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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

who is being unreasonable - neighbours or us?

94 replies

rmw1016 · 10/07/2017 08:09

My OH and myself have just bought our first home. It is a terraced house . We have retired neighbours on one side who have recently started complaining about noise coming from our house which is disturbing them, examples:

  • One night my OH dropped a metal dish on the kitchen floor about 11.30pm (kitchen is currently in a spare room upstairs as we are doing some work downstairs) it made an almighty clatter but lasted all of 5 seconds.
  • Another night we had been out with some friends, we came home about 11.30pm and whilst our friends waited for their taxi, they went up and down the stairs to get their things out of the kitchen and we were chatting. This would have lasted 15minutes max as we were in bed by midnight.
  • I dropped a glass at 10:30pm.

On all occasions, my OH has been spoken to the next morning by our neighbour claiming our noise was unacceptable and that neither of them could get a wink of sleep as a result of it. Its worth noting, the wife has severe Crohns disease so i think the lack of sleep is part of this. I think that the noise we have made is just normal living noise and is not worthy of complaining about. I want to suggest that they should get some ear plugs if its bothering them but worried this might seem insensitive.

The lady who lived here before was elderly and quiet as a mouse so i suspect its an adjustment for them but i feel like I'm having to creep around my own home and feel anxious after every night in case we are going to get told off again. I'd understand if we were screaming and shouting or playing loud music all hours but to make short bursts of noise is surely just part of living in a terraced house? Eventually we are going to turn that room into a nursery, are we going to get moaned at for a crying baby!?? They are a lovely couple and we are keen to keep things light between us, we've arranged to pop over to discuss it but everytime i think about it, i just feel more and more that they need to accept that they may hear noise from us. Any tips on how to sensitively say this?!!

TLDR - Neighbours complaining about us dropping things and having friends back, claiming this is stopping them sleeping. all incidents of noise have lasted less than 20 minutes and have been before midnight.

OP posts:
Only1scoop · 10/07/2017 08:51

Yes I'd soundproof
I think the kitchen upstairs thing is making it worse. Sure it will be better once it's sorted.

SaveMeBarry · 10/07/2017 08:51

I'm wondering how long you've been there as you say you've "just" bought the house. Has it been a couple of weeks or a couple of months? If these noise incidents all occurred within a short space of time then I can see why they might be reacting this way as from their POV it might suggest that you are going to be the dreaded noisy neighbours that people worry about.

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 10/07/2017 08:52

If you've never heard anything from them I wonder if you're being too noisy.

Coming back from a night out and dropping a glass-making wee you all pissed? When people are drunk or even a bit tipsy they make more noise than they realise.

RainbowPastel · 10/07/2017 08:56

I would be annoyed with you. After 10 it's courteous to be as quiet as you can. Not sure what the lady's Crohn's has to do with it. I have Crohn's and sleep like a baby.

DecoRules · 10/07/2017 08:56

If it had gone on for hours then fine, but is 15minutes really that inconsiderate?

Of course it is that late at night if it's stopping your neighbours sleeping why can't you see that?

NotMyPenguin · 10/07/2017 08:58

You could suggest that both sides should invest in soundproofing. It sounds like they are quite sensitive to noise (what you mention doesn't sound at all noteworthy to me, and I've lived in plenty of flats and terraced houses), plus the house must be very poorly soundproofed to start with if they can even hear it. My mum did this in her house because there was a student house on the other side, and it really improved her quality of life.

I think it would be well worth a bit of extra expense on your side, too, to put this problem to rest and not have to worry so much!

But it should definitely be something that they invest in on their side too. This isn't just your problem; it's partly their sensitivity too.

BlahBlahBlahEtc · 10/07/2017 08:59

They should have my neighbours. I'd be on cloud 9 if the only noise I heard from you was the odd thing bein dropped or occasionally friends for 20 minutes...

NotMyPenguin · 10/07/2017 09:01

I can understand about things like not slamming doors, not putting washing machines on late at night if you like above other people etc... but really, you should be able to chat briefly in your hallway and drop things occasionally in your kitchen without worrying about your neighbours.

Tazerface · 10/07/2017 09:02

So OP isn't allowed to chat or go up and down stairs after 9pm? Ridiculous.

If they are that light sleepers they need ear plugs. It's normal household noise.

At some point they are going to need to accept they live in a not very well insulated terrace. It will only get worse when you have kids. If they require complete silence from either side they need to move.

Yoksha · 10/07/2017 09:03

Do what my daughter did. She went to the council and picked up a leaflet on "how to complain about noisy neighbours". Next time she stepped out the door expecting to be approached, she handed the leaflet to her neighbour saying :-

" Oh yes. I was concerned about how we affect you. The council gave me this to give to you. You just call the number in the leaflet, and they'll obligingly come out and monitor the noise levels in your house coming from us. Oh! And it's best to keep a diary. It'll help you case ".

She was never bothered again.

Cheby · 10/07/2017 09:03

YANBU OP. It's fine to talk to people in your own house at a normal volume. At whatever time of night. If the neighbours can't cope with normal living noise then they should soundproof themselves or move tons detatched house.

