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!

Sorry for people who hadn’t read the original thread but OP explained on her second post of the 13 pages that she had lived there for 15 years and only in the last 4 had the situation changed.

Most people wouldn’t be looking for updates if it were as simple as ‘move’!

BTW, "decibel meters" are of no value whatsoever in cases like this, there are absolutely no noise limits laid down in law

Strange then that the official government guidance to the Environmental Protection Act 1990 says:

The permitted noise level using A-weighted decibels (the unit environmental noise is usually measured in) is:
34 dBA (decibels adjusted) if the underlying level of noise is no more than 24 dBA
10 dBA above the underlying level of noise if this is more than 24 dBA

www.gov.uk/guidance/noise-nuisances-how-councils-deal-with-complaints

Yet another example of thinking that one's ignorance is truth?

I read the whole lot!

Not sure why the biscuit? Is that aimed at me?

@alittlequinnie

I hope you don't mind me asing, but this thread popped in to my head today and I was wondering how you got on?

*asking

Got a chrome being built next to me and a football/basketball court in front of me.. can’t wait for the screaming kids to be arguing in a few weeks at 10pm!

[quote IGoWalkingAfterMidnight]@alittlequinnie

I hope you don't mind me asing, but this thread popped in to my head today and I was wondering how you got on?[/quote]
Hi there - thank you for asking.

I can see that the last post was in February 2020 and of course in March 2020 all the churches closed down - including the one next to us.

Before lockdown nothing had changed and we were keeping our noise diary etc but nothing was ever done.

Since lockdown the Seventh Day Adventists have not been there at all.

We have been told that they are due back at some point.

The Methodist Church Minister we deal with is retiring and somebody else is taking over.

Apparently the new person has suggested a few alternative Churches to the Seveth Day Adventists which may be more suitable for the Saturday Worship they require.

This tells me two things:

1. The new Minister really doesn't want to deal with the issue.
2. The Church itself is not desperate for the money from the Seventh Day Adventists for the hire of the Church.

We have spoken with our neighbours recently and they have said that if the Seventh Dayers come back they will be really pro-active about complaining to the Council if the noise is bad again.

We had a follow up letter from the Council to the initial meeting which confirmed that noise should not leak over the border of the Church and we feel that this should be useful if we have to start it up again.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that they don't come back but of course they couold well come back once the restrictions are lifted.

Hopefully the Council letter and fact that it has been an ongoing issue for years will mean that it shouldn't take years to get to that point again.

We really don't want to have to start keeping noise diaries and logging complaints again because it's actually not a nice thing, time consuming and stressful - but feel more positive now our neighbours are going to also do the same.

It's been really peaceful without them!

I'm saddened to read this thread. You are only asking for a reasonable level of consideration, not to be as quiet as church mice.

I am so glad that the local church less than 100 feet from my house are very strict about observing times for bell ringing. Indeed if everyone else was as good about timekeeping, the world would be a better place.

This update just popped up on my active list - it’s one of those threads I’ve thought about occasionally so I’m glad you’ve had some peace and hope it doesn’t start up again!

I remember the original thread, and your update thread. I'm glad to read this latest update,and I hope the new minister is a bit less drippy. Best of luck.

@newnortherner111

I'm saddened to read this thread. You are only asking for a reasonable level of consideration, not to be as quiet as church mice.

I am so glad that the local church less than 100 feet from my house are very strict about observing times for bell ringing. Indeed if everyone else was as good about timekeeping, the world would be a better place.

Read the original thread - its not about bell-ringing at all.

It must have been one of the silver linings of lockdown! Hopefully they will have found somewhere else to go instead.

@alittlequinnie

I am going to attempt to upload a diagram to show the road layout...

It's a shame that there isn't a graveyard around the church. I'd have been very tempted to have put some grumpy looking skeletons outside the church when the SDA were there to show that they were so noisy that they even woke the dead.

I remember your original thread, I can’t believe this much time has passed. Sounds positive op.

If the SDA come back and Council does nothing - get your own very loud fog horn and blast it at them on Saturdays!

I remember your original thread and the absolute nightmare the noise was for you. Very much hoping this might be a silver lining of covid for you!

Out of interest, how many hours of the week was the problem for?

This sounds positive OP. It’s not the sort of noise you expect from a church - sounds more like a noisy nightclub type of racket - and no one should have to put up with that. It’s good that if it kicks off again (which hopefully with a new minister it won’t) your neighbours will get involved . The more people you can get together the better. What a nightmare. I’ve lived overseas near to churches with very enthusiastic, daily bell ringing every half hour but we knew what to expect and whether it was something we could live near. The church near you isn’t operating in a way that you would expect and it’s not on to have amps, people hanging around outside for ages and terrible parking problems.

Can you escalate the complaint to your MP and to whatever the Methodist equivalent of a bishop is? Some bad publicity might help as the minister is a money-grabbing drip!

Sounds like a silver lining of the pandemic. I hope it lasts.

YANBU! It's been pointed out on another thread that in the UK people are expected to put up with a great deal of inconsiderate and disruptive noise from others.

@Eve

So I understand, did you move next door to a church or did it suddenly appear next to you?

This

OP I am so glad you came back to update us, your situation sounded hellish and I hope you and your neighbours manage to stave off a recurrence!

My next door neighbour blasts his radio into his garden (and therefore mine and probably about six others') on beautiful sunny days and it makes me want to throw rocks at his head. In your situation I would probably be in prison by now for having set fire to the damn place

Can you get the police involved? It sounds like very anti-social behaviour.
I say this as someone who goes to a loud worshipping church (worship band). The worship probably lasts for 25 minutes max. I would not want to be part of a church that was making a nuisance of themselves to the neighbours. It sounds horrible (and I love a good hymn / worship song).
The fact that you haven't minded other forms of worship in the past shows that you're not trying to stop them worshipping, just wanting them to be respectful of other people.