To think that who you live in close proximity to over people you have to expect some noise from your neighbours?

[Rhine]

There's nothing worse than living next to genuinely noisy neighbours, speaking from personal experience. However some people seem to get wound up about what I'd consider to be normal neighbourly noise, I.e children playing out, DIY, lawn mowers being used, doors opening and closing etc.

I have a neighbour (not next door thank god) who seems to get off on complaining. He whinged about his next door neighbours kids playing out on both sides, he reported another neighbour to the council because their dog barked a few times. It did but it wasn't excessive. Then he complained about someone else having a barbecue, and the again at his next door neighbours for walking up and down their stairs too loudly. He's probably just a miserable old twat who doesn't like to see anyone else enjoying themselves and living their lives, but it got me thinking when you live close to other people you have expect some noise surely?

An example, I live in an old terrace. Sometimes when it's really quiet I can hear my next neighbours TV when in my front room. I can also hear them opening and closing their cupboards in their kitchen, no doubt they can hear us as well. It doesn't bother me, in fact I barely notice it. But someone like that man would probably complain about it.

To me anti social noise would be loud parties and blaring music till 3am in the week, shouting, screaming and thing like that. Surely if you are so over sensitive to noise then you should probably think about buying a detached house in the middle of nowhere? Noise is a fact of daily life..,

Totally agree with you. We have a 'lovely' neighbour who hates people but moved into the middle of a brand new estate

I don't like dogs barking because they are left alone all day or can't be let into the house, it's anti social. DIY, lawnmowers etc are fine. I don't mind hearing children as long as well behaved, screaming or shrieking out of control ones are a different matter.

New estates will always attract families with children as well!

It's not really the same, but I saw said neighbour standing on something glaring over he NDN's fence the other day, they were obviously out. I know they've for a dog, so maybe it had barked once or something. Another time I saw him glaring out of his bedroom window (his house backs onto mine) at my neighbours grand kids playing out.

Miserable fucker!

True but I do get a bit peeved that as soon as there is a tiny chink of sun, everyone starts with the bloody power tools and lawnmowers and loud DIY and one of our neighbours keeps sanding his bloody boat really, not as posh as it sounds. It would be nice to get five minutes of outdoor sun without WHINE BUZZ BUZZ SAW ZROOM ZROOM.

It's a bit of give and take I think. My mum always gets irked at the neighbours for making perfectly reasonable noises (telly, doors shutting etc.)

We're detached but quite near to neighbours. I feel slightly guilty about the drum kit I got my son for Christmas, but they have just got a yappy puppy so it all evens out.

I do get a bit annoyed at mid-life-crisis man over the road and his revving bloody motorbike at 7am on a Sunday morning - just get on the thing and drive off, it doesn't need 20 minutes of brrrrmmmm, brmmmm, brmmmmm.

YANBU But if 'Victor Meldrew' lives alone and his house is very quiet he's going to be more conscious of noises perhaps than others with lively families and dogs etc. Could be worth having a chat and getting know him?

Yanbu but between the hours of 11pm and 6am I think people should make an effort to be quieter. Basic consideration is needed at other times but normal noise is to be expected. That's why detached houses on estates are more expensive than terraced back to backs!

I'm not sure he does live alone. I think he has a wife or partner, I've seen a woman coming and going from there anyway. He's getting on a bit, I'd say in his mid to late 60's so he probably is just being a bit of a real life Victor Meldrew.

We are quite noisy but our house has thick walls and our neighbour is fine with it.
There aren't any dc playing in the street as we are main road but the gardens can be a bit noisy. Kids few doors away have a trampoline. A few retired who like noisy barbies at weekend.
Nobody really bothers and most in the street invite neighbours to parties anyway.

Rhine ours glares through the fence at our unruly children playing in the garden. They are 3 and 2 by the way.

My next-door-but-one neighbours' children are currently screaming and winding up their youngest sibling to the point of hysteria.

I don't mind the sound of kids playing out, having fun etc. I do mind that their lazy arsed parents can't be bothered to deal with their kids when they are behaving really nastily towards their sister. and I hate their dog because it gets in my garden and is aggressive

We live next to a house that have three quite barky dogs. They bark when people walk past, knock at the door or when their owners come home or go out. I don't really notice them anymore but when my mum stays (about once a fortnight) she always complains to me about the dogs. I can also hear the cupboard doors, phone ringing, tv on loud when Arsenal play etc.
Their house is also pretty noisy at the weekend with various GC etc but to me its just normal noise. I'm sure our house and garden probably seem quite loud with my DC (5.5 &3.5) though I don't allow them to scream/shout in the garden.
To be honest, normal noise is reassuring as I know someone is just next door. DP works all different shifts and I feel better knowing I'm not completely alone.
I agree with Endo, it is all about give and take and also restricting big noise to appropriate times.

