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?

You don't even need to get a rooster, just a recording played very loudly at 6 am when they have been antisocial. Let the neighbours know so they can have earplugs in.

after a loud partie- go round at 6am baning on the door and then channel your inner crazy and go screaming banshee at the guests. Hopefully this will upset them and they will leave bad review.s Do this wiht eveyr set of guests.

Also fill a super soaker with piss and blast it all over the garden making it smell gross. Do this frequently to keep the smell high. Harvest dog shit from parks and flick it over the fence. Again, guests leave bad reviews and hopefully wont want to sit in the garden.

Just looked online and you can complain to AirBNB directly if one if their listed properties is causing you issues as a neighbour.

Also fill a super soaker with piss and blast it all over the garden making it smell gross. Do this frequently to keep the smell high. Harvest dog shit from parks and flick it over the fence

You think instigating an excrement throwing battle is the way to deal with this problem, what do you think would happen?

A- the owners of the property finding the premises covered in shit and piss think 'oh you've got us bang to rights we deserved that now we'll be civilized'
or
B-they take this as grounds to escalate, big time

@Whosorrynow not when anyone is in the garden. Do it at night when it is empty. It will just make the garden smell gross so guests won't want to use it.

@BlueSkies, maybe you're skilled at these kinds of methods:o
I just dont think those would be the weapons I'd choose

@Pinkmalinky, it depends on the group and whether I'm here on my own or not. If I can hear female voices and they sound merry I do go out into the garden and shout over the fence that I need to go to bed, but if it's all blokes and they're clearly drunk or drugged up I wouldn't risk it.

Last autumn I went round and knocked because of a persistent loud banging noise in the early hours (initially thought someone was trying to break into my house) and I felt as if I'd walked into a Tarantino movie. No idea what was going on but there were a number of seriously heavy-looking dudes who didn't appear to speak much English. They were all up and fully dressed in the early hours of the morning. They just glared at me and I realised that I could have walked into anything.

When I made a joke about this with friends some time later, one of them who works with trafficked women said that Air B'n'Bs are often used for prostitution and drug-trafficking and all kinds of nefarious goings-on. I had no idea.

@Tumbleweed101, yes, if you're living next door to people you expect to have the occasional party or disturbed night for one reason or another. Unfortunately with this set-up every night can turn out to be party night. Tonight I've got a group of young women, probably sixth-formers, who've just arrived next door. I intercepted a couple of them on the pavement taking a karaoke machine out of their car and told them I'll contact Air B'n'B and the council to complain about them if they're noisy. One of them said they just wanted a girl's night out and I said that this girl is having a night in and doesn't expect there to be a squeak out of them after 11pm. It really does my head in, having to police them like this, and I'm also embarrassed that while I dare say that to girls I might not say it to a group of lads or older men for fear of reprisals.

I'm also embarrassed that while I dare say that to girls I might not say it to a group of lads or older men for fear of reprisals
that's just common sense, I dont think you need to be embarrassed about taking safely precautions.

Presume you are keeping a detailed log of all events?

Please, for your own sake, OP, ignore the suggestions from various folks posting here that you make a retaliatory noise or nuisance to annoy the Air B&B guests or landlords. The reason is to protect you. If you complain to the council or take it to court, counter-accusations of nuisance could be levelled against you and your complaint will be dismissed or you could end up defending yourself in court.

10 pm is completely reasonable to expect the noise to cease. For a lot of people that is bed time.

Yes to knocking of door each time. Tell the guests it’s good to see the house being used since the “incident” they couldn’t pay you to stay there in a month of Sunday’s though! Block their cars in.

I agree 10pm is reasonable. For those saying it's not, imagine noise until 11pm every single night. I agree that's fine as a one off or at weekends, but it can feel relentless when it's every night. I speak from experience - it's very stressful worrying about noise from neighbours every single night, it means you can never get an early night or have a lie in. So OP sorry no constructive advice (I would have said keep on at the council from a noise and nuisance/ASB perspective) but you have my sympathy.

I'd absolutely hate that. Complete piss take on the owners behalf.

@SheeshazAX09 yes, I understand that. It's not my style to retaliate and if I disturb the Air B'n'Bers with any extra noise I'll also disturb the good neighbours who I need to be able to call on for support. I think we have to unite as a community and call this out. Perhaps I'll try and organise a meeting and get the local parish councillor to attend. Sympathies to everyone else going through this. How can it have been allowed to happen? People are making millions out of others' misery.

I might have missed the answer to this but are they just let out through Air BnB? They shouldn’t take bookings for more than 90 days per year, still a long time but it shouldn’t go on all summer long.

We had this. In the end it forced me to move. A gated development, private communal gardens, small children who could no longer play freely due to selfish neighbours renting out a flat for weekends and parties. Noise, constant coming and going, lack of privacy, creepy men, people knocking on my door to borrow a corkscrew or ask where the station was or just because they'd got the wrong door. It was hell. And there was nothing we could do.

How can it have been allowed to happen? People are making millions out of others' misery

I know. The friend I mentioned earlier has been having counselling because of the stress involved with her housing situation. She and her family have been in their ground floor flat for 20 years, then an overseas investor bought up the flats above them and the last few years of AirBnB have been dreadful. We all expect noise when we live in the inner city, but this is something else.

I’m so glad I have a council flat and we are not permitted to sublet (which includes AirBnB).

Its really not that bad noise and disturbance, is it - its not loud music and thumping beats. It is literally people enjoying themselves in a place where you would expect to do so. Its not any worse and probably a whole lot better than you would here in the average town street.

I think it is, actually, because of the frequency. When you live in a street (well, most streets - if you live in a studenty area it may well be different) some of your neighbours will have a party once in a while. From the sound of it, this place has it going on weekly, sometimes more than once a week.

We hear neighbour noise from parties about 3 times a year, and by midnight they've almost always gone inside. They do this out of consideration for their neighbours, who they live alongside all year long. Air B&B guests are here today, gone tomorrow and don't need to exercise consideration because they're not shitting on their own doorstep.

Exactly what Lakie said. In most places people would be enjoying their gardens with friends and chatting into the small hours perhaps a couple of times a month.

In this scenario you could have three groups a week all sitting out most nights.

Do you think there might be undeclared tax from the income? A note to HMRC might be a peaceful option.

You poor thing, of course you are not being unreasonable

Our across-the-road neighbours have a timber building, like the sort people have as home offices, in their garden that they rent out on AirBNB.

Apart from being a bit loud when they walk home from town at midnight we've been very lucky. But we got a knock on the door at 1am one night, when the AirBNB guests had managed to lock themselves out and wanted to know if we had the owners' phone number (we don't).

They seemed to think we would have some sort of magical solution and kept asking what they were going to do (could have been hinting that we put them up for the night, perhaps). In the end, I just said "Google 24 hour locksmiths and get someone out to sort it" and went back to bed.

My mate has had 2 really bad experiences with AirBNB and won't use them any more. At the first one, she opened a sash window and the sash cord was broken. The window crashed down on her hand and broke a couple of bones, so she spent the night in A&E.

In the second one, they turned on the gas hob to cook some breakfast and flames leaped along the worktop. It had a bloody gas leak, ffs!

Do you think there might be undeclared tax from the income? A note to HMRC might be a peaceful option
Honestly disgusted about how this is the first thing people think of

This would drive me nuts, while I don’t think yabu I don’t really see what you can do about it which will make them stop unfortunately. I think I’d have to move as dramatic as that sounds.