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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Neighbour texted to tell us we are noisy - AIBU?

97 replies

forevergrateful · 23/02/2018 08:59

Yesterday around 5:30pm I was playing Land, Air and Sea with my daughter. She was playing, I was conducting (Ok, ok, i showed her how to do the jumping jacks - just one time, maybe two). About 6pm we got a text from my neighbour asking if we were doing any DIY in the house and if we could make sure it is not done too late. I had actually forgotten about the game and asked what time they heard noise as I could figure out what was going on. I thought it might be the kids jumping on the bed around bed time. My neighbours are 3 girls in their early to mid-twenties. She replied back saying it was different times of the day and it felt like it was coming through their wall and that they had heard it just before she texted me. At that point I was a bit miffed because at the risk of outing myself as the worst mum ever, I have to admit that my kids (DD 7 and DS 2) nearly always watch TV (I work from home and apart from school and activities, I can't to engage with them before 6pm) and I have to literally wage war to get them to do anything physical. Only recently had I started to get my daughter to do the moves to just dance and sometime my DS joins in. And that doesn’t last past 30 minutes anyway. DS is two and we have had some tantrums and throwing things on the floor but I am not going to be able to fix that overnight either. So basically what I am saying is that we are mostly ‘yellers’ not ‘bangers’ and the neighbor definitely said ‘banging’. I replied back to her saying that since we only hear them when they have friends over at the weekends I didn’t realize that our noise travelled on a daily basis and that we would keep it down. To which she replied that she was sorry we could hear them and that they would try not to be loud. But of course, after a night’s sleep I have had time to reflect but still at a loss as to how to proceed.

We live in a semi with wooden floors. Carpets, perhaps? Should I reserve Land, Air, Sea for Boxing Day? Can I play floor is lava today or should I just suck it and grow couch potatoes? What do you y'all do? I know the park is great for letting steam off but I hate the cold weather and I am not about to let the kids play in the street on their own like we did 20 years ago. Besides its too dark at 6pm. Are your kids all sitting down to play? No jumping except on special occasions? Is 30 mins a day too much?

OP posts:

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 23/02/2018 10:13

No shouting and adult & child leaping isn’t part of raising a v young kids
Washing machine,chatter, doors open/close,normal movement all part of family life
You do sound noisy and up to now unaware of it

jkl0311 · 23/02/2018 10:14

My issue is more WFH Mum with 2 kids they probably do chuck stuff with boredom, it grates me how people think they can just leave 2 kids create havoc until 6pm? And I bet your employer is delighted when 2 young kids are home after school/holidays distracting you but I'm sure you put 100% into your work. Your neighbours may have a point, they are a tad loud throwing stuff bored and you shouting commands at them and them driving you nuts won't help, kids pick up on vibes. Maybe look at your home/work life with the kids a bit more then less complaints might come from next door.

Original poster

forevergrateful · 23/02/2018 10:14

Thanks everyone for your kind words. Without you I would have to pay for therapy! You have saved me more times than I can count.

OP posts:

SusanWalker · 23/02/2018 10:15

Why don't you get some of those foam playmat things for them to play on. Like the puzzle piece ones that clip together. They should be OK for your daughter and would muffle the noise. I wouldn't worry too much. You have to live and your kids should be able to play. As long as it's not midnight.

HundredsAndThousandsOfThem · 23/02/2018 10:16

I would say if you have young kids you should definitely put some rugs down on wooden floors but you shouldn't stop your kids from being kids (within reason) in their home. It's amazing how heaving footed little kids are (I speak from experience having lived below a toddler) so the carpets and shoes off in the house is a good idea. That said you shouldn't have to creep about your home.

AnnieAnoniMouse · 23/02/2018 10:21

Oh do calm down lipstick.

It’s pefectly acceptable for an adult or a child to play on a wii/video game/exercise video/game in the early evening.

They’re watching the tv until the op finishes work at 6. That’s hardly ‘causing havoc’ FFS

Original poster

forevergrateful · 23/02/2018 10:21

jkl0311 Woah! My employer knows my working arrangement. They care about the quality of my work and productivity, not how or when i get it done. And my kids are not chucking things around all day and I am not shouting at them all day. I explained that these things may happen now and then in the house as a way of figuring out why the neighbours felt they had to complain.

OP posts:

TheVanguardSix · 23/02/2018 10:25

What’s Land, Sea and Air?

Never heard of it!

jkl0311 · 23/02/2018 10:26

As long as your employer knows this then... some are more relaxed than others

angieloumc · 23/02/2018 10:29

Annie goodness only knows, it's usually two months but has been four this time. It's really annoying when my DD who's 13 has school the next day. I'm afraid once or twice I've resorted to banging on the wall.
It definitely is more than normal household noise and I don't know how toddlers can bang so loudly.

Creambun2 · 23/02/2018 10:34

You sound selfish and inconsiderate.

llangennith · 23/02/2018 10:35

Can’t your DC play with Lego or Playmobil or something else where they can use their imagination and creativity rather than playing physical jumping games and charging about the house?

