Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Original poster

Neighbour reporting us to environmental health for a noise that only she can hear

159 replies

Mufferdoodle · 16/05/2018 21:51

Soooooo arrived home this evening to a nice little letter from the local council, informing us that they’d like to come and investigate the nuisance noise coming from our house on Monday.

I can only assume this noise is the same noise that our next door neighbour has been mentioning at every opportunity for the last 18 months. She claims to be able to hear it at all times of day and night and it sounds like a heartbeat noise. We have never heard this noise but she put a letter trough our door about a year ago saying that one of the trades people who she had called out to investigate said noise had told her that it was 100% coming from our house (even though he also didn’t actually hear the noise).

As neighbours, I think we are pretty decent. We have 2 small children (who are in bed for 7 ish) we go to bed at 9 ish. We don’t play loud music, or make much noise at all really. We did look out for this lady (she’s in her 70’s) I’ve taken her out for the day, bought her a few bits for her house, check on her in cold weather etc etc.

The house is ours - it’s not rented. It’s in a nice quiet cul de sac and we get on with all of the other people who live nearby.

So question is - aibu to tell the council they can’t come poking around my home unless they have a recording of the noise?? I feel really upset and anxious about the whole thing and to be honest I’m 99% sure that neighbour has tinnitus as she has told me a couple of times that she can still hear the noise with ear plugs in.

What would you do??

OP posts:

soggydigestive · 16/05/2018 22:09

They will check it for you for free I would of thought? look at it that way

Teenagemaw · 16/05/2018 22:10

It can be an anxiety thing.... when my anxiety is bad i feel like i can hear a dull vibration all over our housr... my dh says its me tuning into the hum of the earth or something... i only get it when my anxiety is on high alert never when i am calm.

fuglydumpling · 16/05/2018 22:10

If you’ve previously been on friendly terms have you tried speaking to her and asking if she’d allow you into her home so she can let you hear the sound for you to be able to establish where it may be coming from and what’s causing it?

Ohyesiam · 16/05/2018 22:12

Because noise pollution has to be over a certain level of decibels , I imagine the council will bring sound level monitors and possibly recording equipment. Can’t see that they will request any checks without establishing whether there is anything to check.

Dobby1sAFreeElf · 16/05/2018 22:13

We had a batshit neighbour (she really was batshit in many ways, not just on the noise issue) who claimed similar. Environmental Health never investigated us as they'd already investigated three previous sets of neighbours. Her NDN on the other side said they'd come out to them, generally poked around inside and out to see if anything obvious was causing any noise, banged a few doors of cupboards and wardrobes about and then told batshit neighbour they couldn't find any issues.

SilverHairedCat · 16/05/2018 22:13

Tinnitus in one old chap in my patch made complaints to us (police) about his hellish neighbours. He simply wouldn't have it that it was his medical condition and I'm afraid he made their lives very difficult for years. The council and police referred him to social services repeatedly, as we'd been witness to him yelling "over the racket" when we were there, but we couldn't hear a thing. There was nothing anyone could do to convince him otherwise. I suspect his mental health was also failing.

If someone can't be convinced, I'm unsure what's left.

CoraPirbright · 16/05/2018 22:14

I have a friend who has heart/blood pressure issues and can hear her own heart beat quite loudly in her ears/head. So it’s not just tinnitus that can lead to this sort of issue. I would def let the council come and then it can be gently suggested to your neighbour that she gets a health check.

RexManning · 16/05/2018 22:14

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tell-Tale_Heart

Just a thought...

PandaPieForTea · 16/05/2018 22:14

I can hear something like that when I sit in my lounge and everything else is quiet. I think it may either be our gas meter or a drop in the downstairs loo.

But other people can hear it too.

It sounds like your neighbour has a hearing issue. Has she tried feeling her pulse while listening?

TERFragetteCity · 16/05/2018 22:15

surely they need to visit her house not yours...to work where it is coming from first.

