AIBU to give you an update re Church noise?

[alittlequinnie]

I am not sure if you remember my original thread but I asked people to let me know what would be considered reasonable in relation to noise levels of living next door to a Church.

The thread gathered pace and I left it just before we had a meeting with the Council, the Methodist Church members and the Seventh Day Adventist Members.

Just to let you all know that the meeting went ahead on Friday. The Methodist Minister didn't actually manage to get any representatives from the Seventh Day Adventists to the meeting - he said that he had been waiting for a letter from the Council before asking them. However, he sees them every single Saturday and the meeting has been booked for about 6 weeks so I am not sure why he found it so difficult to verbally tell them.

So there was just my DH and I, the Methodist Minister we deal with, the Council lady and one other Minister (higher up) from the Methodist Church.

Basically we all put our findings - which was mostly my DH and I because we are ones moaning.

There was no defence to the noise - just putting facts really. The Methodist Minister we speak with is a bit of a drip and didn't really have any solutions.

The Council however said that they were just here to fact gather and to see if a solution could be found through mediation.

She did mention that when there is a noise nuisance they usually monitor the property making the noise at the border. This means that any noise leakage at the border can be considered a nuisance.

Obviously the noise is leaking over their border, over our border and into our house so we feel cautiously optimistic that they are breaching "something".

The plan is as follows:

• We continue to monitor for another 6 weeks now the meeting has taken place to see if any improvement.

*We give a copy of our findings to the Methodist Minister every Sunday so that he can speak with the Seventh Day Adventists about the issues to see what he can do.

*Somebody from the SDA's to come over to our house and give us name and contact number so we can speak with them directly if there is a particular issue

• Review after 6 weeks.

First Saturday of the 6 weeks was the one just gone. Absolutely no improvement whatsoever - we could hear the lyrics of the hymns they were singing in our bedroom still.

Also we gave the copy of the noise diary to the Minister but nobody from SDA's came over to our house to give us contact details.

Will keep plugging at it but not sure how effective it is to have had the meeting when the SDA's were not there - so frustrating for the Methodist Minister not to manage to do this simple thing!

I'm going to now start to tackle the terrible parking to see if that helps the situation at all. I feel if there are less cars piled on the double yellows, pedestrian crossing, accross my garage and on the zig zag lines there may be less people milling around all together?

Who knows!

OP has been accused of being racist as most of the congregation are black

I find myself hoping this hasn't informed the Council and Minister's reluctance to act ...

I find myself hoping this hasn't informed the Council and Minister's reluctance to act ...

You wouldn't be alone.

Hi OP, I remember your first thread.
Sorry it's still going on, you must be beaten down by it all.
I hope following some channels of complaint helps you make some progress. I wonder if it would help to 'recruit' a friend/family member to help you with this, it's so hard when you're exhausted & fed up.
Best of luck.

God OP I'm so very sorry for you haveing to put up with this abuse as that is what it is. These loopy 7th day adventists i'd ask them would they put up with that racket where they live would they like som other bunch of loopy freaks to make that noise near them? of bloody course they wouldnt.

This medhodist minister sounds like a wet haddock, seems like that old wally Vicar in Dads Army.

If it were me there i'd have probally taken direct action one way or the other, its not right what has happened and is still happning!.

This shower should be "worshipping" if thats what they call it on an industrial estate somewhere on the outskirts of town

Best of luck hope you get it resolved:)

Nothing useful to add to the excellent advice others have given but I just wanted to add my sympathy and support. Try to keep going with this complaint process. I hope it helps knowing that we are all on your side.

If you are treated in a way that is intimidating or aggressive when you raise perfectly legitimate complaints with the church users, I think you should consider calling 101 to get it logged.

Good luck, I hope you see some progress soon.

Re the diagram- OP have you contacted the people in the terrace behind you? Presumably they can also hear the noise and a few extra numbers to the complaints might get things sorted quicker.

It’s such a shame that people feel the need to comment before they have a full understanding of the facts of the situation.

I do hope you get this resolved. I would seek to find someone more senior within the Methodist circuit to deal with. Your Methodist minister seems to be out of his depth.

Best wishes

Really? It's a church what do you expect. If you don't like living next to a church move.

The irony of the last two posts being right next to each other is stunning ...

It seems you've moved next door unaware of the potential for noise or the SDAs Sunday service is a recent event? What's your solution to your noise problem, are you wanting them to sound-proof the church? Change opening hours ?

Whilst getting the council to enforce parking restrictions will reduce car noise, you'll still have similar levels of congregation chatter outside the church - is this acceptable?

I don't think it reasonable to expect similar noise restrictions from this sort of building to say a family home but appreciate other people's sounds penetrating your home is a annoying.

@randomchatter "It seems you've moved next door unaware of the potential for noise or the SDAs Sunday service is a recent event?"

If you read the thread you'll find that the SDAs is a recent event and OP has lived in the same house for a significant period of time with no problem. But then OP has repeatedly made that clear all the way through this thread.

I was so ready to jump at you being massively unreasonable....then I read your second message in the original post. You're putting up with far more than is acceptable (when it used to be completely normal church noise.)

They're not acting very Christian, are they?

Have you thought of getting a very large black dog, called Satan, and teaching it to bark at them??

As an atheist, I find the actions of these so-called Christians appalling - Methodist & 7da alike.

Love thy neighbour ?

FWIW, the Council & Methodist Minister are possibly frightened to act in case they are accused of racism.

Gowgow this has already been suggested

The Methodist Minister needs to address this. If he doesn't then can you go further up in the Methodist church? They mustn't rent it to such dreadful tenants. Surely this would break the tenancy agreement? I would record and put on YouTube/Facebook for a start. Also record you going in and having to shout to members of the congregation. You need to get serious and make life more difficult for the Minister as he is not listening. Goodness I'd be tempted to camp outside his house playing music the same volume. I say this as a church goer.

Hi, I asked my DH about this. (He works with sound systems and a lot of churches). In terms of monitoring noise, he says a basic decibel meter ( with “max hold”)is not expensive and you can log the profile of noise through the week to show the nuisance is way above the everyday level. With evidence they should put a Noise Order on the church which might involve restrictions, require insulation or a noise limiter. PM if you would like more info.

I’ve now read your OP via the link . Plus this one . I’ve concluded that it’s 10 minutes of my life I won’t get back again .

Ok , read a bit more, you do have a sound meter. He said the key thing is the background/baseline as well as the noisy times. Also if it has a dBC setting that picks up more frequencies than dBA, for instance bass speakers. Hope you get a resolution soon.

Wow you poor thing! Just seen the post from NotMe. Hopefully her dh will be able to help.

I really don't understand why you think you have any grounds for complaining if you move next to a church.... It would be like moving next to Wembley and complaining their was noise from football fans

there not their

Yet another numpty posting

I always imagine people who don't RTFT are people who love the sound of their own voice

Totally understand people not wanting to read long threads... but what goes on in the mind of that person to make them add their initial thoughts to a thread they haven't wanted to read? It's very long and CLEARLY contains more info than in the first post. But somehow your own tuppence needs adding before you close the tab and move on?

Obviously nobody is required to read anything they don't want to, but why assume everybody would like to hear your uninformed thoughts - do you presume them to be original? I find it baffling and funny and irritating in equal measure!

(That's not aimed at a specific poster BTW, just the issue in general)

*Ivestoppedreadingthenews

I really don't understand why you think you have any grounds for complaining if you move next to a church*

I suggest the answer to is that you lack reading comprehension, and maybe you should work on that instead of picking at someone in trouble.