Is my neighbour BU? Noise complaint!!

[Sweetheartyparty76]

Hi,
We a couple in our early 40's with an 8 month old DD. Almost 2 years ago we moved into a bungalow on a quiet, fairly upmarket all bungalow cul-de-sac. The vast majority of the inhabitants are 50+ and our direct neighbours are about 50-60.
I'm currently on ML but my partner works shifts so sometimes leaves at 5am (this may be relevant).
Yesterday we received a letter from the council stating that they have had a noise complaint report on 28th June and the claimant is keeping a record of noise disturbances and perhaps using an app.
That day my DH was on the early shift so worked from 5.30am to 5.30pm leaving at 5am. I was with my DD all day in the house as the weather was rubbish. We don't have parties obviously and our DD has her bedtime at 7pm so we're as quiet as mice after this. During the day we don't make an unreasonable noises. We have a dog but he very, very rarely barks.
I can only think that the complaint came from our nearest neighbours. My DH doesn't have a very good relationship with them and they have been mutually ignoring each other whereas I've been staying civil.
Not long after we moved in, they asked us not to park on our drive when DH is on earlies as it wakes them up (their bedroom window is a few feet away from our drive). They also asked us to stop using our gate as that is also next to their window. We politely declined to move our car but we stopped using the gate as much. Relations soured completely a year ago when we installed a fence a few feet higher than the original to give our garden some privacy. They came out and started shouting that although it was discussed they never agreed to it. The new fence was built on our land and the original still marks out the boundary.
That's it really. There is no proof that they were the ones who made the complaint but I can't imagine who else it could be. We are just a normalish family, how much noise can me make with a young baby? It all so ludicrous

Sorry for the long post

I am in the dreaded age group and I hate all neighbour noise. What you have described doesn't sound unreasonable, on the face of it.

Gawd. Just ignore them. Does the council ask for a response to their letter? I'd call them and tell them what you've just told us, they will see this kind of thing all the time.

If they have no evidence you're making lots of noise there isn't much they can do. Maybe they need new thicker windows

PS tell the council you would welcome them to put a noise monitoring device in your neighbours property.

Ignore them.

The council will give them a device which they can record noise with.

A car engine and a gate won't amount to much sound.

My dad used to run a bakery and his neighbours used to moan about him flushing the toilet at 5am. Some people are just wildy petty.

The 'earlies' sound like the only flashpoint, since you say the dog isn't a barker and no-one reasonable can complain about a baby.

YANBU!

Just smile and ignore. You have every right to put up a fence, use your own drive and gate! If it bothers them they should move their bedroom to a room further from your drive.

They have no evidence that you are making excessive noise and the council won't do anything without evidence.

It won't come to anything then. Put it in the 'bonkers neighbours' box in your mind.

Err yeah...it was probably them. They have been stewing on your non compliance over the car and now they are receptive to anything that might give cause for complaint.
I'd just ignore them...if you are living your lives normally there is nothing they can do. If they want silence they can move to a detached property on its own. They don't have any right to it in a residential street.

From what you've said you're not being unreasonable at all with your noise. I can tell you from experience though how blooming annoying it is to wake up every single morning with my neighbours van starting up (he sits in it for ages with the engine running!) That's my problem to deal with though, not his. He has to go to work so early and I should really learn to sleep with the window closed

I used to live next door to someone who started work at 6am and the main issue was the opening and closing of the car doors as it jolts you awake. And then you maybe can't get back to sleep with it being almost at the end of the night.
Not saying your DH is making a proper noise but that one smaller noise could be ticking them off.

Ignore your neighbours.

Write back to the council and sum up what you've written hear re the noise: baby (inside, quiet with you); husband's car door and gate, and unreasonable response to your perfectly legal, well constructed fence. Get it on record.

You are entitled to use your gate and park on your drive. We don't all work 9-5. They need to get over it.

Ordinary unamplifed human noise. Part of living i anywhere except total isolation. Make a note of anything you do which exceptionally might be excessive - otherwise, to hell with them.

Well, you know what the noise is, as they've told you - your DH leaving at 5 a.m.

So, you can either ignore them and know they're annoyed each time and logging it via an app, and likely to complain again, and will have a lower tolerance for everything, or your DH could park a bit further away those days perhaps?

I'd go have a word if you can without it being confrontational.

It has to be the 5am wake up call. TBH I can't blame them for finding that annoying. If you move to a naice cul de sac then maybe you are the type to want peace and quiet.

