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?

Air BnB both democratises access to country spaces as well as supporting the local economy by promoting tourism

Doesn't boost the local economy as much as having local homes owned by local people who now can't afford them.Shop closes, the school but hey you can get ocado to deliver and contribute nothing to the local economy.

Horse manure doesn't smell. Pig is what you want. A good heap of pig manure just on the boundary. Plus the flies will make sure nobody wants to eat outside.

Most holidaymakers are considerate. But they are on holiday, and they forget that, just because they can lie in bed all next day after a heavy night, the next door neighbour might have to be up at 4am for a long shift.

The problem is that doing anything to the piano would involve trespass and vandalism and I really don't want to go down that route. In a way the piano was a good thing because it established bad faither on the part of the neighbour. Anyway, it would be just my luck to get caught by the cleaner or by one of the guests. Ditto all the loud noise ideas, which would piss off the other residents, many of whom are dealing with issues similar to mine.

I've taken notes about the various ways of complaining and I think I'll also contact my AM. I know from work that a letter from the AM to the council can sometimes get things moving.

At the moment one side seems to have a family with small children there and they've gone out in the car. On the other side, which was empty last night, I can hear the cleaner working —so probably a new set of guests due this afternoon.

I noticed a comment about hidden cameras. Do people actually do this? Horrifying.

Our work has banned staying in AirBnB for work because they are entirely unregulated. No smoke alarms, no appliance checks, not to mention the hidden cameras and pervy “hosts”. They are a pox on communities and need much tighter regulation

This^ airbnb is a way for people to make money out of a property without following safety regulations, and without registering as a landlord or as a business.

OP shouldn’t be “punishing” the guests this is the owners fault

It's the guests who make the excessive noise.

I would get a few cockerel and donkeys

The poster who bought a house in March isn't this poster - just a glance and the first one was 'thatdamnedwoman' and this poster is 'thatdamnwoman'.

FFS - go to Specsavers.

YANBU.
AirB&B is a good idea in theory but problems like this make it shit for neighbours. At least we get a say about buying a house next door to a hostel, hotel or nightclub. And those who already live there get a chance to contest change of use to such. AirB&Bs turn domestic residences into party venues. Only rare neighbours are really bad that they live like they're on holiday, partying all the time.

I live in a holiday town in the Lake District but all the houses in my area have Local Occupancy Clauses, this didn't stop some trying Airbnb but luckily the council has got on top of it.

It's true holidaymakers don't contribute as much as you think. The house prices here are insane and full of second homes and holiday lets, the local jobs don't pay enough to enable locals to live here, when a house does come up fairly reasonably priced with Local Occupancy Clause it's snapped up within days. It's quite depressing seeing some gorgeous family homes left empty too.

I feel your pain. City dweller here & we do have a very similar problem with AirBnb houses nearby, made worse as the high buildings around us act like an amphitheater. Law (here at least) is they must pipe down by 11pm, but nobody is policing it, so when you get the noisy ones who ignore the rules & sing & screech in the garden into the early hours, nothing gets done & I've also found EHL switch off as soon as they know it's AirBnb as its harder to make a case. The owner doesn't care, he works in law & knows currently he's safe regardless. I agree ganging together & campaigning with other neighbours is the way to go though & contact your local councillors for help. Though legislation as it is at the minute, AirBnb don't need planning permission in the same way a HMO would, so there's a limit to what they can do, but they can put pressure on EHL.

I found that talking was rarely well received & not what you need to be dealing with late at night with usually drunk arsey gits. Solved shutting them up late at night, by hiding behind our wall with a high powered garden hose pointing up at the sky over their garden. None of them ever cottoned on & ran inside from the rain 😆

Ours is generally quieter at the moment after neighbours did similar with a campaign, but it's still AirBnb

@Thinkofanumber Not that I approve of the Miss Marple-esque snooping, the OP acknowledged that was her, on behalf of her sister.

You are definitely not being unreasonable.

It's not the case that you can only complain via the law/council about night noise from 11 pm-7 am. That's a popular misconception. There is another law that just covers noise nuisance in general, whatever the time of day or night. This would qualify. You do however need legal advice, but it need not be expensive and you can do a lot of it yourself with the right advice. I used these guys
www.sanctumconsultants.co.uk/Services.php
and they were great!

NB the alternative route is going to the council's enviro health dept. But the first step is not them coming out to monitor themselves, it's that they give you sound recording equipment and you record, say, two weeks' worth of noise, and keep a noise diary. Only then do they come out and monitor themselves. Some councils are very good on this kind of thing while others are rubbish. First step is ensuring you are dealing with the person in charge of noise at enviro health.

A piano outside?? That is beyond rude. I have a piano inside (where normal people keep them..) and I would not dream of playing at 7am. I have a detached house but sound carries and my neighbours get up early and I am sure they do not want to listen to me murdering Fur Elise while drinking tea!

Solved shutting them up late at night, by hiding behind our wall with a high powered garden hose pointing up at the sky over their garden. None of them ever cottoned on & ran inside from the rain

This is utterly brilliant!

NKFell, I'm doubly confused because I do remember my sister being here and moaning about her problem finding an affordable kitchen and I can remember suggesting she post on one of the boards here. I thought that in the end I posted on her behalf using my ID but now I'm wondering whether she registered herself under a variation of my name. Wine had been taken and I can remember us sitting on the sofa working from my laptop, but the details are a blur.

Which would conviently validate your story...

Thanks for all the positive suggestions and for the reassurance that most of you would regard this as unreasonable. The neighbours who own the Air B'n'B houses seem okay sort of people on the surface and so I assumed they'd play reasonably, but clearly for them it's a major financial investment and they'll fight hard to ensure the money keeps coming in.

We talk about the housing crisis but I wonder how many homes that could have been used to house families have gone over to Air B'n'B instead?

Not sure who should be going to Specsavers here @Thinkofanumber

Complain to each individual guest each time they disturb you. They'll leave reviews about the mean neighbour next door and then nobody will want to stay there!

We had this problem, we got the council involved and they issued an enforcement notice as the property had what they considered a change of use, e.g. from residential to business use. There was also a private prosecution for noise and nuisance that went all the way to court and the owners settled on the day. Get the council involved and be prepared to spend money on lawyers. Good luck it took over two years to be resolved in our case.

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.

Town centre Edinburgh there! Wouldn't buy a flat there for this reason.

I do think that if you have Air b n b's (DM of BIL has two) in a central city - well one flat in central Bath, another one outside, then you either ignore complaints if there is noise or you have rules around what noise can or can't be made.

but certainly don't expect others - and if in a flat there will be guidelines around this, to put up with unwanted noise.

Do you feel confident enough to approach the guests yourself and request they kindly keep the noise down?

I’d be inclined to make lots of noise so the guests leave bad reviews and deter future people from visiting.

The Council where I live in London inspected the AirBnB website and found many people living in council flats were letting them out. They caught and fined a good number and put a stop to a lot of it that way. I'm not sure if they have rules for privately owned properties

Get a rooster lol. That’ll wake them up and you’ll already be up for work anyway. Although I adopted one once and that was as annoying for me as everyone else in the summer months 😮😂.

More seriously, yanbu. I find my neighbours occasional summer evening party annoying and 90% of the time they’re quiet so for it to be frequent must be so frustrating (I don’t say anything about my neighbours odd parties btw even if they do go on late as it is only occasional).