Was DH unreasonable to ask the neighbour's kids

[differenttoyou]

to go inside at 9.40 this morning. There were 3 of them and they'd been outside on their trampoline (which buts right up to the fence) since 8.00 am singing at the top of their voices. Eventually we couldn't take it any longer as they started to sing a song from Frozen and they ramped up the volume until they were virtually screaming. DH called over the fence and asked them to go and sing inside.

Unless you had a really Grumpy neighbour Thisis :o and thank you - although my silly children have lost interest in MrT a bit :( Not sure I want to be TreeFuTom'sBavarianFanBase....

And I'm sure that he has a good time while doing his work and he's also provided with cups of tea or coffee or cold drinks to help him on his way.

This isn't addressed to anybody at all - but given that because of the very first AIBU that different asked - 4 neighbours of mine went out singing a song just because.....well, we geddit y'know and nothing like a neighbourly get-together , when you hardly know each other and nobody royalish is getting married, born, reigned, died or won a war.

I could also say that it might be within the realms of possibility that I might ask some NDNs children to take their singing/screaming inside if that happened to be the way I felt at the time. I have yet to meet the perfect person.

The big question I have is: Can children/humans scream loudly continually for 90 minutes? Don't they have to breathe sometimes?
Or do they take it turns - you know what I mean - child 1: Right I'll breathe and you keep screaming. Child 2: Goddit - just hold your hand up (while you're bouncing on the trampoline) and then I know you're taking a breath-break so I'll keep the screaming going. There has to be a Child 3: aah so you're both holding your hands up so I'll cover the screaming breaks.

Possibly I might be wrong about this - and should definitely receive advice on how Constant Screaming really does work.

It seems so hard to do maybe it should become an Olympic Sport?

Queenofthemountain - these children were not singing, they were, by the end, according to the OP, 'virtually screaming' - are you really saying that is OK?

Can you not see that even the innocent little children sometimes make too much noise? It is simply not the case that children can do no wrong, and should be allowed to make as much noise as they want, whenever they want, and adults cannot object.

There has to be a certain amount of common sense and consideration between neighbours - too much noise of any sort can be a huge source of friction between neighbours - As MrTumbles so rightly said, there are lots of sources of irritating noise in our neighbourhoods - generally most people are reasonably considerate, but people will get irritated when a neighbour isn't being considerate - whether that is doing DIY late at night or early in the morning, having loud parties that go on 'til all hours, having loud, sweary arguments outside your neighbours' windows or letting your children scream Disney songs for hours.

REcharging I am quite sure nobody can scream for 90 minutes - the OP read as loud singing (not screeching but audible from next door) for 85+ minutes, and maybe the screamy volume and pitch for the last couple.

STG as mother of 3 under 10s I absolutely agree children can be irritating little ... creatures with no volume switch, and that other reasonable adults in the neighbourhood are within their rights to ask them to tone it down and expect that to happen - but an adult would never ask another adult to leave their garden or stop singing all together, and I do very firmly believe children deserve the same respect, when they are on their own property.

Its not just your sweary and antisocial adults who can be just as invasive with their noise etc. as children though - even naice people have non shouty sweary parties which are ever so civilized but still lpretty loud and enough to keep children awake (and why should the children's bedroom windows be shut on a stuffy, hot summer's night any more than the adults next door at 8am the next morning). If adult neighbours are having a party in their garden at 10pm with singing and laughing and other noise which keeps my kids awake - nut not pumping loud window shaking music which breaks noise pollution guidelines nor shouting and swearing, I know I would be U to complain and society would absolutely expect me to suck up the disrupted evening due to constantly trying to settle over tired kids, and the knock on effect the next day - all rather more of a negative impact than loud kids at 8am have on an adult.

I do not think children can do no wrong, and do think they should be encouraged and expected to be as considerate as anyone else - but do not agree that their natural schedules (8am is a reasonable time to be in the garden, 10pm ridiculously late) are less valid than an adults wish to have a lie in and a civilized garden party til 11pm.

I absolutely know the OP hasn't mentioned garden parties btw... it is just an example of how adult noise which is invasive and disruptive has to be far more extreme or even illegal before we feel we are R to complain about it, and it is not really clear why children are fair game and disapproved of at a far less extreme point on the silence to noise pollution scale.

I do like Recharging 's description of how 3 children would keep up 90 minutes of screaming - if only we and our neighbours hated each other, and our garden was bigger, I'd buy a trampoline and train my 3 to do that ... unfortunately we get along fine despite being at totally different life stages and their irritating Thursday night accordion sing alongs in the garden, and there is no space for a trampoline...

I actually think that Mayhem was one of the children told off for screaming... THAT would make much more sense!

Aaaah- a new day and yet still the same thread - NDNs and myself are quietly getting on with lives....waiting, just waiting to see who the first non-performing neighbour will be who asks .....wtf was all that Dancing Queen shit about last night?

Actually MrTumbles, round here if you do anything invasive and disruptive in your garden for long periods of time, a neighbour calling over the fence and asking you to take it inside if you want to keep doing it is possibly the mildest thing that could happen to you.

