Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

in thinking that my neighbour has some cheek giving us a curfew for our heating!

91 replies

timesarehard · 19/02/2014 23:33

Been a funny old week.

We live out in the sticks. There are three houses in our little hamlet. We're attached to next door. I caught our neighbour in the garden today to tell her that my stepfather died on Monday. She was very nice but then hit me with.... Apparently, our heating is too loud. It is driving her husband insane. He can't sleep and he's threatening to rip "the bloody thing out" if it carries on. She said he is really very angry about it and doesn't want him calling here all guns blazing so if we could just never put our heating on past 9pm or before 6pm, she would appreciate it!

I must add, our heating is oil fired and costs a bloody fortune so we're quite frugal with it. It's not on a timer, we just flick it on when cold. If it's a particularly cold night or we're up late, we might put it on for an hour at about ten. We NEVER leave it on over night and it's extremely rare it's ever on past eleven.

My husband went round after work to listen to it. He said you can just about hear a slight humming through the wall (but only when they had turned off everything in their house)

Do they have a point? I do get that noises can be irritating but I'm not sure what I can do. It's a two hundred year old cottage; it's got an old heating system.

What would you do?

OP posts:
coldwater1 · 20/02/2014 07:15

Ignore. If you were banging excessively or playing loud music all night i could understand but complaining about heating is just ridiculous! Carry on using your heating as and when.

struggling100 · 20/02/2014 08:01

He is being completely unreasonable, and I also think it was incredibly insensitive timing on the part of his partner. I don't like the tone of her comments, either: 'do it, or he'll be REALLY angry' - it's very passive-aggressive.

However, all that said, I would be really careful about how you handle it and avoid upping the ante at all costs. You have to live next door to these people and anything approaching a feud could potentially be awful for your quality of life. (My grandmother is currently in a feud with an unbelievably spiteful neighbour, and it's terrible for her health). If you can accommodate their wishes without being uncomfortable, why not do so? Putting the heating on a bit earlier means you'll get more benefit too.

halfwildlingwoman · 20/02/2014 08:06

We had a neighbour like this. He got so wound up by the noise of a door closing in our adjoining terrace house that he screamed really loudly through the wall. DP thought it was me and raced up the stairs in terror. He mentioned it over the garden fence and DP took the offending door off, planed it and fitted a new catch. We were pretty pissed off as DP had done some work for him for nothing and we had a tiny baby. The next time he complained about a tiny noise DP lost his temper and told him to move to a detached house in the middle of nowhere if he didn't like it. It was fine after that, in fact his partner came to apologise for him. I think he was in a bad place at the time and focused on this one little thing.

busywheels · 20/02/2014 08:10

If he thinks it's the flue vibrating you could look at fixing the flue onto their house with anti-vibration mounts which would isolate it from the structure

Kveta · 20/02/2014 08:13

our neighbours had this problem with the folk that lived in our house before we bought it. Previous owner of our house was an elderly man with a very unpleasant daughter, who took against our (lovely) neighbours for some reason. She was known as a bully to other people on the street and when elderly man needed a new heating system, she insisted it was all rigged up on adjoining walls (at I presume great expense, as it had previously been on the unattached side of the house). So the boiler is in our bedroom (of course Hmm) on the wall that joins our neighbours bedroom.

Neighbours told me that they had a few weeks of misery once it was installed, as it was incredibly loud (it still is, so we never have heating on past 7pm in case it wakes the DC!), but they sorted it by moving their bedroom around, and having the wardrobe up against the boiler wall, and the bed opposite.

I think it can be very annoying to have noises, especially low level continuous ones, from next door, but it is part of having neighbours! I think your neighbours are a bit batty tbh, and would probably nod and smile and carry on as you are! If you were there before them, then surely it's their problem, not yours?!

PigletJohn · 20/02/2014 08:35

It's possible you have a fanned flue, maybe the fan motor is worn out. Ask the serviceman.

You can get isolastic vibration-absorbing mounting brackets for machinery, possibly by Silentbloc, but I have no knowledge of these on a flue.

Amrapaali · 20/02/2014 08:46

I can sympathise, OP. Our house is something called a link-detached, as in, one wall (the garage) is shared between two houses.

There were constant complaints about our boiler, it was apparently juddering and the noise was travelling up the wall to neighbour's bedroom. We serviced the boiler, got in another pro to have a look at it and thought we had sorted it out. Though we could find no real problem...

Neighbour came around and knocked one day at 4 in the morning, all wild-eyed and irritable and asked if we were taking a shower. Confused The noise was bothering him. Again, apparently. It was surreal.

We just ignore him now, smile when we see each other, that's it. Mind you, he went on to buy a red, open-top sports car after a few months. So we just assumed his outburst had something to do with male menopause or mid life crisis.

Morgause · 20/02/2014 09:19

Maybe look at moving the flue to your house. I'm not sure why it's on his house in the first place and think he may be within his rights to tear it down.

Pigeonhouse · 20/02/2014 09:30

What everyone else has said, really. It may be worth seeing if the flue can be moved or stabilised for your peace of mind, but I am deeply unimpressed with your female neighbour"s timing and approach. Her husband's rages are certainly not your problem, nor should she attempt to make them so, and to do so in the context of a recent bereavement is insensitive and crass.

