AIBU to be incredibly bothered by neighbours complaint?

[user1465383488]

We have lived in our house very happily for the last thirteen years. For the last five years we have been living next to very fussy neighbours. A couple in their thirties,No kids,no pets ,she does yoga in her garden,bakes from home and cycles around in an old fashioned big wheeled bike with a basket full of fresh bread and flowers.He works all day and seems very quiet. A perfect couple I guess.
We have six children here aged between 8 months and 13 years. The eldest two have special needs (autism /mobility problems)
We've always been super aware of not making noise to annoy anyone . The kids with the SN are in the furthest side of the house so occasional meltdowns have at least four or five walls between them and the neighbours.
Problems started three years ago when she knocked to say one of our dogs barked when I left her to do the school run and disturbed their breakfast . I was apologetic and took steps to stop that..training,plug ins,radio, recorded her etc and it stopped.
Then a few months later she hung out of her window on two mornings shouting at us for closing our gate too loud at 8.45am waking her up as she..and I quote " goes to bed late and has every right to sleep in with her windows wide open and not be disturbed" .
She made my then 8 year old cry and the kids creep out paranoid every morning to the car not daring to even speak.
Then we were putting a small patch of decking down and using a small battery drill to screw the planks in at 6 pm on a Saturday.She pops her head over asking if we could stop as they wanted to have dinner in the garden . And we did 😐
Next week she pops over again asking if we could keep our voices down as she was reading when it was just me,hubby and the two eldest out on the patio planting flowers.
Since then I've been paranoid. I dont let the kids play outside before 10 am or after 6.30 ish. If they're stupidly noisy they get brought in,I took the trampoline down because the neighbour moaned.We don't ever play music, the youngest kids are all in bed before 8 and the big three are quiet then and there's never any noise overnight. I don't ever open our bedroom window incase the baby cries through the night as the neighbours Window next to our room is wide open.
I stand out with the dogs in the morning and night so they don't bark and during the day if they start barking they're called in.When I go out they're in the far side of the house .
I "thought" we were being pretty considerate.
Apparently not.
Last weekend whilst the kids were in the paddling pool playing and actually being pretty quiet tbh both of them flew to the fence and started screaming about how we were ruining their lives, she sits crying at the noise we make. We have no consideration and should be ashamed of ourselves as parents etc. They went completely nuts and I told them we did our best but they didn't believe me, hubby at this point stood up and told them to back off as our kids were watching.
Since then my autistic son hasn't slept, he won't go outside. I am paranoid beyond belief. I won't even let the kids go into the two rooms on the neighbours side in the morning and am making them eat their breakfast in a different room 😐 I'm constantly shhhhhhing and trying to stop my 3 and 4 year olds running around all day and I can't face even letting the little ones play or my dogs outside. I'm even getting hubby to leave work to do the school runs whenever I can so I don't have to leave the dogs incase they bark.
It's causing great stress with me and hubby who thinks we should just ignore them and carry on our lives as we were. He is furious I'm so bothered what they think . I really don't know what to do !

Your husband is 100% correct. You and your family do not exist to please the neighbours. Your family has needs and your neighbour has been expressing preferences. You have been treating your neighbour's preferences as being more important than your children's needs.

This is wrong.

Your children will have a very highly developed sense of what is fair and right. Your children will also be extremely tuned in to your stress levels. No wonder they are showing signs of distress.

The reason you are so stressed about all this is because you are experiencing an internal battle. On the one hand you have ingrained 'lessons' learned all your life to fit in and comply and not rock the boat. You want to get on with people and be liked.

This is classic for an undiagnosed autistic woman. Women and girls are 'trained' to behave and comply and the dreaminess and shyness and rigid following of instructions typical of autism can be seen as just being 'girly' and well-behaved and doing as you're told. I know because that is how I managed to get to my 50s before realising I was autistic. Women are often great at observing how others behave and then mimic that behaviour to fit in without even realising they are doing it. Not fitting in becomes a huge source of our self-esteem and when it doesn't work we get very anxious and distressed. It is one of the reasons we become people-pleasers and put others' convenience and needs ahead of our own.

At this point if you put your children's needs ahead of your own that will help get rid of the internal struggle between wanting to fit in and feeling annoyed with yourself for giving in to this woman because your children's needs are 100% more important than this woman next door's whims. The 'group' you need to fit in with here is your family group and not the neighbour group.

You don't want your children growing up thinking that they should put their well being last and prioritise stranger's whims. Otherwise they could be heading for an even tougher life ahead of them than they will already be facing. You don't want your kids to be struggling with similar internal issues when they meet up with nasty selfish people you want them to be able to protect themselves against being exploited. This woman has exploited your good nature and instinct to co-operate.

