Next doors 5 year old kid has been screaming late at night for the past 3 years. Seriously destroying our quality of life.

[sleeplessneighbour]

They moved in around 3 years ago with their toddler, back then he screamed all day every day. Never ending tantrums. When they put him to bed at 6pm he would scream and yell for up to 2 hrs before finally exhausting himself, but often some time after midnight he would wake up again and start yelling and screaming.

For the first year this happened every single day, and I'm not exaggerating. We called over at one point (with wine and a smile I might add!) to talk to them about it and see if there was a solution we could work out. They were immediately defensive and sent us away saying that this is what kids do and refused to entertain any suggestions of moving him to a different part of the house or attempting to soundproof his room.

Over the years he does it less frequently (around 1/2 times a week) but now he is bigger he is even louder. I hear it through earplugs. It's audible in other rooms of the house and not just the one immediately adjacent to his.

I'm at my wits end. I opened my window one night and yelled at him to 'shut up' as he'd been screaming for 20 mins at 2am and the parents were upstairs in their loft conversion apparently oblivious.

WTF do I do? This is getting past the point of acceptable and has been going on for so long now that I doubt he'll ever grow out of it. Can any parents with experience of kids like this help me with how to approach them? We're a bunch of late 20's/early 30s professionals who have 1 party a year and are early to bed. We cause zero disturbance to any of our neighbours.

Any and all help appreciated, thanks from a desperate bunch of tired people.

We have a similar problem,with dogs barking...the owner just puts them outside in all weathers / all times of the night ,and they just bark and bark..drives me mad,clearly the owner dosnt give a shit about the dogs or the neighbors..

Hahahahahaahahhaahahah your quality of life?! Oh my goodness

Sleep deprivation is torturous, and can cause mental health problems, never mind affect the quality of the work you do and all your relationships. There must be something really wrong with your thinking that you find this funny.

If the parents were defensive and didn't suggest there was anything that would otherwise cause the screaming, then they dont really care who their child is disturbing. Call the Council.

Fucking hell the lack of empathy here is astounding. The OP has said she went over smiling to try and discuss this-how that makes her snobby I do not know.

Compassion works both ways. Those of us whose children have additional needs often complain about people not understanding how difficult things can be - why then can we not afford that courtesy to someone else who is clearly suffering.

Of course she shouldn't have shouted - I'm sure she's well aware of that, sleep deprivation does awful things to a human.

OP - I would try writing them a nice letter. Don't be confrontational,

Acknowledge how this is distressing for you so it must be much worse for them.

Ask is there anything they feel you could do to help them.

Refer back to your visit and let them know it was with only good intention.

Ask if practically there would be a way of swapping rooms etc (is this a possibility for you too?) or even look into egg box sound reducing wall cover.

You do - as do the parents and little boy have my sympathies. It's a truly exhausting situation.

Post some melatonin and a gag through their letter box...........😉

Gingerh4ir, why don't you move to a detached house?

I see there are lots of those parents on the thread. Ignore OP.

I'd be contacting Social Service and the council.

gingerh4ir:
I have a non sleeping screaming child with severe ASD. I'd love to hear your simple work it out solution.

I am very sorry that you are experiencing such difficulties - it is hard enough to deal with the challenges of a SN child when you are their parent and have a vested interest, letalone when you are absolutely no relation whatsoever and just happen to have ended up living next door. OP has clearly been told by the parents they think their child's behaviour is 'how children are' and there is no indication their child has SN. I'm sure as other PPs have said, if the child had SN then OP would at least understand the cause of the behaviour (and would no doubt have a completely different perception of its parents!)

OP was not presuming to come to their house armed with a
'simple solution' - she just wanted to chat with them to see if there was something that could be worked out together.

I'm afraid you are the one coming across as judgemental. OP doesn't expect 'no noise', she expects a reasonable and considerate amount of noise (as do environmental noise regulations). What she describes is not reasonable.

I second all PPs calls to call social services/the police to express concerns about the level of distress the poor child seems to be in! If indeed, the child has SN, perhaps that will trigger some support to help the family cope and some strategies to assist. Perhaps.

If you want to ensure you dont have screaming neighbours, you need to move to a remote detached house.

Seriously?

Athena404 What do you mean when you say the OP should 'take her own advice' and soundproof instead of suggesting it to the neighbours?

She asked if the neighbours could soundproof their child's room because it is THEIR CHILD who is creating the noise and therefore THEY are the ones who are responsible for dealing with it. It's not complicated.