Original poster
timesarehard · 20/02/2014 11:42

Morgause, the flue is on our house. It's just stabalised with two brackets that are attached to his house. But, they've always been there. We've lived here for eight years and he's never mentioned it before. Obviously, we'll look into.moving them and if we can we will. We are going to arrange a service for the boiler and take it from there.

Thanks everyone for your support. It's good to know we're not being unreasonable!

OP posts:
Fairenuff · 20/02/2014 11:49

If you were banging excessively...all night i could understand

PosyFossilsShoes · 20/02/2014 11:49

I would be very tempted to say oh yes, we'll do that, then deny point blank your heating is on. Just be totally convinced, oh no, heating wasn't on like you asked - maybe it was a pigeon? Sometimes the only way back with mad bastards is to be a bit mad!

This is what I would do too. If he no longer thinks he can hear it, chances are he probably won't.

Retropear · 20/02/2014 11:53

Was just going to say hope he hasn't got a shotgun.

Hmmmm not sure what to suggest. Yanbu however he has a shotgun and sounds slightly unhinged.Confused

whatever5 · 20/02/2014 11:54

Your neighbour sounds like a pain in the neck. Your heating probably does make a bit of noise but that's life but he needs to learn not to be irritated by it or move. It's not as if the noise keeps him awake at night and he shouldn't expect you to be cold just for his convenience.

JanicefromFriends · 20/02/2014 11:56

I wonder if he is on some form of medication? My mother (granted she's 80 but a young 80!) started hallucinating at night with her tablets. She was convinced she could hear football matches at 3am in the morning coming up through her flat wall. She even went to the house next door to complain at 7am and they had here in to show her that the didn't even have their tv on! (she lives in a block of 6 flats but on either end their is a semi detached house). Then she thought it was coming from the back of her building, but the back is separated by a railway line, that's when I started to question what was actually happening in her mind. Once she changed tablets over, it all went away.

2rebecca · 20/02/2014 11:56

He's being unreasonable. Having said that when I lived in an upstairs flat i did ask the downstairs neighbour if they could not put on dishwashers/ washing machines after 11pm as they were just below our bedroom and we'd be going to bed and they would start rumbling and spinning just as we were trying to get to sleep.
I didn't get angry though as I realised the noise was within legal limits and they could continue to do it if they wanted. Heating is less optional than timing of dishwashers etc though.. suggesting you be cold to keep them happy is nuts, but I'd try putting it on at 9.30 rather than 10. It sounds as though he has become a bit obsessed by the noise due to living in a quiet hamlet and needs to be near a nice main road so the traffic noise can drown out other noises!

Stinklebell · 20/02/2014 12:10

We had problems with our old neighbours like this.

They complained constantly about noise, if I dared to bang a picture hook in the wall they'd be round shouting and hollering within seconds, they'd complain about the kids laughing in the garden on a sunny afternoon, complained about our dog barking all day one day - he'd been out all day with us, wasn't even in the house

They even complained about the boiler vent where the steam comes out - it was on our kitchen wall but the steam blew over the fence into their garden

It got to the point where I daren't fart in my own house and we resorted to using our back gate to come and go as every time we went out the front they'd clobber us to complain about something else

I spoke to environmental health who and they were really reassuring - we all make some noise and general day to day noise - children laughing and the odd bark from a dog isn't a problem.

Especially as they didn't seem to realise that if they could hear us, we could hear them, we just accepted the fact that we're all living our lives, we all bang in nails, laugh, etc

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 20/02/2014 12:12

Just carry on as normal, honestly, if you are that sensitive to sound then a house in the middle of a field would be a better option!

So insensitive to tell you when you've just lost your DadShock Sad

Sorry for your loss OPThanks Brew

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 20/02/2014 12:13

Sorry, your step father x

ProfPlumSpeaking · 20/02/2014 12:16

We should all be considerate of our neighbours. your neigbhours have not exactly raised the issue in the calmest manner, and of course you should be able to use your heating whenever you like, but OTOH if you can reduce the noise then that is worth looking into: check the fan, check to see if you can see when/where the noise is travelling through and if there is anything you can do about it. It's just neighbourly. If there's not, and if the noise is not actually, um, noisy, then forget it.

Stinklebell · 20/02/2014 12:17

Gah, iPad went mad and posted too soon.

They are unreasonable, just carry on as normal, don't end up in some mad situation like we did. That sort of noise is normal

I'm sorry to hear about your step dad

TunipTheUnconquerable · 20/02/2014 12:23

I have some sympathy for him because I'm incredibly sensitive to buzzy, hummy noises which no-one else can hear, but ultimately if no-one else can hear it then it's his problem and he'll have to get some insulation on his side.

quietbatperson · 20/02/2014 12:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TSSDNCOP · 20/02/2014 12:40

Can you hear their heating? If you're in a hamlet I am guessing they've got a similar system.

In the interests of neighbourly harmony, and I say this as someone who has lived in disharmony, you really don't want to fall out.

At the least I would very ostentatiously get a heating engineer in a very colourful van round to take a look.

Cobain · 20/02/2014 13:05

My NDN asked DP to change his shifts as his car starting at 6 in the morning was not appropriate in a road of professionals people, he just laughed at her. Tbh she complains about everything and even if we could of resolved or found a solution she would find another reason to be annoyed.