Your children deserve to have a home where they can relax and be themselves without feeling they are being scrutinised. Keep track of what this woman says (on paper and/or if you can manage it with a hidden recorder - hoodies with front pockets are very good for this) and does and if she continues threaten her that you will contact the police with a charge of harrassment.

You are entitled to live in peaceful enjoyment of your own home and that includes normal (for you) family noise and if she can't live harmoniously with that then she will have to move.

I would also remind her that if she starts up a neighbour dispute that you won't be moving and that a neighbour dispute would have to be declared to potential buyers of her property and would bring down the price of her property and so it is in her own financial interests to stay on good terms with you.

I hope this has been helpful.

Re. music. For offensive noise I'd heartily recommend the Anti-Nowhere League, and from personal experience I know that the most irritating song to be played on a loop is Tainted Love by Soft Cell.

Sorry OP that you are living next door to this. I hope this thread makes you realise how absolutely reasonable you are!

We're a couple with no kids and have lived next door to families for over 20 years. We like quiet enjoyment too, but your neighbors sound unreasonable to me. They can't expect families to be silent! Good neighbor relations rely on give and take. You seem to be only neighbor giving at the moment.

I'd carry on with your lives and ignore them. They're being unreasonable - not you. Maybe if they don't like it they will move.

Thankyou so much to everyone for some really useful advice and for very very much needed support.
I fully appreciate you're all only seeing one side of the story and of course being a family of eight we aren't silent by any means in the day time. However we ARE considerate, we DO live our lives around causing minimum disruption to next door and we ARE silent all night after 8 pm and never ever play music, argue, let dogs bark or any other things I see so many families around us do. Yes six kids are noisy in the garden but if they're making unnecessary noise they're brought in.
The two families a little further up the road let their combined 5 kids play football outside the front of their houses bang bang banging the football into the metal gates of the builders yard till night fall every night. Mine aren't allowed to play on the street.
I think the reason it's us they're so bothered by us we are the house adjoining theirs, we are semi detached. So of course they must hear us closing doors,the toddlers having tantrums or the dogs barking at the postman but that's normal surely??
Next door think it's perfectly fine to play the guitar when they please. Or that god damn bloody grandfather clock they must have shoved right up in their alcove that we hear every hour and half hour from all rooms on the left of the house.
Would I ever knock and moan? No..because it's their house.
I saw the man leave for work at 8.20 then off she cycled ten minutes later so we are free! And yes I am sat looking out of the window every two minutes to see when she arrives home 🙄

OP. I hope you manage to get to grips with this.

Banana is right that your family has needs, none of them unreasonable and your neighbour is expressing preferences that really could only be fulfilled if she lived in an isolated house but I imagine that the baaing of spring lambs would annoy her.

More fundamentally, your neighbours sound like they are just plain rude.

Try and stand your ground, rebuild your confidence in your family's rights to live a life with the very everyday normal the noise of tantrums laughter fun and living. It's the soundtrack to family life.

Let them move.

I'm so sorry that you feel like this and I'm rooting for you.

YANBU

PS neighbour woman sounds like a bit of a kn*bhead

Ah user. But the grandfather clock is superior noise, as is the guitar and you would understand if you weren't so...... inferior.

Glad you've had such wonderful support. . And I hope you manage to deprogramme yourself and are able to relax a bit more.

I am also programmed to people please so I find the relations we have with our not very pleasant ndn straining. In better days, she told me she has mh issues so I know it's about her, not me. I used to hide from her. These days, I smile and say hello if we are in close proximity. More often than not, I'm ignored.

Please, please, please print out this thread and shove the whole thing under her door. This woman is a psycho of the highest order - entitlement issues coming out of her arse. You are NOT being unreasonable.

Just found this thread and I haven't had time to read it all but I'm glad to say you seem to have had only positive responses.
I feel your pain as I have similar neighbours - except they're in their 80s!
What finally made me feel better was when I had a conversation with the neighbours the other side of them and it turned out they'd had the same problems for 30 years, and it seems none of the other neighbours get on with them either.
However in your case it sounds like they've taken against your family and are a couple of snobbish wankers. It might still help to talk to other neighbours though, hopefully they'll reassure you that you are NOT the neighbours from hell.