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 23/02/2018 10:36

Calm down dear straight back at you annie
I have gave specific example of leaping & shouting,which op concedes they do
To such an extent the neighbor has complained about noise

riceuten · 23/02/2018 10:43

Having suffered noisy neighbours and having moved house because of it, my half pennorth is this

If you live next door to people with kids, yes, there will be noise, there will be loud conversations, there will be music.

What is not acceptable are - loud music after 10-11pm at night; DIY past about 7pm at night; parties in the back garden that go on all day and into the late evening (and are audible in the evening with the windows shut), unless you've prewarned the neighbours (or invited them ;-)) and then only a couple of times a year; people standing outside the house having a fag at 2-3am having a converation under your neighbour's window; customers for the drugs you are selling banging on the door at 4am (I WILL call the police in such circumstances and you WILL have your house turned over by them, and I will gladly sacrifice a couple of hours sleep to gloat at your belongings being thrown in the front garden); people having the TV on full blast, all day, irrespective of viewers "so I don't feel lonely"; small children screeching at the top of their voices before 7am in the week and 9am at the weekend whilst running up and down the house on a daily basis.

Pearlsaringer · 23/02/2018 10:44

Your neighbours sound nice, the message was not unfriendly and they offered to keep their own noise down. I suspect it sounds worse their side than you think, probably due to the wooden floors. I wouldn’t get upset about it, just keep volume in mind maybe save the really lively games for outside.

Original poster

forevergrateful · 23/02/2018 10:44

llangennith - that's what they would do all day if left them to their own devices. But I felt they need to get up from their chairs and move a bit more based on evidence that a lack of exercise and movement is going to kill us all sooner this generation. the game was a first. Just dance, maybe a dozen times since Christmas which is when i had my epiphany. Usually my new year resolutions don't last this long. If that's too much, then I guess we go back to watching TV or imaginative play whilst at home. What's your typical day like at home?

OP posts:

Original poster

forevergrateful · 23/02/2018 10:50

riceuten aww, that sounds terrible. you put up with all of that?

OP posts:

Afreshcuppateaplease · 23/02/2018 10:51

You live next to kids you have to expect noise. As long as its not late at night or early hours i dont see the issue

BadgersBum · 23/02/2018 10:52

We live in a terrace and I think at times we're very noisy (laminate floor, ADHD DS, shouty mother), but on one side we have a couple with a screamy toddler and loud foreign relatives who come round, drink and shout drunkenly occasionally, and on the other side a lovely, stone-deaf elderly lady.

Before this we had someone with a child the same age, who was equally as loud as us when the child was awake, but I would hear her slagging me off if I'd been noisy when her child was napping, and, on the other side a couple with a baby who they would let cry for about 45 minutes in the early hours of the morning (in the bedroom which had a party wall with ours), then bang on the wall or come round and swear at me if I made too much noise during the day! They even threatened to have me evicted (from the house I own ), wasn't sad to see the back of either of these neighbours.

BadgersBum · 23/02/2018 10:55

Oh I've also lived through weeks of both sides being renovated back to bare floors and brickwork within a year of each other so they would lose any argument about DIY work during the day if they ever took it upon themselves to mention it. (Not that we do excessive amounts!)

jkl0311 · 23/02/2018 10:58

Actually my day with my toddler goes something like this today- have breakfast, nip to supermarket, play with her toys whilst I pop shopping away, nap whilst I clean, wake up lunch put a coat and hat on go outside and play do bit more playing inside go do school run to pick up niece, come home play and eat tea at 5, bath after a bit of tv to wind down with in the night garden just before bed at 7 And days I'm working- she goes to nursery or a granny has her and on the days I have to work from home, it's during nap time extra nursery or in the eve when toddler has gone bed, the first 3 years there minds are like sponges so why would you tell them it's too cold to go outside and watch tv until 6 whilst mummy works....

DereksGotATail · 23/02/2018 11:00

I can't believe people are suggesting OP get carpets. It's normal family noise during acceptable times.
Stay as you are OP, no need to make any changes.

Ivymaud · 23/02/2018 11:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BonfiresOfInsanity · 23/02/2018 11:01

When we were young and child free, we lived next door to a couple who had two young children. They were so noisy all the time and were awake at the crack of dawn (the DCs bedroom was next to ours) but we were fairly easy going and just accepted it. Then one day the mum collared me on the way out and asked us to oil the hinges on our bedroom door because it squeaked when we opened it and disturbed the children in bed. Like an idiot I oiled them but never said a word to them about their noisy children.

Anyway, not the same as yours but just made me think about neighbours who have unrealistic expectations of living in a house attached to another.

teaiseverything · 23/02/2018 11:03

Just playing devil's advocate here. Much like you work from home, they might be too. Or they could be studying. Or, doing shift work. I'd ask yourself if pre-children you could have dealt with the noise from your home. I ask this as we all get de-sensitised to what's "normal" to us. If the answer is yes, leave it be. If it's a no, I'd really say consider carpets.

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