We live over an old twat. He complained to the HA about us. They threw it out. It's a flat, FFS. A family flat with an upstairs, ours kids go to bed at 8, we have no stereo and DH usually games with headphones on of an evening.

He swore at DH and told him he needed to wear soft slippers.

Flick him.

I live in a new build, sound proofing is almost non existent. Amongst other noises, I can hear the man on one side when he goes for a wee. And one of my neighbour's microwaves. Not when it's quiet here either, I can hear these noises over the TV/my daughter playing. So you can imagine how loud some normal household noises (such as kids shouting) sound, particularly when it is quiet here (eg in the morning before my daughter wakes). And I've become over sensitive to noise thanks to the previous neighbours (who were the loud parties in the garden till 3am, screaming match at 1am type).

Thankfully, we are soon to be moving to a detached house. We would have moved a long time ago, if we weren't in negative equity. So sometimes it's not as simple as 'buy a detached'- if they could, don't you think they would have?

YANBU. We live in a terraced house converted into flats so can hear everything, from our neighbours' snoring, the guy upstairs taking a piss, doors slamming, people going upstairs, chatting and music in the garden etc. I don't really care if it's before midnight as everyone has to have a life. That said, on one side we have very noisy neighbours who have very loud parties going on all night until 10 in the morning. That I take exception to.

Our ndn has excessively noisy children who never seem to be at school. It is actually really annoying, especially early morning, late night and if I'm trying to wfh. I have never met such noisy children. They are nice enough kids but would be even nicer with volume control.

This thread is brilliant.

My ex ndn was a reiki/hollistic practitioner. One of those "come sit in my converted garage and wrap yourself in my duvet for £80 per hour" people. You are probably all thinking how on earth can that be anti-social, well, she had four sets of wind-chimes in her garden, and something else that used to make some sort of noise in the wind at night. It was like having a herd of rabid mating goats in the garden every night. Oh, we tried many a time to talk to her about it but she always starting saying how she likes to "detach from drama" and close the door on us saying she needed to "re-centrs herself from such negativity".....

We waited until they went on holiday and snipped the strings on those effing windchimes. Threw some magpie feathers on it to make it more realistic. At the same time we realised that the reason our fence posts were buckling and the gravel boards breaking was because of all the decking that had been attached (literally nailed) to it. We were lucky it had not collapsed into our garden and hurt the children frankly. We took photos and a solicitors letter (cost £100) soon solved that problem within a fortnight. They sold the house shortly afterwards when they realised we were not going to put with anymore crap.

Flats can be an absolute nightmare. I once stayed with a friend for a couple of months in a beautiful basement flat in Hampstead. I was woken up by the couple in the flat above having sex every morning. It was as if they were in the same room, it was so clear. My friend had no idea as her bedroom was nowhere near the guest one. If I'd lived there permanently it would have driven me insane. Why do so many flats have such poor soundproofing?

I do think people who leave their dogs outside to bark are totally out of order though. They don't want their dogs in the house so it's fine to piss everyone else off? Errr no. I've complained about one recently.

I forgot to say that relaxation music when played for 10 hours a day is akin to someone running their nails down a blackboard....

I love the sounds of children laughing and playing on a sunny day. It's just one of those little "feel good" things in life like pristine white washing blowing gently on the line - yet that winds some people up too, as I've seen on MNthreads. Likewise the sound of a cockeral makes me smile rather than giving me the rage, but I couldn't live next door to a techno music aficionado without falling out with them.

I think some people are just not designed to live in as densely populated environments as modern Britain. My own son comes into this category - there's no way in a million years I can visualize him choosing to live in London as an adult, but on a Scottish croft he'd be in his element. In centuries past he'd have been up on the hills as a shepherds assistant by now methinks. I don't expect him to remain in the UK when I'm in my dotage.

Evolution hasn't caught up with modern living for everyone to be content just yet I think.

On the other hand - having to buy him ear silencers because he was terrified by the sounds of furniture being thrown everytime my old neighbours had a row wasn't ok. The noise of a baby or dog left unattended crying for hours on end is wrong. If you want your teeth to vibrate to the bass at 3 am then do so in a nightclub 3 nights a week, not your suburban 2 up 2 down terrace, or worse 60's built concrete flat.

A bit of reasonable give and take goes a long way for most people. If the elderly couple at number 22 want to have a celebration of their 50th anniversary that goes on into the early hours, then giving the couple at number 18 with new born twins fair warning goes a long way.