to think our neighbours are being unreasonable? (Sorry, Very Long!)

[ChocolateGirl]

We have lived in our semi-detached house for eight years and our neighbours, on the unattached side, have never been very friendly. They didn't really speak to us at all for the first two years but Mrs X did "catch us on the driveway" and come over to see the baby when I had our first DC. After that we sometimes exchanged "Good mornings", sometimes ignored one another, occasionally had a polite chat.

They have been helpful and considerate on a few important issues:

1. letting us see their loft conversion when we were thinking of having one done
2. kindly allowing us to have scaffolding in their garden for about 5-6 months last year when we were having an extension built
3. allowing us to bolt our side door onto the side of their garage (to keep it upright. Sorry, not the best explanation but I hope you see what I mean).

However, since our extension was finished they have not really spoken to us at all. So we generally just ignore one another and that's fine.

We did notice last year that when our children were playing in the garden they would turn a radio on quite loudly. We thought maybe their 10 year old son was getting in to pop music... but then this happened:

One day last summer when my 3 children (6, 4 and 2) were playing in the garden, I heard the following conversation take place in unnaturally loud voices. Mr and Mrs X came out of their back door and

Mrs X: "They're the worst neighbours we've ever had!"
Mr X: "We'll have to take legal action!"
Mrs X: "I've had three children and mine were never like that! They're out of control!"

It gradually dawned on me that they were complaining about us!

Luckily we were not in the garden very much over the summer at the same time as them. They went away, we went away. etc. I do remember there was another occasion (possibly the only occasion) when we were both out in our gardens and she said loudly to her husband "I'm going in, Mr X, I can't relax with the noise those children are making!"

Now, my children are noisy when they play in the garden. Some of the time they are quiet - but when I say quiet I don't drawing-and-colouring quiet - I mean, chatting, crawling through the tunnel and sitting in the tent quiet. And some of the time they are noisy - running around, playing Power Rangers, shouting, squealing, shrieking with excitement, crying if they fall over or quarrel. But nor persistent, incessant screaming noisy. And they are never out there every day or all day. I consider it to be a reasonable number of children making a reasonable amount of noise at a reasonable time to the day.

I mentioned it to the 101 people when they had a Publicity Stand at Tesco's and they said they had never known anyone to complain about he noise made by children playing in the garden, only about the noise of machinery or stereos/tvs. They also said asked if I thought Mr and Mrs X were trying to intimidate me. Mr X is a policeman (!) and both these incidents happened when my husband was out.

Anyway, to (finally!) get to the point. The kids went to play in the garden yesterday, for the first time this year, and were out there for about an hour or maybe an hour and a half. They were making the usual amount of noise. Towards the end of this time I heard shouting and went outside to see what was going on. My husband had been at the front of the house, outside, and was making his way up the path to the back of the house. I got outside to hear Mr X shouting "Steve, if you don't do something about those bl--dy kids, they're making my life a misery, I'm gonna come over there and we're gonna have fists." DH ignored him.

It was upsetting, frightening and intimidating. But that was the end of it. I asked my six year old if Mr X had shouted at them and he said no he was shouting at his own son.

We left the kids playing out and they chose to come in after about another ten minutes.

I discussed the situation with my husband and we reported Mr X to 101. They are going to call back about it in a few days.

But I'm frightened it's going to happen again. I was glad it was raining today so I didn't have to face going into the garden. Basically, I am just going to dread going out there now. I suppose after last summer I just hoped the situation would go away but it hasn't, it's got worse. We don't feel we can go round and talk to them now Mr X has threatened violence, so I'm just hoping the 101 people will come up with something.

I'm not being unreasonable, am I? I sppreciate the fact that Mr and Mrs X want peace and quiet and don't like to hear the noise of children playing. But I want to be able to allow my children to play in the garden and to be able to make a reasonable amount of noise if they want to. There is peace and quiet much more often than there is noise, there are never more than 5 children in the garden (usually just my 3), they are never out there more than a few hours at a time and it is not every day. Mainly odd days on nice-weather weekends and in the nice-weather holidays. Never before 9am, never after 7pm.

I would appreciate anyone posting their opinions on who is being unreasonable here and what I can do to stop our neighbours behaving like this.

Thank you very much and sorry this is so very, very long.