Some people on this thread have very unrealistic expectations.

Swatsup · 10/07/2017 09:04

Have you explained that the kitchen being upstairs is a temporary thing?? They might be concerned it's permenant and I could be a pain as would be noisy on a level next to where they sleep?

Spudlet · 10/07/2017 09:04

We ended up putting soundproofing plasterboard up in our living room, as unfortunately our neighbour had dementia and watched tv v loudly until late at night (loud enough that we knew the score from Wimbledon without our TV being on.... when we were standing outside on the street and all their doors and windows were closed. And you can park two cars end to end on our driveways). He was a bit deaf and he used to forget and crank the volume up and up and up after his wife had gone to bed. It was awful, even with earplugs and white noise going.

The soundproofing was a bit of a fiddle to fit but it did really help (we also had a good heart to heart with our neighbours, in a friendly way). Although he's subsequently had to go into a care home, the poor man.

A bit of noise is fine and to be expected, and I think your neighbours ABVU about dropping things (chatting might be more annoying, depends how loud and prolonged it is, but even so, once at a weekend is hardly a terrible thing). But soundproofing can only improve your home, if it's something you would have considered anyway.

MissBax · 10/07/2017 09:06

I'm surprised people are saying having friends round for 15 minutes before midnight on a Friday night is unreasonable, am I missing something?! Don't worry about it OP, I'd just apologise, explain that you are just going about your daily lives. They'll have to accept it really.

BigSandyBalls2015 · 10/07/2017 09:07

Your neighbours are being very unreasonable. None of that is excessive noise. Our neighbours teens have parties every few weeks/months which go
on until 1ish with music and noise but it's part of living in a built up area.

Can't believe they've complained about the little noise you have made, they need to get a life.

PaintingOwls · 10/07/2017 09:09

You both sound clumsy and inconsiderate.

I have a similar issues with my neighbours - they are awake at the crack of dawn, thundering up and down the stairs, kids screeching in the garden at 7am... It's really very grating.

You could make more of an effort to just not touch things if you're accident-prone and you could have quietly gotten your friends' things instead of having everyone trooping up and down at nearly midnight Hmm

Nikephorus · 10/07/2017 09:10

When you come in after a night out just check if their lights are on - if they're out then it's reasonable (on any night of the week) to keep the noise down. Dropping things by accident is fine but having to put up with people talking & going in & out when you've been woken up is damn annoying. And perhaps if you've been working on the kitchen they've had extra noise from that & it's everything adding up to make you "the noisy neighbours"?

BigSandyBalls2015 · 10/07/2017 09:12

It was a Friday night!!! Before midnight!!

becotide · 10/07/2017 09:12

Smile brightly and say "Oh dear, aren't the walls thin! It will be worse whe the babies start arriving!"

Hopefully they will move

user1497787065 · 10/07/2017 09:14

YANBU, you're not exactly having wild parties night after night. Sounds like normal living to me. I remember someone posting about her neighbour complaining about her hairdryer at 6am. I was amazed the number of mumsnetters who thought that was completely unreasonable. The fact that she started work at 7am was overlooked and suggestions made that she dried her hair at work. We all keep and work different hours, your neighbours just need to get used to it.

Nanna50 · 10/07/2017 09:17

They are going to have to get used to it, you could make yourself ill worrying about it. Many years ago we bought a semi detached we moved in over the weekend and a week or so later were invited in for drinks by our neighbours.

They proceeded to tell us how noisy we were and that the children were ridiculous the weekend we moved in, and yes they were running in and out, they were excited. They then told us what time our alarm went off, what level we should have the TV on, what time they went to bed so that we could be quiet and so on.

For a few weeks I was paranoid but I should have ignored them. We knocked a few months after we moved in to tell them I was pregnant and they put their house up for sale and said they could not bear a crying baby.

We really were not noisy, rowdy or inconsiderate, the house we bought had been empty for a long time and they had been used to having no noise whatsoever next door to them.

RandomUsernameHere · 10/07/2017 09:17

The neighbours ABU in my opinion. Dropping the dish and the glass was obviously an accident and going up and down the stairs and talking at 11:30 is pretty normal behaviour. It doesn't sound like you have been deliberately inconsiderate.

SapphireStrange · 10/07/2017 09:18

They overreacted about the two accidents, but people going up and down the stairs and talking late at night is inconsiderate and would disturb my sleep and piss me off too.

StaplesCorner · 10/07/2017 09:19

My neighbour is talking to a workman at the rear of her house. I can hear it and I am entitled to hear nothing. But she's probably drunk.

YouHaveBeenSummarilyDismissed · 10/07/2017 09:20

My neighbour commutes overseas and has a 4:00am Monday morning flight. A driver comes every Monday, parks up, doors close, suitcase drags, boot closes, etc. Wakes me up about half the time. It would never occur to me to ask him not to leave at 4:00am as it "makes noise"

Surely coming and going and cooking and having babies is part of normal life!