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.

I would just like to add in hindsight I believe she suffered from night terrors, waking up screaming, unconsable and generally not with it! I honestly think moving helped improve the situation because we know we was no longer being judged and was slightly more relaxed about the whole thing and able to deal with it in a more relaxed way xx

I'm sorry to be blunt but even if the child has special needs, that is not your problem to deal with.

Ring the council and put in a complaint about the noise.

How exactly would it help the OP if the parents said their son has a condition? The noise is exactly the same and decent human beings would do everything reasonable to minimise impact on the neighbours - like soundproofing.

I'm just trying to think of counter points for the op if this does turn out to be the case. Asking if they would do anything if it were like that so she could be forearmed with possible outcomes.

My toddler suffers badly from night terrors. I feel awful for our neighbour. We keep apologising and asking which of the two bedrooms she would prefer us to sleep in (not able to move her to the other side of the house as not enough room for bigger beds and if one of us couldn't sleep with her the noise would be 10x worse for the other side). She keeps saying not to worry about it and she rarely hears her (MUST be a lie, she's too damn NICE!)

I just can't imagine having a screamer and not giving a shit about it affecting the neighbours. That's awful.

As you rent OP I don't think you've got anything to lose by raising it with the council, it's not like the effect on resale is your concern. Report it to everyone you can and see if that helps, I guess.

Batteries at least you've apologised and made an attempt to try to ease the situation for your neighbour.

OP I'd call the police. I really would. I'd say the child is screaming and you're worried for him.

Because, while he might have SN, he might not. And that's worrying.

No one on this post has any idea what is going on in the house( no one actually even knows if there if child has SN's). So yes I would report and hopefully the child or parents will get the support they need ( I do have a child With SN's so realise how sparse help is)

@MsMommie well done for the most ridiculous selfish comment here

Why is it not ok for an adult to scream but it's ok for a 5 year old child?

And as for others who jumped in with the usual rage and projecting their own issues with whatever problems their child has...again this is not about you.

A child has been neglected for 3 years and is being left to scream and disrupt the neighbourhood.

The only thing I don't understand is why the op hasn't called the police out, each and every time. Referrals to social work will soon mount up and some intervention will be made.

I sympathise. I live in a terraced house and the house next door which is connected by 2 bedrooms, all downstairs rooms and the hallway and landing, is rented out. The house is wood floors throughout the downstairs, the stairs are just wood, and the upstairs landing in laminate. It's also completely open plan downstairs. This means without any separating walls or any carpet to absorb any of the sound it just echoes and amplifies. New renters have been here dead on 4 weeks, and we hear them all day, every day.
2 young children, one is a toddler, the other im not sure if qualifies as a toddler yet or still a baby, i haven't seen them in person just heard them. I know they're both girls, Willow and Thalia, as their mum is screaming their names constantly. The older of the 2 likes to do laps of the downstairs hall from front door, up the stairs, the upstairs landing, and back down again. Over and over and over, sometimes for half an hour or more at a time. It honestly sounds like a workman in steel toe caps just stood there stomping none stop. There are a lot of tantrums, at all hours of the day and night, and the parents don't physically go to see what's wrong, they just shout from where ever they are, usually with threats and "Get back in bed now!". The dads name is Steve, heard the woman screaming for him on a regular basis too. I'm pretty sure her name is Laura or something that is very similar from him screaming for her also. They seem to think open plan means you don't need to walk to be close to the person you're communicating with, just shout louder and louder til they hear you. They also never shut doors, they slam them, particularly the front door. You can not only hear it from anywhere in our house, you can feel it. The handles on cupboards literally rattle and swing. I can count on one hand the number of days they haven't woken me up since they moved in, same for my dad, and his room is upstairs whilst mine is downstairs. They seem to have lots of electrical goods in their kitchen pushed right up against the party wall, so the washing machine etc all vibrate and cause a continuous buzzing you can hear like radio static in our house. It's unbearable, the number of times i've been tempted to shout "Shut up!" or bang on the wall because i can't stand the constant noise is racking up quickly. There's acceptable levels of living noise (plenty of families with babies have rented that house previously and been generally ok to live beside) and theres a complete disregard for your neighbours and being a total dick causing major nuisance noise.

The people suggesting OP should move house are being completely ridiculous. If you could afford to move on a whim bully for you, but its not a realistic option for many and OP shouldnt be forced out of her own home because of neighbours not parenting their kid or being arseholes.

I have to say I would move if you can OP. I don't think you should have to, but it might just be the quickest solution. We ended up putting our house on the market just a few weeks after a new noisy neighbour moved in - they seemed nice enough but just no concept of how to keep quiet at all (tv top volume, slamming doors all hours of day and night, all conversations conducted v loudly with screaming and screeching laughter) even though we spoke to them really nicely on a few occasions and tried to keep it civil; the previous people next door we'd barely ever heard and the houses were well soundproofed so these people were just LOUD! My nerves were shot after a few days of them living there and I was on pins waiting for them to come home and the peace to be shattered, couldn't get a decent nights sleep.

Sounds like your neighbours really have no inclination to even try and discuss with you or resolve it; have you really got the appetite for all the stress trying to resolve this formally would cause? We decided we didn't so sold up instead, I do realise this isn't possible for everyone though. Good luck!

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

The screaming causing OP's sleep deprivation kind of makes it her business imo.

It must be absolute hell, for the parents as well as the neighbours. Unless the parents go to bed wearing ear defenders.