If it's a quiet road is there any real reason dh couldn't park up the road a little when he's due to leave so early? If you are planning on living there for a while you really don't want neighbour disputes.

I'm with Matilda.

I would find it annoying if my neighbour was waking me up everyday at 5am, but I would find ways around it. I wouldn't expect your DH to not go to work or not use your drive.

I'll let them spend a week at mine where my NDN has a grudge about some planning permission that was rejected (it was against planning laws in the first place!!). So he now revs his stupid "I am definitely overcompensating" car/motorbike for a good 10 minutes a day!

Hard to say. Does DH jump in the car and drive off, or does he have a van like my neighbour that's got a door slam like cannon fire and an engine that has to be revved into life like the start line of Daytona? If it's the latter they've got a bit of a point.

Take it from me though, you DONT want to get into a dispute with people that have got too much time on their hands. They're in it for the war, not the battle. They have computers to write many letters on resources and bloody mindedness the sort of determination that gets a person to the Pole.

For the sake of your sanity, get DH to park on the road on the days he's on earlier shifts.

Problem with any noise when it's quiet is that it always seems so much louder than during the day. A normal clunk of car doors, a clang/squeal/scrape of a gate being opened or closed, and a vehicle accelerating can seem "loud" at 5am but unoticable at 5pm. My NDN leaves for work at around 5.45am and often wakes me up at 5.30am due to his banging around the house. I have to suck it up as it's obviously just normal noise and the problem is the thin walls, but fuck knows what he's doing in there I think the doors and windows might stick so he has to slam them, but jeez, it really jolts through my house

I used to be an EHO. all noise complaints between neighbours have their roots somewhere else and the noise issue is just the tip of a sometimes very big iceberg of bad feeling. most likely your neighbours think that you have moved somewhere you shouldn't have. its an older peoples area that's why they live there to get away from younger peoples noise.

For something to constitute a statutory noise nuisance it has to be something that "would be construed as a nuisance by the man on the Clapham Omnibus" In other words there generally aren't specific levels, specific times or anything else. its just the test of whether or not a reasonable person would have their enjoyment of their property interfered with.

so in my view if your dog say barked for longer than 20 minutes on several occasions that could be a Stat noise nuisance.

the issue about the early start could also be but it would depend on the noise made.

you cannot just ignore this letter or put them down as batty neighbours. this formal complaint having now been brought to your attention is something that you will have to declare on any house seller information so you need to take it seriously and sort it out or it could mean in 2 or 3 years you have the devils own job to sell up if you want to.

Ring the named officer on Monday. tell them exactly what is in your post and invite an officer to come round and for you to show them what you do in the morning. put the dog somewhere quiet i.e. don't let him bark when the officer arrives.

you need to make it very clear to the officer that this is just the latest in a line of complaints. from now on I would also write on the calendar any time your neighbour moans to you. its always good to keep a diary as these things can escalate and make it quite unpleasant to live there.

They sound bonkers! It's normal neighbour noise ffs - if they're bothered about your husband getting up early and going to work and it wakes them they are the Ines with the problem they need to move to the middle of a
Field or somewhere with absolutely no neighbours

Assuming DH gets in his car and drives away rather than opening and slamming multiple doors and sitting their revving his engine it's tough luck. Let them keep their record and then let the council look at it and point out it's not unreasonable noise.

I had a letter like this after a genuinely unreasonable noise my DS made with his car very late on one occasion only. I wiped the floor with him at the time, but this letter came a few days later.

I did ring and enquire. They won't tell you who, but I think they did tell me the nature of the noise. (Can't quite remember if they did, or if I just assumed it must have been that car noise.) They told me that they had sent out diaries (?) to 3 neighbours for them to record whether the noise was regular - this was significant. It has to be regular. I don't think there were sound recordings.

I explained that the fact that it was so late was very bad and would not be happening again, and that he didn't use this car every day, but would have to use it a couple of times a week. It was a perfectly legal car with an MOT, but he did rev it very loud on that occasion. She tried to tell me that starting the car after 6pm would be unreasonable as people might be putting children to bed - but I pointed out that many people don't get home from work until after that.

We never heard anything else.

Write back to the council and sum up what you've written ... and unreasonable response to your perfectly legal, well constructed fence. Get it on record.

Don't know that this is such a good idea in case you need to sell at some time. You might have to declare a dispute. I am hoping I won't have to as I didn't dispute anything and it all came to nothing in the end.