To expect NOT to hear my neighbour coughing in bed.

[Lagoonablue]

FFS! Did 1930s builders just not bother with anything more than brown paper between the party wall of these houses.

My NND is an arse of a man and to have to hear his guttural throat clearing through the bedroom wall is hideous.

Bear in mind I have had some (basic) sound proofing done so Lord knows what it would be like if I hadn't.

It's bad enough I hear him shout at his wife and kids without listening to his horrid bodily functions!

Grrrrrrrrrrr. I need to win the lottery so I can move to a detached house.

Interesting that different eras of house building still throw up the same problems. I wonder if modern houses are better? Are noise guidelines different in modern builds.

Just makes me desperate for a detached house!

We had less noise when we lived in a 1st floor flat wth neighbours on all sides.

Shall we build a mumsnet commune, although judging by this thread you'd be banished everytime you had a cough

I just need noise free party walls. I blame the builders! Shame they are probably not around since the house was built in 1932!

I live in a detached house and still hear horrible bloody throat clearing hacking cough, and screaming at the kids.

Really? It comes across the space between the houses? Maybe I need to love in a castle!

My NDN piss in unison.

We must watch the same programmes because we often seem to get up and wee at the same time which for me, is during the adverts.

It happens most nights.....

1960's 1st floor HA flat here. Can hear neighbour below coughing, sneezing, weeing, throwing up, having sex, talking on phone, listening to tv, arguing over the phone etc. All 4 flats in the block may as well be counted as one house, because you can hear bloody well everything. In the main I've got used to it but if I had a new neighbour who was properly noisy (ie liked to listen to music, had a pet etc), I'm not sure how I'd cope.

UK housing doesn't prioritise soundproofing really does it.

We went from three immediate neighbours (basement flat, oriented side to side while the first floor was front to back, so we had two upstairs neighbours as well as next door), to one (semi), to none (detached - yes, goal achieved!) I'm sure there will still be neighbourly irritations, but never again will I put a shoe heel through my own wall banging on it in an attempt to shout the neighbours up.

Ohhh, I feel for you. I was in a Victorian terrace and it was like having the neighbours in the room. I could hear everything. It made me so paranoid about what they could hear from me too, I was constantly on edge.

Evetually moved to a (then) 10 year old semi. It's bliss! I've been here 15 years now and barely hear a thing. Even the neighbours very loud arguments are muffled and the glass against the wall trick makes it no clearer

If the worst noise you can hear is a cough then you are doing damn well.

70s semi here.

I hear nothing.

Handy, because I'm pretty sure the bloke next door is hiding bodies...

This thread is putting me off 1930's semis! They always look so perfect.

My Victorian terrace has only bathrooms next to each other, rest of the house is mirror image. Used to hear NDN pissing, hacking up and vomiting most mornings. Delightful.

I'm in a 1940s semi and I can hear the neighbour cough. But he does have a really bad cough. We don't hear much else other than that.
In my last house, Victorian terrace, I could hear both sides of next door's telephone conversations. I knew that her partner wasn't the father of her baby! He didn't.

I've rented all sorts. 90s built duplex was the worst. Could hear next door having a piss, followed by a really loud cistern after flushing. Also, our headboards were separated by same paper thin wall...
Georgian basement, was convinced upstairs neighbour was throwing furniture around the place. What stomping! Always in the middle of the night too.
Noughties townhouse. Next door was let out as social housing, screaming kids day & night. Most didn't even live there.
Turn of century artisan cottage. Main building was fine, Mickey Mouse extension was no joke. Literally thought bloke next door was in my bedroom some nights...
30s built loft. Wasn't the neighbours (15 Poles under one roof) but the A40 on my doorstep. Whole place shook when a lorry went by. Will never forget the noise & dirt...
60s built ex-council flat. All balconies faced an inner courtyard. Neighbourly noise from all quarters echoed around every nights. Our regular parties went down a storm...
Currently residing in a Victorian loft in the social epicentre of a big city. Noise outside goes without saying, but we could live without the tone-deaf busker who cranks up outside every Saturday morning.
I don't own a property & wouldn't have bought anything I've lived in so far, there's been a huge variety over last 20 years. Plenty of friends own houses they hate...
Interested to see what would be a sound buy. My parents' 60s detached is a solid house. But, I think detached is the key here...

Best house I lived in was an 80s terrace, BTW. Hating living in the 'burbs though, despite the peace & quiet!

My NDN plays there TV so loud I swear if I had a TV in my room I could watch the same programme with sound off and still hear all the dialogue!

Plus the sneezing!, every night about 20 times in a row!!!

When we were house hunting I discounted a semi which was 5k cheaper and bigger than the one we ended up buying because I couldn't stand the thought of the main bedrooms been next to each other.

The semi we bought has the doors adjoining. So hallways are next to each other as are kitchen, bathroom and small bedroom. The main living areas and main bedrooms are on the other side. We never hear them.

Bizarrely the only thing that I can hear through the wall (semi detached) is coughing at night - thankfully not often, only when neighbour has a cold! Nothing else at all, not hoover, not tv, nothing. Either coughing is the most irritating sound ever and doesn't get tuned out or it's at some hyper frequency!

I had an ex who had a coughing fit every time he orgasmed.

Maybe he's moved in next door to you OP (although I'd be amazed if he ever managed to persuade anyone to marry him)...

Hmmmm, well when I lived in a late Victorian terrace we couldn't hear anything at all - in fact NDN gave birth and we didn't hear a whisper.

I then lived in a 1970s house where you could hear every word uttered by NDN unless they were whispering or you put the TV/music on.

Now live in a 1930s semi and can't hear much noise at all from NDN. They have a tiny baby and I occasionally hear it if it is crying in the dead of night and I happen to get up for a wee

I don't think you can judge the sound proofness of a house by it's age. I do think it is better to get a house where the staircases are on the party wall as that reduces downstairs noise, but it would still leave a party wall upstairs.

Having the staircases on the party wall doesn't help if you have neighbours who slam front doors, run up and down the stairs in boots and bang along the hallway as well as making a racket in the rooms you don't share a party wall with.

I feel your pain (live in Victorian flat). I want to give ours the GP leaflet that says seek medical help after 3 weeks of coughing. I diagnose TB or lung cancer, not a smoker though. Previous neighbour v quiet and elderly.

One of our upstairs neighbours is a pianist/singer. Sadly he and his boyfriend split up recently so we were treated to long hours of listening to him belt out his very limited repertoire of melancholy love songs. Over and over again.

We used to hear downstairs neighbour having sex with his girlfriend but funnily enough have never heard them since she moved in.

I can hear my neighbour rolling over in bed. I'm not kidding.

We're in a similar house and the guy upstairs plays his guitar ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY.

My issue is that he's got serious mental health issues and uses the guitar to work through them. So I put up with hearing the strumming noise at any given hour of the day or night. He's actually told me to let him know if I can hear him but knowing that the guitar is his only crutch means I can't really in good conscience ask him to stop. I have asked him to stop the foot tapping that used to accompany it and, to his due, he has done. But I honestly can hear it in virtually every room of my house.

I think this pregnancy is making me more sensitive to noise though. It did last time which was the first and only time I actually went up and had a word with him.