. any day.

AmIthatSpringy · 06/04/2013 22:15

I must BU too.

Unfortunately, I have the children, screaming, F'ing and C'ing (really, such delightful little one Hmm )

Not to mention jumping into people's gardens, stealing things, snapping branches off the trees, breaking fences.

Oh yes, how I love the lighter nights

And some of them are as young as 3

olivertheoctopus · 06/04/2013 22:20

YABU but mine were shrieking like banshees with excitement at what must have been their first day in the garden so my neighbours prob think the same.

OddBoots · 07/04/2013 09:02

I'm sure it's not the done thing now but when I was a girl my mum never let us play in the street on a Sunday morning as she thought people deserved a morning of peace. Was it just my mum who had that 'rule' or was it a usual thing back in the 70s?

StickEmUpPunk · 07/04/2013 09:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

marjproops · 07/04/2013 18:51

Oddboots yy we were allowed out between 10am and 6pm latest. and if we were out any earlier/later we had to play REALLY quietly to not disturb neighbours. and if neighbour came out and said we were too noisy wed say sorry so would mum.

not like today, dare say something and you get kids as young as 3/4 using language,that theyve got off their parents. and then proceed to do more noise than before....

marjproops · 14/04/2013 19:12

please rain, please rain, please rain,please rain.......!!!!!

please let there be a power cut across the road.........!!!!!!

marjproops · 23/04/2013 20:15

please rain please rain please rain please rain x 100!!

somewhereaclockisticking · 23/04/2013 21:24

are they playing or just screaming and screaming and screaming - not squeals of delight at being chased around etc but just basically long long screams - just standing there in the street screaming at nothing?? That's what the girls around here seem to do and it drives me nuts because I can put up with squeals of delight at actual games being played but it's the for no reason screaming as if being murdered that drives me up the wall and when my girls do it I go out and tell them to pipe down but the majority of parents don't care what noise their kids make so long as they're not in the house bothering THEM.

jamdonut · 23/04/2013 21:52

My children were taught to play quietly and have respect for neighbours. My new neighbours do not have the same respect...their kids are very loud and shriek and roar, and shout to their mother from the bottom of the garden while she is in the house. And they play football like they are at Wembley,so I've lost count of balls coming over the fence and ruining our plants Sad.
Plus,I have this noise all day ,working as I do in a school, and I just don't need it at home as well. I'd like to sit in the garden and relax, but I can't because the adults (and they always seem to have a house-full) are just as loud and obnoxious as the children. Also, I can't bear the smell of weed,which wafts into our garden and our home.Hmm

Dubjackeen · 24/04/2013 00:36

Generally doesn't bother me. I am SHH..not a Mum, yet I contribute to MN. Blush ... Recently there was a funeral from my street, and I admit, I did think that just for that occasion, people might have asked their children to ...maybe, keep the shrieking down. Instead of that, what actually happened was that they played on the road-not even on the green-shrieking and screaming. Hey, it might be just me, but I thought, it would have been no harm if parents had explained, and perhaps suggested that their children should have moved a little bit away, just for one day...

ladyjadie · 24/04/2013 13:20

The kids round here either have shrieking competitions (who can shriek the loudest, at the same pitch, in bursts) for what seems like hours maybe one hour or are playing 'going clubbing' which as far as I can tell consists of them shouting "we're going clubbing, I'm taking Honey but who is babysitting?" and then "I'm PREGNAAANT!!" (actual excerpts)

When I'm trying to sunbathe it is annoying as crap. But I'm not a mum so it is easier to get pissed off I guess (and Wine Wine Wine Wine to you mums who live it all the time)

marjproops · 28/04/2013 18:51

oh dear. just as bad.

new people moved in next door (semi). walls as thin as tissue. Shrieking screaming brat kid-age around 5/6 ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY! JUST stopped nowplaying shrieking-at least comforted that its not abuse screaming, but.......

oh whats worse?

DC has screaming fits cos of her autism, at least i warn the neighbours- and im all the time taking her out for a drive or taking her to the furthest point in the house away from party walls when she does, cos IM considerate!!!

psychomum5 · 28/04/2013 19:01

Drown them out with loud music, which will piss off the neighbours who will then come here and complain in AIBU about the awful neighbour who plays loud music ALL DAY LONG, and what about my poor childrens ears being subjected to the hideous noise....

And the drink wine.

Works for me now mine are older and playing far away from me WinkGrin

marjproops · 28/04/2013 19:14

wish i could but DC is supersensitive to loud noise anyway as it is, as am i.

and usually doesnt work anyway as theyll think they can play THEIRS louder to drown US out!

im dreading the diy noises about to start as theyve just moved into an old fashioned house.

hope to God theyve got the courtesy to come round and warn me. prob not.

fedupdk · 28/05/2013 18:17

personally, I do not have a problem with kids playing, but why must they always scream as if they have just been mortally wounded? now the neighbors have put in a trampoline and it lies so close to the ground that it is like a drum beating each time they jump and they jump from morning to night! talking to them does nothing, but make matters worse. Thinking really hard about buying a "mosquito anti loitering device" to put in my yard. When they scream I will turn it on. Have a beautiful garden and can almost never enjoy it. Moved to the country for some peace and quite and have nothing but NOISE NOISE AND MORE NOISE! Why do people have no concern for others? Hate to punish the kids, but the parents don't care, so maybe a bit of payback will make them reconsider how they let their children play. Is parenting totally dead?