Original poster

Mufferdoodle · 16/05/2018 22:16

itchyknees - it’s definitly nothing from our house. We’ve even turned our electrics off at the fuse board to try to prove to her that it’s not from our house.

Ok so I’ll call them tomorrow (see what else I can find out) and guess I’ll see what happens on Monday. At least we have half a chance of this being the end of it!

OP posts:

AlpacaLypse · 16/05/2018 22:18

OP no they won't. Don't worry.

AlpacaLypse · 16/05/2018 22:19

:-) xposts!

colleysmill · 16/05/2018 22:19

This happened to me as a student!

Next door neighbour complained constantly about noise so we tried to be more careful but it gradually escalated to her ringing the phone in the middle of the night when we were asleep and calling the police a fair bit. One week she called them several times and the police turned up to an empty house as it was the summer holidays. I think at that point they contacted social services and then the family.

Sadly it turned out she had dementia and tinnitus and wasnt safe to be on her own. And yes it was only her who could hear the noise

CruCru · 16/05/2018 22:19

She doesn’t live above a train line, does she? I can hear the heartbeat noise from time to time but I think it is the Victoria line. I could hear it in my parents’ house too (near the tunnel for the Brighton to Hove line).

FASH84 · 16/05/2018 22:20

I worked with a lady with mental health issues who would go on and on about the sounds coming from her downstairs neighbours, I regularly did home visits as did her mental health worker neither of us could ever hear anything but she'd insist ' listen can you hear v that racket' etc. The council investigated found nothing, she kept complaining, in the end they set up noise monitors in her flat. They proved there was no disturbance. She thought there was back conspiracy between her neighbours and the council and the illuminati. The council handled it very well without too much grief for her faultless neighbours.

IJustHadToNameChange · 16/05/2018 22:20

There's a deafening condition like tinnitus which causes auditory hallucinations. Sometimes called musical ear syndrome

There's a corresponding condition caused by going blind, called Charles Bonnet Syndrome.

Auditory hallucinations are more prevalent in elderly women who may have a history or OCD or other mental illness. It may also be a symptom of dementia.

If it is tinnitus or auditory hallucinations, she may have little insight into the condition and it will always be someone else's fault that she can hear this noise.

The fact it sounds rhythmic, suggests it may even be her own hearbeat.

Original poster

Mufferdoodle · 16/05/2018 22:21

Fuglydumpling - hubby has been round there when she could hear the noise but he couldn’t hear it. He even checked the loft for her and nothing 👎🏻

OP posts:

TowerRingInferno · 16/05/2018 22:21

This is good news for you. They’ll put the monitoring equipment in her house which will come up with nothing. Even if there is some slight noise from something (and probably there isn’t) it will be in the parameters of normal household noise. They’re looking to check for regular and ridiculously loud music or equivalent noise.

catandtheteapot · 16/05/2018 22:21

Is there any building work going on in the area? When the pile driver was going on our estate the noise could be heard within our house, but not outside. The sound must have been travelling below the earth.

maddening · 16/05/2018 22:22

Let them come round - they will go through their process and confirm to her she has no basis for her complaint - then you can ignore her forever

Nooblynoo · 16/05/2018 22:24

Maybe she has an undiagnosed medical condition. When environmental health arrive ask them what the noise is, then when they've not heard ask them if they have a duty of care and could they forward to adult social care. Meanwhile you contact adult social care.

MuncheysMummy · 16/05/2018 22:24

This happened to a friend of mine! Their neighbour was an elderly lady who over the course of around 6 months fell out totally with them over the radio they were supposedly playing at all hours of the day and night,they are a young full time working couple who had just bought their own first home and she drive them mad banging on their walls in the middle of the night waking them! Turned out she had a medical issue which caused her to ‘hear’ the sound which didn’t exist!

Original poster

Mufferdoodle · 16/05/2018 22:25

Crucru - we so live near (ish) to a train line. I wonder if that’s what she hears??

OP posts:

Nooblynoo · 16/05/2018 22:26

@RexManning 😂😂😂

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Swipe left for the next trending thread