fed up with terraced house living this morning (grump/whine/vent)

[matildasquared]

Please stop reading now if you're not in the mood for a good old vent! I am fortunate to have a good home and this is definitely not the biggest thing I have to worry about. Just feel like venting my spleen.

Normally I really enjoy my neighbourhood. I live in a row of terraced houses in a northern small town. I get along with all my neighbours. Because we're all cheek by jowl I do my best to keep relations good: I give them baked goods and extra tomato plants, always say hello and wave, offer rides if I see them walking to the bus stop. I'm mostly chilled out about the smoking or the occasional football landing on a flowerpot.

But here's what happened this past week:

1. I'm eating tea and I hear BEEP BEEP BEEP outside. I finally go look and it's a car in front of my neighbour's house. I give the driver the stink-eye and he gets out and knocks on the neighbour's door.

1. Next door neighbour's boyfriend stays for a few days with his adorable little dogs. Lovely dogs except YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP. At midnight! I nearly pounded on the fucking wall. I guess I'm supposed to speak with her about it but I rather think the default is to NOT allow a dog to yippity-yap all night. I really have to explain that I'd rather not hear it?

1. Last night I had a quarrel with my husband and so was not sleeping that great to begin with. At 1:30 I wake up to loud laughing and talking. As well as a fug of cigarettes. Neighbours two doors down probably had football party, two young women out in garden obviously forgot how late it was. I went out in my bathrobe and said, "Hey you woke me up! Could you be quiet out here?" Then went back inside muttering to myself. It was the first time I've ever just been outright shirty with a neighbbour but I was just at the end of my rope. Do you not notice that there are houses all around you? With people in them?

I would so dearly love to live in a little cottage up on the moor in splendid isolation with husband, cats, chickens, maybe a dog. But my husband likes being close to town. He has a point, especially as we get older.

But I'm fed up with always being the considerate one.

Stinky, you need to go out there and tell them to move. That's crap.

I could ask them politely to move, but they'd probably tell me to get lost. Unfortunately it's not my pavement so they can sit there if they want, however much I hate it :(

Yanbu. I love my little terraced Wendy house but when I'm in the living room I can hear my neighbour peeing, upstairs.

oh no it's not a charming family dinner sound - it's DH tickling DD until she squeals and I mean squeals!! And then he will whoop around a bit mucking around and generally for about half an hour they are so loud even I can't handle it (and I obviously think DDs squeal is adorable )

Trust me that is charming.

We've lived in this semi detached house for 12 years and assumed we had great sound proofing, because we never heard our neighbour. Then she lost her home (bedroom tax), council moved idiots in and we can hear everything. Not just the distressing stuff - DV, screaming abuse at toddlers - but little things like them hoovering, putting plugs in the wall. Fortunately only hear their music if they are hoovering the car (which is about every other day)although one of my sons says they once put their music on in the house when we were out and it was so loud, he could hear the lyrics... (Think they assumed we were all out).

But what bothers me most - apart from the DV and abuse - is the silences. They have two kids under 4 yet you never hear a child playing, or laughing, or running around, or having fun. Yesterday - first time since they moved in, I heard the 1 year old laughing and playing in the garden. Then we realised they had relatives round. The second the 3 year old gets in from nursery they scream at him like sargeant majors, to shut up, sit down, behave etc - so it is the lack of normal, everyday kiddie noises I find the strangest. Wish we could hear them playing or having fun, it would be reassuring.

Joffrey. I had the same worries about my ndn at my old house. They had a little girl who was about 2. I never heard her. I didn't hear her cry, laugh, shout, play, anything.
I could hear mum and dad though.
I still feel bad that I didn't call anyone. The police got there first for other reasons though.

So this morning I went out to faff around in the greenhouse before work. As usual this coincided with two-doors-down woman sitting on her own patio with her baby, enjoying a cup of tea. We normally say hello and chat briefly about the weather.

I said hello as usual. She called out to apologise on behalf of her guests who woke me up in the wee hours of Saturday morning. She said she was mortified that I had to come out and ask them to be quiet.

KIDDING. She nipped back inside as soon as she saw me, avoiding my eyes. A grown-ass woman.

NO MORE CRUMBLES FOR YOU!

Also the neighbour with the yappity dog came round to apologise for keeping us awake.

YUPYOU GUESSED ITKIDDING!

That's right, jerks. And on next Halloween when your children come round for some home-made fudge. I'll... give them as much as they want because they're so damn cute. Damn.

I love being woken by birds/wildlife. I go right back to sleep but it's lovely.

On the other hand, it just so happens that next-door's sweet little girl was "helping" me garden last night and for some reason we got talking about the houses up on the moor.

I pointed to one of them in the distance and said, "Wouldn't it be nice to live in that one? You'd have the moor all around you."

She looked at me funny and said those houses looked lonely. "See," she said, pointing at the rows of terraces, "these houses are all friendly. They're saying, 'You have to stick together!'"

1 and 3 would be just as bad in a typical cul-de-sac full of detached houses with all of a metre between each house.

Next door's occasional 1am sing song is probably balanced out by DS2's occasional 5am sing song. The only thing that does make me feel shirty is finding tab ends thrown over into our yard. I often throw them back, just to make a point.

We are very very detached.

At this time of year we get woken by/end up lying awake listening to:
the farm dogs across the way
then our dogs barking back at them
the local cats fighting - they come down and congregate outside our house for some reason
owls
sheep
the dawn chorus
and a peacock (NOT ours) which is incredibly loud.

Rural living is certainly not quiet.

It's always worse at summer time. It's like everyone goes into holiday mode and give up the usual rules.

Well my Sunday consisted of
Church over the road with full band at 8.30
Man pressure washing his patio 9.30 to 11.00
Various drilling noises from another house
A very drunk man turning up at the door in the evening asking for some cups as they are having a party across the road. I obliged.
Another church service in the afternoon, more shouting than band this time.

Possum - I love hearing people play with their kids. My two just wind each other up all day, which must drive the neighbours potty.

I wear earplugs every night because otherwise I will be kept awake/woken up at some ungodly hour by dogs barking/groups shouting on their way home from the pub/guy in upstairs apartment stomping around on wooden floors he's not allowed to instal in the first place/kids playing football on the road until midnight and so on and so on.
I too would love a cottage in the country away from inconsiderate knobs.

i had a very yappy dog, i tried for 8 years to stop her yapping at every single noise, eventually i had to give up and rehome her to some other poor sod.
and i was very embarressed about it, so never mentioned it to anyone.

my point is just because a dog is yapping doesn't mean the people are doing nothing about it (but i was lucky mine stopped at bedtime and started again the min we got up).

Well I wouldn't let it go on for 8 years before giving the dog away. That was unreasonable.

It's hilarious when there's a thread in which:

OP: "I'm grumpy about this obnoxious behaviour."

Other posters: "Yeah, that is obnoxious."

One lone poster wanders in: "I've done that obnoxious thing [whiny excuse]."

Really, Sarcy, take it elsewhere.

The rural noises are much more pleasant. How could anyone complain about the dawn chorus or foxes barking?

All our neighbours (except us!) have a gardening services, so all week there is the sound of lawnmowers and strimmers, they power wash their drives and patios regularly too.

NDN has 2 sons in their 20s (one has moved to the other side of London -yippee) but the other is still around to have late drunken parties every time his parents go away.