Noisy student neighbours: how do we deal with this?

[thestudentsnextdoor]

So we live next door to students. The ones we had for the last two years were lovely. They warned us every time they were going to have a party, kept the noise down after midnight, brought us round chocolates to say thank you for not complaining, and generally were very sweet. They even changed the dates of some parties to nights when DH didn't have to work early the next morning, so we could cope with the noise. One of them was really friendly, and gave us his mobile number in case we needed to ring to ask them to be quieter. We got a bottle of wine before they moved out (no doubt left over from the mega post-exam celebration they had ).

This lot are not so sweet. Over the summer, there have been a number of nights when they sit outside their back door, which is under a shelter, and talk loudly, swear a lot and smoke weed. DD struggles to get to sleep, and has important exams this year, and the noise and the smell goes straight to her room, and to ours. Last night we rang their doorbell twice - the second time at midnight - to explain we could hear and smell everything, and they didn't stop. We could hear the person who answered the door tell them to keep it down, but they just ignored it. My worry is that as smokers they will be there all winter, as well as next summer when DD is doing exams.

So DH wants to do it nicely - just keep asking until they get the message. (He is a calm and determined personality who is pretty good at defusing bad feeling in his job to achieve the best outcome for everyone.) I want to lean over the back fence, and tell the potheads ones who sit outside to stop it or we will get the landlord involved. The landlord absolutely does not want any trouble - there's a pretty anti-student/landlord group in our street - and I think he would be on it. (I am a middle-aged woman with a scary bitch-face who might be a little tired and hormonal.)

So, I guess my question is: AIBU to go in pretty hard straight away? Or should we do it DH's way?

I would have a friendly word with the landlord

I'd have a friendly word with the students - maybe go in with a batch of homemade cupcakes or something just to set the scene that you want to be friendly.

You can ask them if there's anything you can help with such as telling them which day the rubbish is collected or where the busy local takeaways are (I know they already know the answers to these, it's just friendly smalltalk to establish a relationship).

Then you can ask for your requests... good luck!

Perhaps you can be diplomatic like the nice students? Go round with a case of lager and ask them if they could move the smoker's corner to the back of the garden?

Update: we've had some noise late at night, including drunken loud phone conversations, and one party, and have gone round to ask them politely to keep it down. They did come and apologise the next day.

Last night they woke us up with a start at 3am with loud shouting and laughter, and then kept talking. We've said so many times that we can hear everything in the covered outside area, but when they get drunk and stoned they seem to forget that.

I stormed outside in my dressing gown, leaned over the fence and told them politely but very clearly that they had woken me up, we could hear everything they were saying, and that they should go inside now. They were so shocked at the head of an angry middle-aged woman with terrible bed hair suddenly appearing over the fence that they just murmured some apologies and went straight inside.

I'd like to think my former teacher scary-face will terrify them into silence in the future, but I'm not holding my breath...

So DH is going to text them, to back up my late-night appearance. And I guess if it happens again, we're going the landlord and university route.

I feel both infuriated and a little bit mean, in that I think it is just thoughtlessness. But then I tend to think that if they want to rent a house like adults and have the freedom that comes from not leaving at home or on halls, then they have to bear the responsibilities of adults - which include not annoying your neighbours.

OP They have now probably realised that you are like their Mums and will not take any shit!! The scary teacher face seems to work....I used mine in IKEA last week on a child about to do damage to others whilst unsupervised with a trolley. He cried.