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!

If they are parking illegally that's one thing, but complaining about hymns being sung in a church!!! WTF. MN jumped the shark.

Jizzle

RTFT

WhyBirdStop I think you must be on the wrong thread. This one’s about a noise and parking nuisance, not hymns.

I feel your pain op and am following this thread. We live backed onto a church which has also recently started Friday night and Sunday morning services which are way beyond normal church noises. They have massive amplifiers that blast out the singing for hours and it’s really not pleasant. I don’t know how anyone could even stand to be in the building and I just don’t understand why it needs to be so loud. Luckily as it is at the back of us we are not too disturbed at the front but trying to sleep after a night shift is impossible.

If they are parking illegally that's one thing, but complaining about hymns being sung in a church!!! WTF. MN jumped the shark.

What about when the hymns are amplied to a level that you can hear the words of them INSIDE your house?

*amplified!

Anyone eyeing clearly didn’t read your original thread!!

Calling him ‘wet’ was generous I’d be calling him FAR worse than that!!

I really hope this leads to a satisfactory outcome for you! There would already be bodies under the patio if I were you!

I think the Methodist Minister is probably keen not to lose the payment he’s getting from the SDA’s.

To answer all the queries re other neighbours - our road layout is so strange. There are only two houses on the road - along with the Church. It is a teeny tiny little cul de sac. Our house starts at the corner and then goes right down the very end of the road - our house is an end terrace and we have NO back wall or back rooms - all of our windows, doors etc face the Church.

The other neighbours complain to the Methodist Minister all the time but are not so good at wanting to go through the correct channels.

They finally complained formally to the Council but for some reason the Council lady did not have a note of their complaint and did not invite them to the meeting. My neighbour has now emailed the Council lady her complaint reference.

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

For reference the street is really narrow - only about 1.5 car width wide.

@Herocomplex
From the OP
we could hear the lyrics of the hymns they were singing

FWIW I did read the original thread, and there are elements to this worthy of complaint. I don't feel the above is one of them. It's like moving next to a pub that only opened in the evening, shuts by ten/maybe eleven, full of old men in flat caps, no music etc. Then it gets taken over, serves food, open seven days a week, plays music, suddenly busier and noisier, I'm not saying it wouldn't be irritating but it's a risk you take buying next to a pub. The OP has taken the decline in religious observance and people rarely using the church and when they do in small numbers, as a given. It's not, all businesses need to survive whether that's a pub or a church, even a church needs enough money to stay open. As I said the parking and loitering in the street making noise (if after 11pm) is worthy of complaint. The rest is what it is.

This has probably been said already but have you had a solicitor write both the landlord and the renters a cease and desist letter? You don't need the council to agree it's a nuisance. It clearly is a nuisance.

I remember your thread,OP, and I'm so sorry that this is still an ongoing issue. Good luck.

For those who have chimed in without rtft, although there was a link to it - perhaps a tick to confirm you've read the thread and understand the issues here?

Baffled at some posters’ idiocy - when the OP reposts with an UPDATE (yes, the clue’s in the name) would you not think if you’re interested enough to post - “oh, the OP has posted a link to the original thread, maybe I’ll read that before I make a twat of myself.”
No, because some people feel they are so busy and important that they couldn’t possibly spend 5 minutes reading a couple of threads, so they’re quite happy to distress someone who is already at the end of their tether.
So, for the hard of understanding, we are not talking about a few hymns and tinkly bells. We are talking about noise that if made by a nightclub would probably cause its licence to be withdrawn.
OP, your update was not what I was hoping for. These people give religion a bad name. Good luck going forward.

Poor OP - you seem to have attracted a lot of "those" posters who don't bother to understand the facts before piling in. Good luck with the noise nuisance.

WhyBirdStop we did just that - moved across from a small local bar that after about 18 months decided to start pumping loud music until 2am Thursday to Sunday, along with claiming half the footpath to make a terrace. The new crowd like to linger and shout and cackle ages after closing, and yes we and our neighbours have complained. The terrace has been closed by the council and they have to turn off the music at midnight. Getting rid of the cacklers will take more effort but it's not true you have to take a risk and suck it up - if these places are in residential areas and suddenly change use they have to respect the neighbours. Clearly this church is not, OP I hope this improves for you.

There are some right fucking morons on this thread.

That’s quite a poor analogy though WhyBirdsStop pubs and restaurants have to apply for licences to vary their offer, and those in residential areas are particularly carefully managed. If the church had applied in similar circumstances it would have struggled to obtain it due to the hours being kept but as there is no requirement it’s a poor analogy.

I think your idea to go after the parking nuisance is possibly a good one (helps that they meet on a Saturday - reasonable to expect a lot of cars round a church on a Sunday, but not on a Saturday). They also sound like they're breaking the law on the volumes they're exposing their own supporters to and it would be interesting to see their risk assessment for the kids running round unsupervised.

On the down side, if only two houses are affected and one of them isn't very organised about complaining, numbers aren't on their side.

Perhaps you should offer to sell them the house!

Numbers aren't on your side, that should have said.

Does the school use your road for access? If so do they ever have Saturday events?

Some of you suck. And wouldn’t be twirping about church bells if groups of people were singing so loud you could hear it in your house all day and standing talking outside your house at 10pm.

If it was a new development with that number of vehicles on a narrow road it probably wouldn't have got planning permission. Can it be approached as a change of use. Perhaps the planning dept can advise.

I was a little unsure about the "reasonableness" of this post until I read your original post. For them to be so loud at midnight after getting out of the mini busses and then not being considerate enough to quieten down when your husband asked them is not good!

I go to a church which is attached to terraced houses and I know that the neighbours complained a few years ago because of the noise from the worship (especially the drums) my church listened and took this on board by installing sound proofing along that wall which as far as I'm concerned has helped a lot. We only have one service in the morning and very occasional other events (worship evenings etc).

But I would hope that the church you're referring to would respect what you're saying and at least try! Especially as it's affecting your Saturday too. Sorry that this church doesn't seem to be very helpful, not all are like that.

We live next to a pub which can be a real pain with parking and noise, but I suppose we just have to put up with it .. although the parking drives us a bit mad as we're in a small village where we have to park on the road, and they do the same even with a car park across the road! 🙄