to be woken up every morning at 6am

[bamboolzled]

To cut this short and sweet

Moved into area 3 years ago, just before 2nd DS was born. Nice quiet area, extended just to the point of uncomfortable. 4 bedroom terraced house semi-rural.

About 1 year ago, neighbour two door up at the end of the terrace, upgraded several cars from a mini-van to a 4x4 truck and a standard family saloon to a boy racer big exhaust.

The last nine months, said neighbour has taken work further away that now leaves him starting up either car at 6am if not earlier. Both cars are loud, the exhaust note for the boy racer car is not quite a sonic boom, but definitely a loud bass sound that other half and I can clearly hear at the back of the house.

Youngest DS, is woken up every morning, by either car. Regardless of “being quiet” from the neighbour. He’s been told about it, but ignoring it as people “being fussy”.

House is double glazed, rooms are decorated with names on and not going to change rooms around. But DP is up with DS2 from 6am every morning and this is now running into weekends, with neighbour working weekends now too.

Having seen other neighbours, we know its waking up about 10 plus of us in total.

Cars started up loud, but once woken up we can hear the boy racer car being driven away for a couple of miles at least.

ISBU to have to tailor my own lifestyle, around a neighbour, to be up at 6am with DS2 who’s “wired” after being woken up, he used to sleep in till 7am prior to this and hubby is taking most of this.

Before hubby looses his rag directly, can anyone suggest help

If the noise the neighbours car is making is above legal limits, then he is unreasonable, and needs to have a quieter exhaust fitted.

If the noise the neighbours car is making is below legal limits, then you are being unreasonable, and need to understand that your son being a light sleeper/early waker is your problem to deal with, not the neighbours. It is perfectly reasonable for him to leave at 6pm in a car that is within legal sound levels.

The only way to move forward is to contact the council, and get the sound levels measured. But in the interim, swapping rooms or looking at additional sound proofing would be steps that you can take to help yourselves.

6am is a perfectly reasonable time to commute. I feel you would hear noise whatever he drives. Move your moves around.

The issue is regular loud noise at an unreasonable time. Look on your Council website. Go from there.

They may ask you to record the sound on an app and keep a note of occurrences.

There are clear regulations, specifying hours and decibels, about what constitutes unaccceptable noise.

If the exhaust is within legal limits and he's not deliberately revving the engine I'm afraid there's little you can do, you are entitled to drive your car at any time of the day or night.

we get woken up every day by our neigbhour coughing up his lungs (heavy smoker) and slamming car doors....at 5am....nice. He works in a ....tobacco factory. Amen.

@BitOutOfPractice dont worry about laughing it is funny I think my mum and sister are the only ones who actually start work at 8/9am, the rest of us barring me are 6am or before haha

It was the way each start was getting earlier and earlier I think Queen, the way you wrote it. Trust me I wouldn't be laughing at a 3am start!

You can download a free app to your phone or tablet that measures the decibels. When you speak to the council you can tell them how loud it is and how long you can hear it for. Also get everyone affected to contact the council too.

It is a noise nuisance and they can issue a cease and desist or similar as it is classed as anti social behavior.

I wouldn't have everyone go round there mob handed (pitchforks at the ready lol) as it could be seen as an attack.

Good Luck.

Is the issue the noise waking you up? Or that it is disturbing your (possibly already half awake) DC who is then waking the rest of you?

If it is the first you should follow some of the advice from PP re environmental health etc.

If it is the latter then, age dependant, I think you need to start teaching your DC that if they wake early this is not a time to be "wired" but to play quietly until the rest of the house is awake.
What age is your DC?

to be fair, it's never an acceptable time to make noise when you have neighbours. A normal car starting is unavoidable noise, but normal human beings refrain from slamming doors, making phone call on loud speaker and try to avoid disturbance.
A boy racer exhaust is bad manners at any time of the day or night when you have neighbours.

Some people are just rude, selfish and entitled.

A normal car starting up at 6am would probably wake you but people have to get to work.