I am mainly a lurker but have occasionally posted for a couple of years, by the way!

they are children...they're supposed to make noise!

hate the whole idea of 'children should be seen and not heard'...

relish in the fact that at least they won't be popping their heads over the fence all the time!

sounds like something else is bothering them, perhaps extention or maybe they expect more gratitude from them for 6 months of scaffolding, if he is policeman does he work shifts and could the kids have woken him , either way threat of violence is not good

At the end of the day what can they do? you have a right to use your garden. Your kids are not throwing things over the fence or shouting at your neighbours.

I think it's awful to be honest. Moany old gits

Message withdrawn

No you are not being unreasonable- they certainly are!

No advice really but I hope you get the problem sorted and can enjoy the summer in your garden.

If they want peace and quiet and no noise from neighbours, they should decamp to the middle of nowhere. Your children are small - they're not going to make that much noise (the odd bit of shrieking if they are girls, maybe ).

I don't think you should feel you can't let your children play in the garden - that's what we have gardens for! They are definitely being unreasonable.

what is 101?

They are unreasonable not u

You poor thing! You are absolutely right tho, your children should be able to play in their garden without you worrying about the neighbours. Personally, I like nothing more than to hear kids laughing and having fun, but not everyone is like that. I don't really know what the 101 people are, but I would be careful that nextdoor don't get wind of it or it could turn nasty, especially if Mr X has already aired his views to your dh. Can you have a quite word with Mrs X, when Mr X is at work? Maybe if you told her that you do respect them by not having them outside at unsociable hours, but that they are kids and kids make a noise.

We lived next door to an older couple and their adult daughter for many years and never had a word of complaint about the boys. They always said that, having had 3 children themselves, they could understand what children are like.

Then the adult daughter married an American she'd met over the internet. Within weeks we were having constant complaints about the boys. He even came round one Saturday morning at about 9.15am (in his p.j.s and dressing gown!) to complain about DS3 who was having a tantrum (he was about 2.5 - 3 years at this point). If I'd been there (I was out with the other 2), I'd have said something choice - dh, being a wimp, apologised!

After that I was completely paranoid about any noise the boys made and I was soooo happy when we moved away. Our purchasers had two boys and I often wonder if they have the same problem (although their boys seemed incredibly quiet when they came to view the house). Our current neighbours tell us that they love to hear the boys playing in the garden and that the sound of children enjoying themselves is one of the best sounds in the world.

Not much help, but I think you just have to try to rise above it. If it helps, keep a diary of the times when they complain and make a note of what your boys are doing, how long they have been outside, how many children there were, etc. So that if Mr and Mrs X make any sort of formal complaint, you have information to hand. Or move.

Hi there lurker

Well, I am not a great fan of noisy kids either, so I am not very much help.

Our gardens have very strange accoustics, my dh or ds cant hear me when I shout something out of the back door but you can hear a whispering conversation from next door from their garden. Very odd, I know.

I only have the one ds and have always asked him to be considerate as far as unatural noise.

I have never tolerated screaming, whooping and ringing of loud bells etc. If he has had friends around they are left to their own devices and havent really made too much noise.

Now I have had neighbours where their children are just a constant noise and quite frankly it can drive you to distraction.

It could be that your noise level acceptance isnt in accordance with others. Its plain that the neighbours are at the end of their tether and no doubt will become the neighbours from hell if you cant calm the kids down a tad.

Good luck with it.

You are right. They are wrong.

But for the sake of not living in an escalating atmosphere of bad tension is it worth trying to compromise with them?

I had an unmarried childless aunt who used to complain endlessly about next door's children playing. She felt that her garden was for peace and quiet and the children's shouts and noise were destroying her peaceful retreat. While I did not agree with her even a tiny bit I realise she had just never had experience of what is normal child behaviour.

You could go over and say we realise our children have been disturbing you. Although of course we can't forbid them to play outside and we can't stop them making noise, are there any times in particular you would like to have quiet? Could you agree to them not being noisy after 6pm or before 10 am for example?

Mind you, if I had neighbours like that I would want to throw my cat poo in their garden. Horrible people.

princess, totally agree with the fun and laughter, its the shouting, screaming, arguing that tends to raise the decibels.

