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!

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

OP has never suggested she wants silence, let alone utter silence. Posting this sort of thing makes people sound seriously dim.

I would photo the cars for evidence then call 101/council. Also record uskng watsapp audio in your home or videofor the early am noise folk.

And to get a bit of frustration out, since they are parking like them 'youparklikeacunt' takes submissions.

Only emergency vehicles should temporarily block zebras and zig zags. Only those with a blue badge have an excuse for double line parking.

If they can only be antisocial then yes their religious activities should be stopped in the form of their renting agreement being voided. They can rent a day in a different location where they won't inflict anti-social noise at all hours and parking on others.

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

OP has never suggested she wants silence, let alone utter silence. Posting this sort of thing makes people sound seriously dim.

Especially true as OPsupdates on her last thread stated they are fine with all the other normal Methodist church goings plus the other groups who rent!

I've never understood why proselytizing (or certain types of it) needs to be amplified. I don't suppose Jesus had access to a PA system.

Bells at Streen mark the hour 24/7 and have a service peel 4 times a day

I'm prepared to bet the bells marking the hour are simply on a chiming clock, so you're talking about a few seconds every time. A peel takes around three hours, so that certainly isn't happening four times a day.

OP I did read the original thread and like other PP's I personally would be escalating this now. You have done nice and reasonable and the Council really aren't playing ball. They should already have had the monitoring in place by now. You have already kept a noise nuisance diary for them for quite some time and this meeting sounds very pacific on their part. They have a legal responsibility to deal with noise nuisance.

I worked in various Council's for many years both initially in an Environmental Health Department where such a noise nuisance would have been taken very much more seriously and latterly in various Legal Departments and had this come to my attention I would have been concerned at the position the Council were putting themselves in by their lack of action.

The usual thing to make a Council suddenly take your complaint seriously would be to get your MP onto them about the issue. No Director of Environmental Health wants the MP getting in touch about something they have the ability to stop.

OP I would do as asked at the meeting to show you are trying to resolve this amicably still BUT I would make an appt with your MP now, run through the issue, all the evidence of the issue and the fact the council have ignored all your attempts other than to attend a meeting re mediation. Pretty sure they’ll get the council moving to properly deal with it.
If that doesn’t work I think you need a solicitor. As a pp said check our home insurance but in my experience they’ll wiggle out of it being covered.
You’ve tried doing it through the church and got nowhere, they’ve just asked you to continue what you have been doing for a further time, what’s the point n that?
You’ve asked the council multiple times and they’ve ignored you.
Time to go in much harder.
Good luck, it sounds horrendous.

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

Why the hell cant the Methodist Minister just give you this contact number? He obviously has it. Why is he forcing you to interact with someone who has been so abusive in their actions towards your previous attempts ( racist comments are tc) in your own home, when they can quite simply give you a piece of paper with this information on? It all sounds designed to make things as difficult for you as possible

Argh we need an edit function. Apologies for not proof reading

@EveSome people will never understand how upsetting unnecessary noise disturbance can be. ( until it happens to them then it is a different story obviously) community centre, churches, schools they all move the goal posts depending on who’s in charge at the time. So saying “the church was there first” etc is a ridiculous and naive comment to make.

OP you have my sympathy, and I say that as an attendee at an evangelical church. They are In a residential area and it sounds as if they should turn off the amplification and need education about slamming car doors at 5am and all the other things you mention. Can you ask for some signs to be put up, the type that they have at pubs/village halls? They might prick some consciences, you never know. Or can you collar the SDA minister and ask for a chat?

Oh dear Aannnaa. Time for a name change I think. Talk about embarrassing yourself.

It sounds awful, OP and I hope you get it sorted.

I would definitely report bad parking to the Council. That should be sorted out ASAP.

I go to a church which isn't noisy at all (also Methodist), and we have services/activities at predictable times.

We do consider ourselves responsible for noise levels of people using the church or halls though. We once had a group who came to us asking to use the hall for a gathering as the place they had booked had to cancel at the last minute. They turned out to be incredibly noisy, and we had complaints during the event from local residents. We immediately put a stop to it, refused to rent halls to them again, and sent letters of apology and flowers to affected residents.

I would expect your local church to do something similar. My guess is that they may be relying on income from renting out the halls in order to make ends meet, but ultimately that's not your problem. I'd keep pushing until this is sorted.