@Batteriesallgone, But that's the difference, you apologise for it constantly, that's why your neighbour says it's no problem. This toddler's parents don't give a shit.

Not good at all. And that's why it's worrying, the fact that they think that level of screaming is normal. It's not, the only time we've had to cope with that level of screaming was when we were staying in a Premier Inn after a 40th birthday party. DD1, aged two and a half, screamed literally all night. We were at our wits' end and very embarrassed about the noise.

But no, it is not normal for it to be like that every night. And not normal not to apologise for the noise and look for ways to minimise the disturbance for the neighbours.

I feel for you OP as a parent of a non sleeping child though I also feel for your neighbours as well though. Ds is now 22 and hasn't slept through the night in his whole life although of course it's easier now he can entertain himself overnight but it's really awful when you have a child who can quite happily manage on 12 hours sleep a week. Fortunately my neighbour is deaf and ds doesn't scream though
I can tell you now there is no help for parents in this situation you are expected to get on with it. Ds has never responded to medication in fact it makes him worse. Every strategy offered by many professionals didn't work because he doesn't need to sleep. For many years I slept the odd hour when he was at school or h and I slept in split shifts and quite often I didn't sleep. Now he's 22 I love that H and I have recently separated and ds stays there one night a week because on that one night I actually get some undisturbed sleep.
I'm not sure what to suggest really I'd probably move house if I'm honest because IME it might not be fixed easily or ever tbh.

The first thing I was wondering when I read this thread was if it were some kind of SN issue.

The second thing I am wondering is if it is some kind of sleep training attempt. Though, clearly, it is not working that well and I know I didn't have the stamina to go through this when my children were small and unsettled at night.

And, thirdly, could it even be something more sinister, such as neglect, abuse? Could they be ignoring a distressed child, could he be locked up or worse?

I am trying to make out their attitude. I think I would be really annoyed if a neighbour complained in their shoes, tbh, even with an offer of wine as it's not as simple as switching them off. But I would also be mortified and I think that would show, too.

Why are PP's raising what the child or parents feel about it? It's their problem and they should sort it and it shouldn't be the OP's problem. I'd have shouted out of the window too OP and I wouldn't have waited 3 years before contacting the Council.

That said, crap as it is, I'd have moved detached as previous PP said. Put yourself in a position where you don't have to listen to that nightmare.

Sound proof your own room if it's. major problem? No you shouldn't have to but what other choice do you have?

SS are going to do nothing and as for calling the police on a 5 year old boy for crying at 2am? Bloody hell what a waste of there time.

Also although this scenario is the extreme end of the scale, everyone has different tolerances to noise. Some households are REALLY loud. TV blaring, running, shouting. It's just some people's normal existence. Personally I can't stand it if the TV is louder than number 8 max! (Only child with nice quiet upbringing )

You'd be annoyed by someone telling you that your child's incessant screaming was keeping her awake? I'd be apologetic.

I see it from both sides, I feel bad for op and the disturbances. I also have 2 sn dcs with sleep issues. To minimise disruption to the neighbours we have moved them to furthest bedroom away and one of us stays with them until they fall asleep. We do all we can but occasionally one, or both, will rear up, such as screaming at midnight because they want their I pad as they can't sleep, for example. It's very hard to impose boundaries whilst trying to minimise noise from the ensuing meltdown. Plus, the dcs get wise to it, no easy answers. I'd love to live in the middle of a field so we never bother others but that's not financially possible.

Yes I would be annoyed because you can't exactly stop it. If you could, it would not be happening

Unless you couldn't be bothered because you're in a soundproof loft and are leaving your child screaming and distressed!

I'm sorry but if any of my kids were screaming like this and disturbing my neighbours id be mortified! Yes kids cry and scream, but every single night? At 2am? For 2 hours from 6pm? No! Unless the child has additional needs there is no reason for it. Keep a log and complain to their landlord/environmental health/housing authority. no one should have to live like that, and i feel that the comments suggesting OP minds their own business is because they didn't mention they had kids of their own and couldn't possibly understand. Being kept awake by a child that isn't yours nor lives in your actual house is awful. Start filing complaints, they'll either be prompted into action, seek revenge which will get them into even more trouble or be removed altogether. I'm a cow when it comes to getting no sleep so I'd be kicking off all over the place. How you've remained quiet about it for so long is beyond me!

I wonder whether my neighbours think this about us. My kids are 5 and 8 and both have dyspraxia. They spend most of the day screaming about one thing or another. I hate it and I love them. But there is very little can do to stop them. The only things would be 1 - never allow them to be in the same room (to stop the fighting) 2 - never have any routines or instructions (pretty impossible. getting dressed makes them scream, dinnertime makes them scream etc) 3 - completely pander to them and never have any boundaries, consequences ( so'st not to induce a meltdown) Everything else is involuntary ( i.e. falling over, hurting themselves, frustration at lack of control, vocabulary, understanding etc) . It's so stressful living with them. I pity my poor neighbours. Happily they have never complained.

I think you should look into moving

I'm sorry but if any of my kids were screaming like this and disturbing my neighbours id be mortified!

I think every parent of a SN child who cries / screams at any time is mortified. We have to have a hard shell in order to battle the authorities to get the support our children need; but inside, we're crumbling with the stress of it all and mortified of what others might think.

In this situation, if the child doesn't have issues, then the parents certainly do - and I stand my description of them!!