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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask my neighbours to pipe down....?

16 replies

Baanaanaa · 04/06/2016 14:18

Don't get on particularly well with our next door neighbours since they objected to a planning application we submitted a few years back. Since then we have tolerated each other, but don't go out of our way to speak to each other or socialise as we do with our other neighbours.

Next door, at the back of their house is a conservatory, and this is where their teenage son has his keyboard. The conservatory gives no sound proofing at all, so we can hear him playing his keyboard very clearly when we're in our garden. We can also hear it when we're inside our house with all the doors and windows shut. He plays the keyboard day and night (well, generally up until around 10.30pm, just in time to annoy me when I'm going to bed). It's much worse during the summer when we have our windows open.

We have tolerated this for several years, but it has now reached the point where I'm feeling increasingly stabby and anxious about it. The keyboard playing does not consist of what you'd recognise as music by the way, more like a cross between the theme tune to Dr Who and the sound made by a cat walking across a church organ. And it is loud, always.

AIBU to shove a note through their door politely asking them to keep the volume down, or even better, get some flipping headphones? I don't want to actually talk to them, so I'm going down the passive-aggressive note route....

OP posts:
arethereanyleftatall · 04/06/2016 14:20

Did you proceed with your building work after they objected?

Baanaanaa · 04/06/2016 14:26

Yes we did the build. We obtained planning permission and had to have a party wall agreement with said neighbour, which we paid for, so everything was completely to the letter of the law. We even kept our extension smaller than we would have liked so as not to disturb their house at all (they were concerned about their foundations which is absolutely fair enough). Our builders were read the riot act by us about behaviour, parking, noise etc so we ensured that everything we did was absolutely by the book.

OP posts:
Touchacat · 04/06/2016 15:21

I think you should try to keep the upper hand as much as possible. So try talking to the neighbour and/or their son asking really nicely to turn it down. You could add how great headphones are as they cancel other sounds etc. Ifyou can't face talking to them then a note but keep it polite. But YANBU, other people's noise is very annoying and makes me stabby too.

HermioneJeanGranger · 04/06/2016 15:26

If someone just shoved a note through my letterbox but didn't bother trying to speak to me about a problem first, I wouldn't feel particularly inclined to keep the noise down, TBH.

The son isn't doing anything wrong. He can play his keyboard all day long if he wants to. And I would guess that his parents don't feel particularly...keen to appease you when you went ahead with your building work anyway.

Not that they're right to do so, but I can see their side.

Baanaanaa · 04/06/2016 15:27

Thanks Touchacat. I really can't face talking to them, but I have written a mega-polite note asking them to turn the volume down. I've just read this to my other (lovely) neighbour who thinks it's completely reasonable. I am now just trying to pluck up the courage to put it through their door (DCs are out, otherwise I'd have enlisted one of them to do my dirty work). Wish me luck......

OP posts:
EveryoneElsie · 04/06/2016 15:29

Ask him to wear headphones.

Baanaanaa · 04/06/2016 15:31

Yes Hermione he can indeed play his keyboard all day if he likes and I can do nowt about it. It's the evening / nighttime playing I have a real problem with as it disturbs me and, more key, it disturbs my DCs. The building work was some years ago, and we have spoken since then, so I don't think they're harbouring some secret revenge plan in order to drive us mad. I think it's more a case that they don't realise how much the noise is transmitted beyond the walls of their property.

But I really can't face talking to them, so a note it is.....

OP posts:
DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 04/06/2016 15:33

Don't write a note. Have a calm chat with his parents about getting some head phones as the sound is so intrusive.

Bearpeep · 04/06/2016 16:46

I'd go face to face rather than a note and explain how much the noise is travelling. You can really do anything about daylight hours but could perhaps get them to agree that after a set time (6pm?) he will use headphones.

Bearpeep · 04/06/2016 16:46

*can't really

mizuzu · 04/06/2016 16:49

Very annoying but considering the history it may make them blow up and cause more issues. Right now the dust is settled.

Hercules12 · 04/06/2016 16:51

Perfectly reasonable to ask he wears headphones regardless of your building work.

Chocoholicmonster · 04/06/2016 21:25

YNBU to make them aware of how much noise is travelling into your property but like a PP stated - I don't think I'd be too impressed with a letter through the door.

Iknownuffink · 04/06/2016 21:29

Earphones.

Ask them to come into yours to hear the racket.

monkeywithacowface · 04/06/2016 21:32

Send him the episode of friends with "Ross's sound" and nite saying saw this and thought of you. Then get a guitar and sing smelly cat all night long

Notcontent · 04/06/2016 21:38

No, of course he can't play anytime he wants to. If everyone did what they wanted to, no one would ever get any sleep or peace and we would all start murdering each other.

My daughter plays the piano but I would never allow her to play early in the morning or after 8 pm or so in the evening. Have a word with them.

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