Yabu for calling the minister "wet", though. He's probably in an awkward position and trying to be nice. Ministers don't get training in the legalities of noise-making.

Can't believe the council have not offered to put recording equipment in your house - it was offered to me re our neighbours dogs barking all day. I would push for this as it surely provides incontrovertible proof.

If it's a quiet place, then perhaps a chat with the local police might help with the parking. Sorry, not read the entire other thread, but in quiet places, the police generally have a bit more time on their hands to deal with community problems.

If you have the phone numbers (landline and mobile) of the Methodist minister you should start phoning him in the night when you're being kept awake with the noise. Even better, if you know where he lives go round there and bang on his door. It's what I'd do, but I accept I'm aggressive as fuck when it comes to noise.

I live in a terraced house and can hear people going up and down the stairs, running showers etc., all those sounds are completely acceptable and part of everyday life. There's a huge difference between ordinary day-to-day noise that people make and the kind of noise the OP is putting up with.

The SA won't give a shit, OP. They believe they are doing God's work and that's that. It's the Methodists you need to go for. Threaten to sue unless they stop their tenants making this racket.

Can you push the council to install monitoring equipment at the boundary. You will then have hard evidence that they are causing a statutory noise nuisance and the council will have to act.

OP I have read every post on both threads. This thread, like your noise nuisance issue, is going nowhere. On the last thread you were given some good advice on how to escalate your complaint. Now you are updating that you've been told to make a note of the issues for 6 weeks. They literally saw you coming. I don't think your DH is clever and knows all the laws, and I think this is going to continue until you educate yourself, use the internet to find things out and involve your MP, the Methodist board and a formal complaint against the local authority - rather than have a chat about it on a forum.

Morning everyone. For those asking, OP's original thread is here.

Thanks all.

All I can say is how very Christian of all the christians! Completely missing the point of christianity here.

Isnt all the wailing about being considerate and kind people, about forgiving and helping those that are suffering not ignoring and increasing the suffering

OP I don't know how you've put up with this for 4 years. It's not even remotely acceptable. There was good advice in the previous thread too, it's time to really fight this.

It sounds exhausting OP. I did read your first thread.
Good luck with it.

Hi there

Thank you all so much for your really helpful replies.

I have still got the links from the first thread and one of them has given me a Methodist Minister who is quite high up. I will be writing to him to inform him of the issues and tell him what has gone on.

Although it isn't brilliant progress this is the FIRST time in four years we have got the Council to talk to us, and the Church together to at least highlight the issue.

At the meeting on Friday the Council did have all the history of the various complaints over the last four years - BUT she said they had all been closed as there had been no further issues after 4 weeks (?!)

I called the Methodist Minister a bit "wet" which may have been unkind but he has been informed of the issue a hundred times, given photographs, recordings and attended 4 separate meetings - at no point has he been able to offer any solutions and what he actually "does" is stand outside for an hour every Saturday "monitoring" the noise - he then decides all by himself without asking anybody else that it is okay and trundles off home.

I have offered again and again that he comes in and listens from inside. He just wants to forget all about it to be honest and not deal with it.

Re the other Minister - he did give his name and place in the Church - he basically just listened and I gave him photos, a noise diary and other bits and pieces to take away with him.

We DO monitor the level of the sound. We have a decibel metre and we film it while the service is going on. We also do this with the 4-5 hours of socialising outside after the service.

The Council DID mention noise limiters and monitoring of noise but as this is their first meeting with us we feel that we should just follow on for now and "do as we are told".

For clarity - I get the impression that the Methodist Minister didn't actually let the SDAs know that they should be attending the meeting rather than they didn't want to attend.

There are so many queries on this thread it's hard to answer them all but I am really trying.

We have stepped up the noise monitoring in that we are putting the decibel level next to each entry and including a photo of the crowds and the time and the level of noise.

I won't be phoning 999 on anybody that is parked on the zig zags somebody linked me to the information I needed to report the parking on the last thread and I will follow this.

If it excuses me, I've been really ill since the meeting and only got into action today.

4 or 5 hours of socialising outside the church after a service is utterly unacceptable. Is there a way to stop them - eg play amplified music of your own religion or atheism at them so their ears are blasted and they cannot hear to talk to each other? Or walk up and down with a "There is no God" placard or invite another local religious group to come down every time there is a service and preach to them outside to try to convert them over to the other one true religion and that kind of thing?