If the modifications on neighbours car are legal then there isn't much you can do about it and as for the van, well vans do make more noise compared to a car.

I get called out sometimes inthe middle of the night 2, 3 maybe 4 am but it take care not to wake everyone else, slam the front door slam the car door not to rev the engine etc but to leave the place as quietly as possible.

I coud i suppose get a small robinson 2 seater helicopter and use that ,sure it wil lmake some naice sounds but it would be trotal
unreasonable to do so but this pratt is doing that in effect.

Best bet is to get all the neighbours to write to the noise abatment officer at the environmental health to get an abatment notice on the go as this one is being totally unreasonable

DC is 2

he was sleeping in, but i believe neighbour is now commuting further and leaving earlier than before.

whilst we've tried to get DC to go back to sleep, its like trying to tell a Lion your going Vegan. awake is awake, woken up awake is wired and well tell a pride of lions your going vegan wearing Lady Gaga's bacon dress !

its not just DC that is awake, he wakes up DC1 and then hubby is up with both.

@BitOutOfPractice It was a good place to work to a point, the 3am starts and them trying to schedule me in for what would amount to a 96 hour working week plus nonoptional overtime was what made that job kick the bucket, other than that it was pretty good and damn good money too

Agree with NotSure, above. My mum put a clock in our room and taught my elder brother how to tell when it was 7o'clock and gave him strict instructions to play quietly before then (and to keep us quiet too - we all shared a room); brother was 4 maybe 5.
On the whole we tried to cooperate.

Sounds reasonable to me. I don't work and am up at 5.30/6am before my kids. Not naturally a morning person, it's a routine I've put myself into as if I were working as being a SAHM I like to get as much done as I can. I live in a cul-de-sac and a lot of the neighbours are firing up their cars at around that time to warm the car before work. Doesn't trouble me at all. It's morning time.

Sorry, x post. Obvs your ds is far too young for time telling!

There’s someone on my street with a big exhaust that I hear some mornings as he drives off. It is annoying but don’t think there is anything that can be done 🤷‍♀️

If your neighbour said he would use the other 4x4 truck would you be happy with that? Because you say it would be just as bad and that vehicle hasn't been modified, so I assume has a standard exhaust which must comply to some regulations. In which case i'm not sure what you can do about it.

Can you address your 2year old waking everyone up? and i'd definitely move rooms regardless of having some names painted on walls!

Leaving for work at 6am isn't unreasonable, and if the noise level made by the car is within legal limits, I don't really see that much can be done about.

If he sits in it revving the engine for ages before he leaves though, that's a different matter.

Husband says the boy racer car is heavily modified

The truck has a huge engine in it, but either way the neighbours got a foot made of lead. He couldn’t drive quietly if a gun was held to his crown jewels.

Both are ridiculous cars, being as we don’t live with farm dirt tracks or Silverstone nearby.

Neighbour is early 40’s and, general level of noise for him is most peoples v. loud

Moving rooms isn’t so easy as husband built a bespoke bed for DS1 before xmas and that won’t fit into the son that gets woken up.

6 o'clock isn't that early -

I leave for work at that time at least 4 mornings a week.

Is it really that bad that you have to complain to the council as people are suggesting??

If he was having all night parties every night - that's noise pollution. But a noisy exhaust for about 2 to 5 minutes as the person is going to work at 6am - not worth losing your cool about that, surely.

husband can hear the boy racer car for about 2-3 miles off

problem is now, were all "tuned into" the noise, and husband is certainly part awake or in light slight expecting it regardless

If the truck isn't modified and it's legal then I think you need to suck it up i'm afraid. It seems regardless of the car you wouldn't like it because of the way the neighbour drives. YANBU for it to irritate you but what do you expect the man to do? And you say your DH will lose it - what will he do? because I imagine the guy may laugh at him if he says he drives to loudly so be prepared for him not to care.

The council is unlikely to act. We had this with neighbors modified Harley. I'd move the bedrooms and get a white noise machine off Amazon.