We have some very, er, interesting characters for neighbours. And they know how to do things that can't possibly be traced back to them...

Kids making loads of noise is tolerated. Adults and/or animals - not so much. The neighbours who decided to keep chickens in their tiny back garden found that out to their detriment .

MrTumbles - I absolutely agree that it was not on for the OP's dh to send the children indoors. And you are spot on about non-sweary neighbours also having the potential to be irritatingly and inconsiderately loud - I never meant my list to be comprehensive, just to demonstrate that there are many ways in which neighbours of all ages can make a level of noise that might cause irritation to others.

To be honest, if I was having an adult party, with singing and laughing in my garden, and it was keeping your children awake, I would really want you to come and tell me so, and I could get my guests to keep the noise down. I've had small children, and wouldn't want to be the cause of my neighbours being sleep deprived and having grumpy, over tired children.

ScrambledSmegs - don't you think a better first option would be to ask the people making the noise to keep it down a bit?

Nope, sorry to disappoint you. The gardener does it during the day when most people are at work

..and your gardener is silent is he? .

Evil - yes it would have been and even might have been what different's DH intended to do.

I have just bumped into a non-performing NDN (lives a few houses down) and asked what she thought of the "Dancing Queen" event last night. She replied "It sounded like some people were having a lot of fun" - and you know what? I've never spoken to her before and we had a laugh.

I advised my US-based boss that my work was running late as I had some important Community Development work to do here in the UK (I didn't say what though!) and he was most understanding.

The main thing I have learned is that if you wear glasses it's really hard to read song lyrics if you're bouncing around on a trampoline singing at the same time. The lycra didn't make a difference though, so next year I think it's a wear as you come 'event'.

Hell yeah, SDTG!

But scary, borderline-gangster neighbours who are far too good at evading the law have a way of ignoring social niceties.

Yet another reason why we really, really want to move.

Move in next to me, Scrambled - I am a lovely neighbour. Modest too!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I think I agree with you and will stop bring ing up extra points :o

Scrambled sorry if your neighbours are secret chicken murderers or generally nasty to everyone except children... On MN it often seems that children are expected to be kept quieter and be better behaved and less obtrusive than adults, and if they are not then their parents deserve the justifiable wrath of the more worthy, because the Great Scared Right of Middle England is never to hear a noise made by anybody else's child, but to politely tolerate almost all adult behaviour as long as it is not shouty and sweary... However I do recognise this is probably not a real reflection of the UK generally!

. You're on!

Hi Smeg - I'm going to be a bit serious here but asking genuine 'unloaded' questions as I've lived in neighbourhoods where the 'criminals' just get away with it and victimize whoever they think they can. And I've lived in very well to do, thankyou, too.

Luckily (or deliberately), now I don't live in either - currently the very few who might be like this have adapted to living in a reasonably social way, so it's a nice place to live.

Is your neighbourhood a bit 'hoity-toity' or 'deprived'. I am asking because I'm going to come up with ideas for solutions....and any info might be helpful.

Of course you can just say piss off Iam - isn't there some work you should be doing...

Hey Iam - that's very kind of you but it's a bit tricky because it's a very diverse area. We're in N London and there's an awful lot of rich, flashy types flooding the area at the moment, plus a lot of deprived and/or council properties (with mostly lovely long term residents), and I think there's a bit of resentment bubbling. Obviously it's a much broader spectrum than that but you get the picture.

Some of the long-term residents are your stereotypical, salt-of-the-earth but kinda shady types. They aren't out and out criminals, and I couldn't honestly tell you who might have done what. Local police don't care as it's all low-level stuff (apart from the chickens but it was impossible to prove that the owner hadn't forgotten to lock the coop door at night).

We get on really well with our immediate neighbours and will be very sad to leave, but will look forward to being able to let our kids out in the garden at 7am to sing numbers from Frozen on the trampoline .

Dear Smeg - sorry for replying late to you, I think I understand. I would be more than happy to 'hang around' the hood for a day or two (do you or NDNs have room for a tent?) and be there to facilitate early morning singing with your dc purely to make your living environment easier for everyone to live in. Available throughout August but ds age 12 will be with me. As said way,way up this thread - I played Rugby til 40 (39 actually) and am a tough old bird - but not said that I'm also an highly educated ex-farmworker whose Daddy was an international pilot and I'm hugely adaptable. I mean this about helping you - why should you move - let's make it better where you live. PM me if you are up for it.

oh I've never had any trouble with anyone! I'm horribly likeable, it seems.

No, we're moving because we can't afford to get a 3 bed house with garden no bigger than a postage stamp for less than £1m. Silly money. Who can afford that? Certainly no one I know!

That's great Smeg (sorry so much better sounding than scrambled - we can pretend it's about fridges) - hopefully your next home will have decent NDNs too, if not you'll have to train them. Good luck with everything and I hope you get a decent-sized garden too.

Also forgot to say - you're usually alright if you keep the chickens to hens only, it's the cockerels/roosters that cause the probs. I'll leave the scrambledsmegs out of it .

No, no please don't let this thread die....there is so much more to give and discover...so many ideas and thoughts.....please, please thread, don't die.

It died...such is life..