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!

When you say monitor, does this mean they have one of their noise monitors running or are they relying on your diary? If the latter, why are they not recording sound levels now? You have kept a diary for yonks!
It is the minister's issue if his tenants are making unacceptable levels of noise and if can't and won't accept responsibility then you need to go above him in the ministry and invite them on a Saturday so they can experience it first hand, the parking and the shouting. I feel for you op.

OP, you have my complete sympathy here, but I'm amazed you are being so passive about this. Four years in and you're still accepting a limp response from the minister and the council. I would have been ringing the council every week and escalating to any higher authority I could find after four weeks of this, let alone four years.

@Londonmummy66 's advice is spot on, and very helpful.

Like @BelfastSmile 's Church, our (Methodist) Church was approached by what sounds like a similar church to the SDA's - we said we weren't prepared to rent out to them, as we are in a community, and wouldn't inflict that upon our neighbours.

So sorry your thread has been posted on by so many people without the brains to understand if this is an update, it might be relevant to actually read the thread - particularly as it was linked to and then so many other posters have pointed out what a difference it makes to what they are saying

You should live next to a Meeting House. The Quakers are silent.

Shamelessly placemarking.

On your side. Hope they start to improve

I was really surprised when I read in this thread that SDAs were noisy as I thought they were a very old fashioned sect - you'd be surprised how many of their books from the early to mid 20th century are still circulating on the second-hand market. But do I gather from what I'm seeing that maybe most SDA people nowadays have a background in other countries, possibly 1/2/3 generations back but nevertheless fairly recently?

I remember a small modern church in a white area of Bristol in the 1980s, with a health food shop round the corner that was closed on Saturdays so presumably had some connection with the some of the congregation. But I have been living in a part of UK with no SDAs for most of the time since so my impressions are probably completely out of date.

Ah yes - I see - this article gives some info - news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2011-12-14/church-chat-where-did-londons-majority-white-church-population-go/

• so are churches with this kind of music, and the demographic to support churches like that, common in your area? Because once again I would have thought that might make a difference to how the council regards it. BTW our church moved into a previously non-church building, and has restrictions from the council about timing of services to avoid noise nuisance (though we don't even have musical instruments, and only a small amount of amplification, just for the preacher). Yet the council can organise an annual firework display with fireworks that are louder than any I've ever heard (sound like bombs and go on for ages)!

19:57Ivestoppedreadingthenews
It's not the only thing you've stopped reading is it. RTFT or keep your trap shut

A TLDR update for people who don't want to catch up properly.
OP moved next to church and expected normal church noise.
OP has no issue with normal church things.
Church lets the space out to another denomination.
The other denomination are excessively loud and disruptive in the street to the point of being unreasonable.

Crucially, can we stop with the "why did you buy a house next to a church..."

Yes LolaSmiles but has the demographic of the area changed too? Because if it has, there will be lots of other noisy churches in the area, so I'd have thought the council may then start to regard it as normal. A much higher proportion of black people than white people go to church, and a high proportion (though not all!) of them go to noisy church.

Lola - that's a helpful summary. Unfortunately, the people who need to read it are the ones who just read the OP, then fire off a comment, so I fear your post might not achieve much - but worth a try, I guess.

Mn really is turning into ThickyMcThickoNoReadingComprehensionWhatsoeversnet judging by this thread

Thank you Someone other that is really interesting. My knowledge of SDA is pretty limited. When I was a child they had a private maternity hospital at Stanborough Park and because of that (and seeing the posters on the bus) I always thought it was a rather conservative white church. Clearly times have changed.

An annual firework display lasting maybe half an hour is very different from very high noise levels every Saturday for hours.

We have laws about noise levels to protect people in residential areas like the OP. if only someone had the balls to follow the process through.

The congregation arrive by bus and car. They don’t walk to church from the next street.

Surely if the parking is so bad the Council or Police should be looking to have that stopped with no need for meeting with anyone. Also , if the church was there when you moved in not much you can do about the noise from singing. Can't recall the full details of your listing though.

@manicmij if you can’t recall the full details perhaps you could read them on the clearly linked original thread?

How noisy was it yesterday op in light of there being a meeting about the noise this week? Same as usual or did they dampen it down just a little?

Did the council ever explain how they managed to close all the previous complaints withought actually doing anything begin to start investigating the noise let alone to fix the noise? Have they given any undertakings this time that they will not just close the complaint (‘because nobody added to it for 4 weeks so computer said it all must be ok now’ or some other sappy excuse?

Are you going to make sure you get a reading today during the Methodist service and when the Methodists leave and again at 10-midnight on a Methodist service day so you have all the comparison data needed too?

Oh and I definitely think it would be worth getting the council to loan you an official decibel meter if you own your own one, just in case they use that as an excuse at the next meeting - that they can’t trust your equipment...

For the benefit of those who seem to think that you don't have a right to complain about noise if the makers of the noise were there first;

The Supreme Court has laid down a number of principles applicable when considering a claim of private nuisance by noise:
1 - whether noise constitutes nuisance must be assessed by reference to the character of the locality because what can constitute nuisance in one area may not be nuisance in another
2 - the activity creating the noise can be part of the character of the locality but only to the extent that they do not cause nuisance
3 - having planning permission to carry out an activity which causes nuisance by noise is not a defence, although the terms and conditions of the planning permission might be relevant in some cases
4 - it is not a defence to show that the complainant 'came to the nuisance' (eg moved into a property after the nuisance had started).

This has been the position in relation to nuisance for almost 190 years, it was changed slightly in 2014 to add "unless s/he changed the use of her/his land/property and as a result the pre-existing activity became a nuisance, but was not before", which is not the case in respect of the OPs complaint.

BTW, "decibel meters" are of no value whatsoever in cases like this, there are absolutely no noise limits laid down in law, at the end of the day it's all about what the EHO considers is reasonable or unreasonable. For "EHO" substitute "court" if it goes that far. Audio recordings may have some value but will/should not be relied on by the EHO in the decision to serve a Statutory Notice.

@MadameButterface
Mn really is turning into ThickyMcThickoNoReadingComprehensionWhatsoeversnet judging by this thread

Beautifully put

Just couldn't be bothered as I did recall you had omitted to mention in your original post whether or not you had moved knowing the church was active.

@manicmij

Then why is an uninformed post of any use?

Do you really expect Mnet to resolve your problem. Ever heard of solicitors!

@manicmj you're making a bit of a tit of yourself