I rarely comment on things but in this case I think that THEY are ruining your lives. You have children....... children have every right to play, to sing, dance and be happy in their own home and garden. You have been more than accommodating and now I would go back to letting your children play in the garden without having to worry about anything noise they make. If your neighbours don't like it.... Let them soundproof their home or wear earplugs! Please please don't stop your children being children. It's already having an effect on them and they are doing nothing wrong. If neighbours continue to be verbally aggressive simply ignore them or record them shouting and keep it. Then if they complain to council or anyone re noise you have them recorded yelling. Good Luck. Also..... It's 08.45 .... It's daytime and you can bang your gate as much as you like. Open your windows and let your family make their usual noises. It's HER problem.... she's obviously a control freak! x

You know how some people like to say "there are no bad dogs, just bad owners"?
Some people like to think similarly about SN kids and their parents.
It sounds like you live next door to ignorant people who have not had the life experience to know, and are too arrogant to understand.

I wonder where they lived before and why they moved. You might be able to find out where they lived before with an online search of their name. Possibly it could make you feel better.

However as others have said, your options are to be ever more oppressed for your efforts, or just accept that they are the problem, and pretend they don't exist.
If they complain about normal noise, have a CD player or something ready to cover their noise, because it is unnecessary, intentionally obnoxious and upsets your children. Turn it on when they start, and off again at the end of the song. If they are still going, put it back on, rinse and repeat till they stop.

Keep a diary. Live normally. If they continue to adversely affect your quality of life take the diary to the police. Or a solicitor, which is still cheaper than soundproofing.

Sooommeebody needs to get a firm grip of herself ffs. YANBU. Tell her to fuck off next time. If you dont want to, pm me your address and i'll come and tell her for you OP.

We had neighbours like this in a flat. Complained when I dropped sho es in cupboard at 6pm, complained they could hear us walking (despite its removing the bare boards and installing acoustic underlay at great cost). Then they would fantastic screaming at 2 am . In the end we decided they were just completely on edge/ quick to anger types and ignored their rants and lived normally. They moved soon after . I don't think people who are that uptight are designed to live in close quarter with anyone..
Live your life, your neighbours have a problem, not you

She is being completely unreasonable. If she wants total quiet she needs to move somewhere without neighbours. Why did she buy a house next to a large family?! Don't let her intimate/bully you. This is passive aggressive bullying. So what if she's a yoga doing, old bike of a lady, she needs to learn some serious manners. My neighbours have a teeny that cries a lot. We sympathize, not criticize! Sure, if they've washing out, and you're having a BBQ, you might politely tell them. If you're playing loud music after 11pm all the time then it might be worthy of criticism. Get that trampoline out again! Be polite but firm. "I'm sorry, but we have a garden for our children to play in", "I'm sorry, but on this occasion, it's not convenient for us to do that", "I'm sorry that you feel you need to cry about this but I'm sure you can appreciate that ... would be unreasonable?" etc! Sympathize whilst basically telling them to get stuffed! Remain on an adult level, very calm and soothing. If you have SN kids then I'm sure you're very well practiced in distraction technique or saying no whilst avoiding a meltdown. Good luck!

I'm sorry to say this, but the 'decent' comment implies that they are prejudiced against you because a) you are a larger family and b) you have DC with additional needs.

These are not good people and their good opinion is not worth having. I hope you feel more able to enjoy a normal family life after the support and vindication that you've had here

Yanbu.
Carry on as normal.
My son learns the trumpet. Both kids do piano. All our neighbours have said is how beautifully they play 😍 They are also the loudest children on earth, shrieking and yelling, stomping on wooden floors.
but we are in detached house so it's not so bad. And it's dead quiet at 7 pm.
In return I put up with his diy on the weekends.

I suspect your neighbour has prejudged you as you have a large family and decided you are a problem family. They sound as if they are BU and you cannot expect your kids to live constantly worrying about noise they are making. Carry on being considerate but stop worrying about it so much or you will make yourself ill. Maybe they will move to a detached which is what they need if they want to live a virtually silent life with no family noise around them.

How are you doing op? The neighbours sound bonkers. Please have a BBQ today. A very noisy one.

I still think the combination of the neighbours having chosen to move to an estate full of families, their behaviour changing in last couple of years and apparent resentment of OP's large family suggests they might be having problems starting a family. Which doesn't excuse their behaviour but might explain it.

Or she might just have her head so far up her own arse she thinks the whole world is brown.

I think you and your husband and children just get on with living life and if she starts screaming at you, point her in the direction of meditation as she seems highly strung!

Neighbours are both in today. Hubby is at work and we've not really been outside yet tbh. I'm trying my best to not be paranoid honestly, but it's difficult!

I'm not usually a people pleaser..I'm very outspoken and I know for a fact that if this was happening to any of my family or friends I'd have knocked and told the neighbour to back off. So it's a complete mystery why it's affected me so much!

If you want to be a people pleaser, that's fine as long as you please the people you love

Will no one think of the children...

Sorry footle. I don't understand the comment at all. What do you mean?