Damn it, im not in the 101 area

oh dear....it's already got to that stage where you don't feel 'allowed' to go out in your own garden....that's so sad, I do feel for you. Your kids have the perfect right to play in their own space and there's no way you should have to feel intimidated into keeping them in; you did the right thing reporting this to the 101 number, absolutely.

i have to confess, before dh and I had a child, we lived in a house overlooking a green and I did hate the noise of the children playing BUT in my defence I have to add that it was EVERY SINGLE DAY, basically if it wasn't raining the kids were out, and in the lighter months they were out from whatever time in the morning they got up, to ten or eleven o clock at night...and they did cause much mischief, stuff was vandalised and things thrown in through our letterbox etc.

Nothing like your kids, who as you've explained are out at reasonable times and in for the evening. I do think to be quite honest that if an adult wants to enjoy their own garden for a glass of wine at 8 or 9 pm of an evening, they should be able to expect peace and quiet. And as you've already said, your neighbours already have more quiet than noise; bascially, they have no leg to stand on and you are totally being harassed. I hope you get it sorted without it ruining this summer for you let us know what the 101 people say!

Thank you all for your posts (and for making me laugh, Dior!)

I wish they had come round to have a civilised coversation about this. If they had, it would have been much easier. Yes, I think he does work shifts, and I would have been happy to have a copy of his shift-plan and not let the kids out in the garden if he needed to sleep - but they never gave us the opportunity to do this. On the occasions I've mentioned Mr X hasn't been in bed, he's been up and about so I think it is more about disturbing the peace and quiet than about disturbing his sleep. Although that might be the next thing... Oh, yikes!

101 is the number you ring if you don't need 999. Non-emergency police matters. I think it's staffed by police and council workers.

So we'll just brace ourselves, go out in the garden, and hope he doesn't jump over the fence and deck us one!! He won't, will he? End of police career and all that, surely?

Thanks again for all your posts.

If he has already threatened your husband with fists I would calmly say "if you threaten me or my family again,you will have more than fists to deal with. I don't care if you are a policeman, you can't threaten people with violence and get away with it. So shut the fuck up and go indoors or I will call the police myself".

That might do the trick.

I hate tossers like that.

ooh, lets have a meet up round yours this summer. We can all growl at him!

Their problem not yours ChocolateGirl. They do sound like professional moaners though, you were obviously meant to hear their comments, you were obviously meant to feel bad about your own children being, well, children.

I had neighbours once who enjoyed being nasty only when my husband was out, one of their tricks was to stand at the back door smoking when I was in the garden with dts in their buggy (years ago this was.) The way the houses were the smoke headed straight our way and they knew it as they only ever did it when we ventured out. Result was that I spent a very nice summer indoors feeling intimidated every time I saw them. I wouldn't let it happen again and I am glad you are making a stand against it as I wouldn't like to think of anyone else going through that.

Could they be jealous of your extension? If they are upset with neighbours having children they should actively move to an area where there aren't many rather than expect you to toady to them.

I just cannot understand how anybody could hate the sound of children playing. I think the noise of happy excited children is the most beautiful sound in the world.

The ones who are outside running around are healthy and socialising. It's the ones stuck inside in front of a sceen that we should all be worrying about.

The key thing here is that your neighbour has threatened your dh. Threats of violence are illegal. Hope the 101 people help to sort this out because unlesss you've neglected to tell us that your children are complete tearaways who yell obscenities at all hours, your neighbours are idiots.

(Bet if they had any children, they'd be getting very worked up about p&c parking spaces.)

LOL Kbear!!!

I do understand how 'annoying' it can be, when you want to go sit in the garden and relax on a nice Summer's day, to be utterly drowned out or subjected to someone else's (bad) taste in music.

We dont get on so great with our neighbours - they have 3 teenage boys and truly are noisy feckers - usually DIY that starts at 7.30am at any day of the week, that has gone on until 11.30pm at night once or twice. The bass-y music really has been awful - two of the boys were in competition music-wise at one point.

The most recent scenario was their son attempting to vandalise our car, setting the alarm off, and us naturally getting up to see and catching him running off and into his own front door - D'oh! When we took issue with it - DP knocked and explained what happened and asked for it to not happen again and the Dad squared up to DP - in front of DD and was really nasty. We hadnt done anything wrong - in fact we'd done them a favour by not calling the police.

Anyway, my point being - children running around and playing is not terrible (although kicking a ball against a fence is tres annoying). if you are raelly concerned - have a tape recorder to hand to record any threating 'overheard' conversations.

I think that everyone has a right to some peace and quiet, but, at the same time, everyone should understand the natural level of noise that children can sometimes make.