To complain about the Air B'n'Bs next door?

[thatdamnwoman]

30 years ago I made a decision to leave the city and come and live in a rural area of Wales, near the coast, for a calmer, quieter life. The houses in this little enclave are nothing special but they're all detached and in decent-sized gardens and most of the neighbours were looking for a similar quiet, low-key existence. Quite a few of the houses are second homes but that didn't seem to cause much of an issue. Fast forward 25 years and now about half the properties here are being offered on Air B'n'B and the whole atmosphere of the place has changed. The two houses closest to me are both second homes and are both let out almost permanently on Air B'n'B. From Easter to the end of September they are chock-a-block, often with large groups. Both houses have a minimum 2-night stay, so there can be three or more changes of tenants each week.

Weekends, in particular, are a nightmare. Large groups of probably perfectly pleasant people arrive from town and then want to sit out in the gardens until 2 or 3am in the morning, drinking and barbecuing and whooping at the sheer wonder of being able to see the stars. I do understand how lovely it must seem if you spend most of your life in town and how tempting to want to sit out and play music and keep the fire pit going all night — but what about me, next door, having to sleep with the windows shut because of the smoke and noise?

I've asked the two neighbours who own the properties closest to me to change the wording on their Air B'n'B listing to tell people that there's to be no noise after, say, 10pm (I've stayed in a number of Air B'n'Bs where this has been a stipulation) and they have both adjusted the wording to ask people to 'respect the neighbours' — which of course they don't do once they've had a few glasses of wine. One of the neighbours has responded to my complaint about noise by installing a piano outdoors on the covered terrace in their garden, so at 7.15am this morning I was woken by a child 'playing' the piano 30 feet from my bedroom window. It might not be such a big issue in town but here, where it's quiet and there's nothing but birdsong, it's really intrusive.

I've complained to Air B'n'B and the council, but the council is stretched beyond capacity and when I've tried to get Environmental Health officers to come out at 2am and monitor the noise themselves I've been told that there's no one available. Am I being so unreasonable to want the Air B'n'B guests to be quiet after 10pm?

I’d grass them up to HMRC, the council and their mortgage provider (if I had a way of finding out who that is). We have an air bnb in our block, they haven’t been much bother to be honest but I doubt the owners have permission or insurance to run it as a bnb and I would absolutely exploit that if the guests started taking the piss.

It's change of use by stealth isn't it, you live in a residential area and yet somehow it becomes an area of holiday homes

Incandescent disgusted

Yumyum, I didn't write that in March this year, or last year or any other time. In fact this is my first post ever outside the feminism board. Could you point me to the post you say I wrote?

One of the neighbours has responded to my complaint about noise by installing a piano outdoors on the covered terrace

It would be tragic if the piano was to be damaged by an unexpected and inexplicable influx of water from somewhere.

I wouldn't bother with little attacks like pouring water on the piano making noises early in the morning etc, just go straight for the jugular and shop them to the relevant authorities.

if you start with some sort of harassment campaign they will immediately know that you have shopped them.

Yes OP
You did write that you brought a new house in March this year
Check out picture

As below

Imagine if a backpacker's hostel opens or something...

But if that was going to happen there would have to be a planning application for change of use, and a neutral third party (ie the council) would have to give proper, formal consideration to the impact on residents and loss of normal housing versus any economic benefit to the area. Air BnBs circumvent that process.

I live in a nice rural area that also happens to be somewhere people go on holiday. If one of my neighbours started doing this I'm not in any position to move, and more to the point I shouldn't have to just to facilitate someone else's inconsiderate investment!

OP have you tried your local councillors? On a purely practical level they should prioritise an actual resident over someone who isn't registered to vote in the area, and may be able to put some pressure on the relevant department.

I stayed in an air b n b where it was no garden noise post 8 pm!

Keep complaining.

Just for those asking how you find who a mortgage is with - just look on the land registry site. It costs about £3 to get the title registry for any property. The mortgage company will have a charge listed against the property. It may also mention any covenants like not using the house as a business.

Myself and another neighbour emailed every time the holiday rental next door had excessive noise etc, owner got fed up of dealing with our complaints and sold to a lovely family after a year. Keep a log and send weekly to them and council

thatdamnedwoman Incandescent Shadow, I don't live in a holiday resort — where on earth did you get that impression?