Bloody hell, what is wrong with people?

Yes she should mind her own damn business rather than screaming out at a 5 year old child.
Nobody is in that house to say where the parents are or that he is being ignored. Typical mumsnet judgemental shit, and feeling sorry for a grown adult for screaming at a five year old. Any sympathy I may of had, stopped the moment I read that.

I'd have kicked off big time if you screamed out of your window at my 5 year old. Turn on your TV and mind your business. Really.

See, that's funny, because I'd have screamed out of my window at you if you failed to control your five year old to the degree that he screamed all night. No excuse at ALL.

I would also be contacting social services, I'm afraid to say.

Yes she should mind her own damn business rather than screaming out at a 5 year old child.

Have you never been so tired you've done or said something in the heat of the moment that in hindsight you wouldnt have?

OP, you are totally NBU. I feel for you.

But the poster who said this

I'd have kicked off big time if you screamed out of your window at my 5 year old. Turn on your TV and mind your business. Really.

is massively unreasonable (and obtuse, TV on at 2am, really?)

My sister has ASD, sensory processing disorder etc and she can be VERY loud. She is constantly talking, crashing around the place (she has DCD) as she always falls over etc. She was (at one point) a nightmare at bed. I felt terribly sorry for everyone, my parents, neighbours, myself and for my sister because it was so tough. She would simply just cry and scream, no matter what we did. We tried sitting with her, letting her go to bed when she chose etc but nothing stopped it. Her SEN were undiagnosed at the time, we were brushed off by several consultants telling us that 'children do things like that' (we had other concerns) and weren't taken seriously.

We did apologise to the neighbours though. We assured them that, although they couldn't hear us, we were doing everything we could to calm her as we understood that she is our responsibility and it isn't fair on others to listen to it. Thankfully it's stopped (most of the time)now.

Our three neighbours are loud.
One lives above us with two daughters who scream, jump, run and cry almost all hours (starting at around 5), the other living above is frequently having loud parties or she'll have a 'quiet gathering' and bring her arguments outside, so wakes us all up.
Our third neighbour also has two children that are loud. Sometimes they'll scream on the stairs, cry, come home early hours of the morning yelling, bashing their scooters on the bannister etc.

I understand how tough sleep deprivation is. I'm sorry I don't have any useful advice, but I genuinely hope that you all manage to resolve this as it must be hard for all involved

daydreamer

I'd love to. sadly being a carer for a severely disabled child goes often hand in hand with poverty. We are no exception. I will spare you the depressing details of our life but there is nothing to envy us. You probably wouldn't last a day if you had to shoulder what I have to.

FFS, there are some v ignorant people on this thread.
I have two DC with autism. One of them screamed at bedtime for a couple of hours every night for years. It's not a police issue. It's not an nspcc issue. She wasn't being hurt, neglected, mistreated. She just had severe sleep issues.
Thank goodness my neighbours are all lovely and can empathise with her condition.

The OP could offer empathy if the neighbour had actually communicated with her when she tried to discuss the matter.

I don't think it's asking too much or overly intrusive to speak with the parents and expect a little insight in return.

I have Misophonia, a neurological condition that means that certain noises make me go into fight/flight mode......sometimes triggering an extremly angry response. One of my triggers is loud screaming. I'd have great difficulty in this situation containing my anger but I would cos it's MY condition.....

Thank goodness my neighbours are all lovely and can empathise with her condition.

The neighbours won't even speak to the OP.

gingerh4ir

Why are you so full of spite? I have made zero judgements on the parents, I was more than willing to work with them if they were with me. They weren't. And in this situation I am the one who can't afford to move, they bought their house for around £1million a few years ago and have been renovating it since. They have a lot of money.

that's bad news if they own their property, because there's no landlord to complain to. Council/ environmental health and SS all the way!

At least it won't affect you to make formal complaints. As a home owner , you would have to declare any dispute with neighbours when you sell, as a tenant that's one thing less to worry about.

People would be a lot more sympathetic to the neighbours if they had

1. acknowledge the problem
2. apologise

at the very least, simple and basic manners would help diffuse the situation. They have show nothing, so the problem will clearly not go away.

I think the issue here is the parents not communicating with their neighbours.
I have a 6 y.o dd with ASD who can scream for England, fortunately we live in the middle of nowhere, but if we did have neighbours I would at least explain the situation.