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!

Yanbu at all. I remrmber your first thread and you've had no issues except with this group, since the church started renting to them. You have no issue with the other churchgoers.

Good luck with everything. If people park dangerously, call the police and photograph for evidence.

YABU fgs, you moved next to a church, of course you should expect some noise. If you want deathly quiet go live next to a graveyard!

OP, is there any chance of getting the relevant parties there during a service, so they can hear exactly what you hear?

I read your original thread and was hoping for good news

Same here.

Ministers of most ilks tend to be wet lettuces a lot of the time in my vast experience (and it IS vast), and especially if they are blokes. Yes - i know that comment is sexist and I fully expect to be piled on and roundly abused for it, but it's a fact. They want a quiet life (totally unlike the one this minister is allowing the SDAs to inflict on you) and to collect their stipend. Women priests tend to have had to have fought to get into ministry (there is still a lot of misogyny in the church - certainly in the C of E) and they develop an attitude that nobody's gonna mess with them! (Unless you get one who is in it fora power trip rather than to serve God, in which case she will be very political and only interfere if she sees it as a route to at least an archdeaconry . . .

The noise levels you described are (to me) totally unacceptable - particularly at the time of night the occur and the long duration - and people shouting in the streets, slamming car doors etc late at night is surely a public nuisance in itself.

Has the council supplied a noise monitor of any type? It would be a useful thing to be able to record what you actually have to endure, rather than it being subjective. Why a pity your neighbours didn't feel they could join you in your complaint. Are they intimidated?

This is horrific.

I live near a church - not next door - and the CofE had rented it out for services that the minister would amplify. I could hear his bad karaoke singing quite clearly in my garden and I was a block away. My friend who lived next door complained endlessly and eventually moved because she couldn't take it anymore.

However there were lots of complaints from lots of neighbours and eventually the minister stopped amplifying his voice.

In your case, I think that's also the key. The amplification has to stop first and foremost. And then the antisocial behaviour at all hours can be the next thing to tackle.

It's incredibly hard to fight this, but you do seem to be very well prepared. Good luck.

And before any one mentions did I read the original thread, yes I did and said the same then as well!

OP - can I suggest you ask MNHQ to put the link to your previous thread in your OP, otherwise this thread is going to get filled with endless repeats of 'well, you did move next to a church'.

Funny how so many churches ignore Matthew 6 5:8, isn't it?

I read your original thread.
How frustrating for you that the SDA didn't even bother attending the meeting. All the monitoring etc is such a long drawn out process. I hope this gets resolved.

READ THE ORIGINAL THREAD FOR FUCK'S SWEET SAKE.

Sunflowers211

you'd think that, but apparently OP's need for utter utter silence in the house that she chose, next door to a church that I presume didn't spring up overnight, far outweighs everyone else's needs or wants

Sunflowers211 so you'll know that the OP didn't move next to the church as it's functioning with the SDAs, then, won't you? And you'll know she wasn't bothered by the original church noise at all.

Sunflowers21 FGS yourself. This is an update thread. The OP has linked to her other thread, if you choose not to read it then you risk making yourself look like an idiot.

Once again for the hard of reading this is not about regular church noise. Read the other thread, or heck even the comments on this one to actually get an idea of what the OP is complaining about.

YABU fgs, you moved next to a church, of course you should expect some noise. If you want deathly quiet go live next to a graveyard!

There no way you read the thread. It's not just church noise.

I was coming on to say you were being unreasonable- then I read your other thread.

OP you need a sainthood yourself for putting up with that!

For those people who are saying but the church was already there; here is an analogy.

We live by a school so we accept that between 9-3.30pm during term time there will be some noise. The school was there when we moved in. However, if the school decided to rent out their playground for brass band practice 3 evenings a week then we could legitimately complain as it is outside of the noise that would be reasonably expected from a school.

JUst a thought but why do t you pop over and speak to the SDAs yourself on a Sunday and explain

Bezalelle

stop shouting for fuck's sweet sake!

JUst a thought but why do t you pop over and speak to the SDAs yourself on a Sunday and explain

Someone who hasn't read the original thread and who doesn't know what an SDA is.

sunflower
I Agree op should expect ‘some noise’ and would be being unreasonable to expect ‘deathly silence’. I haven’t seen op say anything different ! Her problem is about significant noise nuisance.

@Eve
Do you moved next door to a church and are now complaining about noise from normal church activities

You didn't actually read the first thread did you?

She didn't move next door to a SDA church, she moved next door to a Methodist church.

And she's not complaining about a bit of bell-ringing or confetti blowing into her garden.

Th OP is absolutely fine with the church noise on a Sunday, iirc - that's the Methodists, behaving as you'd expect a church to.

@Aannnaa

You're a charmer!

The OP was there before the Seventh Day Adventists.

Why should she move?

SmugGit211

And before any one mentions did I read the original thread, yes I did and said the same then as well!

The only way you could live next to that noise would be if you were deaf, or had hearing aids you could switch off :(