I live in a cluster of maybe 30-35 houses, the core of which was a small 1950s housing development. This wasn't a popular place to live in the 50s so land was cheap and they built detached houses with large gardens. In the 60s and 70s people bought bits of land nearby and got PP to build around it. We're down a narrow, pot-holed lane that leads to an unglamorous village with a bus stop and one small local shop. It's a working village, not bungalow-world for retired folk and describing it as a resort has made me snort my coffee down my nose.

Excuse my confusion then. You described where you live as being near the coast, with masses of holiday makers descending noisily en masse. Often 3 different lots per week in multiple different neighbouring properties to yours. What on earth do they come for then? I can't think of many places that are 'working villages' that attract such droves of holidaymakers.

I'm also confused as to how long you have lived there, as someone else has posted using the same username as you previously discussing another property which they bought recently. I didn't think it was possible for other people to use a previously registered username.

I will lend you our Jack Russell. Left unchecked he will bark most of the time starting at approx 6am and ending when we go to bed so approx11pm, but he can do later if need be. BTW we are not neighbours from hell as he isn't allowed to bark unchecked.

yumyumandyum very interesting....

You can put up signs saying anything you like. It doesn’t mean people will abide by it.

Occasional airbnb user here. I'm going with a few friends to an airbnb in a residential area in a french city in a couple of weeks time, and we were advised before the booking was confirmed that this wasn't a great venue for late night partying as it would upset the neighbours.. We pointed out we were all in our 50s/60s, were mainly there for the culture, and weren't planning to be up too late, and the booking went ahead. If there'd been a stipulation about not being outside after 10.00 we'd have been happy to abide by it. Your neighbours could be a lot firmer with their requirements and still get bookings.

@IncrediblySadToo.

Isn’t it interesting?! Looks like the OP has a holiday home herself

Gosh, I'd forgotten that. Apologies. I asked that on behalf of my sister who was staying here with me and couldn't be arsed to sign up to MN because she thought it was all prams and babies. I'll have to asked her if she took any of the advice offered. I've got a feeling she eventually recycled units that someone else was disposing of.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is my only property and has been my home for almost exactly 30 years. I've made a good life here with lots of local friends and contacts and of course work. I couldn't afford anything similar to this house but with no near neighbours within hitting distance of here, so a move would involve a massive life change — and I don't see why I should have to so that someone else can afford their Buy To Let mortgage on their second home, frankly.

Oh FFS cut out the amateur sleuth crap. Whether OP has had the house for 1 year, 10 years or it's been in the family for three centuries is irrelevant. (Many of us on here deliberately change minor details about lots of things deliberately to preserve anonymity. It's not a court of law.)

OP made the perfectly reasonable request that the owners include a clause in the letting agreement specifying no noise at antisocial hours, and the owners went and installed a fucking piano. In the fucking garden. This is so utterly unreasonable as to be deserving of any come back OP can dream up.

Top tip about the land registry. Dob em' in to their mortgage company. And to HMRC. Keep banging on the door every single time to get them bad reviews. And try planning for change of use, as well as keeping a detailed log for environmental health.

Cross post with OP - that was directed at the thread's self appointed Miss Marple!

An acquaintance is an HMO landlord, with what I and others think is quite an exploitative attitude to her tenants in three houses. She’s recently decided to expand her portfolio by buying a house and a flat in nice quiet residential streets and letting them out whole, via air b n b .

It has not gone at all to plan -the house was nearly wrecked by an all night party and the neighbours complained to the council en masse ,the other owners in the small flat block who were fed up with randoms coming and going, making noise, parking where they shouldn’t and giving parking access to people who aren’t staying there, reportedl her to the freeholder ( in contravention of the lease) and she also then had HMRC becoming very interested in examining all of her business affairs .

YANBU. I live in a big city and AirBnB is causing massive problems for many people here. Our town has always been popular with tourists, which is great, but now that it seems to be party time all over town 24/7 a lot of the residents are really suffering. The city council has attempted to work with AirBnB itself to enforce limits on how many days per year a residential property can be rented out, but AirBnB are extremely uncooperative.

I have one friend in particular whose life has been made very difficult thanks to the constant noise coming from upstairs and through the floorboards, drunk tourists banging on her front door in the middle of the night because they've got confused about where they're staying, rubbish being thrown into her back garden from the upstairs balcony, I could go on.

Basically holidaymakers and people going about their normal workaday lives cannot coexist in such close quarters; someone suffers, and it's the people who live there.

I'd do everything I could to get them bad reviews. I'd complain constantly, I'd play loud music really early in the morning, I'd even hire the place myself and leave it shit reviews.