Noise

[Grinchly]

I live in an Edwardian terrace on a cobbled street.

The walls are thin.

Children play out outside which is good, but the high volume prolonged screaming esp from the girls is driving me utterly insane.

My n d n are lovely but he is constantly doing D I Y. They also have a non verbal autistic child who yells ans screams to communicate.

Loathe noise, love my house. Last night I totally lost it and yelled and banged doors. Feel so ashamed.

I've looked into sound proofing but so expensive. Bought some top range noise cancelling headphones but they don't cancel the shrieking from outside or next door.

I understand the d I y might be his therapy and I need to grow the fuck up re the autism meltdowns. I really do.

I guess I need to move, don't I.

i would suggest moving if it's grinding you down day to day.

Anyone?

We paid £5000 to have 4 walls soundproofed. It was so worth it. We don't hear anything now (apart from the piano).

We moved for very similar reasons. Got to the stage where we just couldn't bear it any longer.
Especially knowing the child would always be like that and as much as we sympathised it was a contributing factor in our decision to sell up and move.

Grinchly I feel your pain. Having lived in a middle-floor flat, I was driven insane by noise and have always hated it. We were lucky that our second house was link-detached with zero neighbour noise. After 28 happy years there we moved to a 4-bed detached with an arable farm at the bottom of the garden, but the neighbours front and to to the sides drive me INSANE with their racket, trampolines, screaming, shouting etc.

Currently the idiot next door but one is having an extension built and we are now going into our third week of kango drilling of the existing concrete floor. I am unreasonably angry about it. When it is quiet and peaceful (which to be fair is most of the time) it's bliss, but noise angers me and you have my sympathy x

My ndn have been doing DIY for months. They never answer their door when I knock to ask them to do it at a reasonable time, and ask them to consider we now have a baby.

I went to the doctors to tell him I was hallucinating due to sleep deprivation and he told me I need to get more sleep but wouldn't give me anything as I needed to be alert for baby, which makes earplugs and the like not fit for purpose in our house.

My neighbours will drill, hammer, saw, hammer some more from 7am till 11pm. Its been over 5 months. Probably close to a year actually. I have no idea what they could possibly be doing.

We are moving back in with my mum, after being self sufficient for 7 years, because we want to save to buy a detached house.

Calculate the cost of moving before you try it. It might be more cost effective to get soundproofing.

You can make your own soundproofing by hanging a thick decorative duvet on walls or between windows and curtains. Is not as good as professionals soundproofing but it makes a difference.

Depending on the duration, intensity, and time you can make a complaint to the local council quoting unsociable behaviour (noise).

I live in an Edwardian terrace on a cobbled street.

Sounds lovely OP! Like a PP said, if you love the house itself I would definitely look into soundproofing, as although it's expensive it will almost certainly be cheaper than moving.

I've just moved house due to noisy neighbours. (A local pub bought the terraced house next door and moved 8 kitchen staff into it..) I've gone from frying pan to fire though, have the world's thinnest walls here and a neighbour who leave a dog barking and howling all night, the TV blaring until 5am, slams doors all hours, kids screaming and leaping off the walls. So unless you can afford a detached house in the middle of nowhere there will always be the risk of finding yourself next to noisy neighbours. The grass isn't always greener and the cost of soundproofing (& saving your sanity) is likely going to be less than moving, especially if you love your house. I loved my old house, was heartbroken when we left and I'm not sure I'll ever fully get over it! Have you raised the issue around DIY with your neighbours at all? Might be worth just casually dropping it into conversation one day in a jokey manner.
You have my full sympathy anyway, it's awful and gets really quite stressful. I've found just having my own background noise/music/radio on helps, but if even noise cancelling headphones aren't helping then this could be classified as noise pollution by environmental health.

Thank you for all the sympathetic replies.

I had an even worse noise problem in a flat years ago and I am now ultra-sensitised to it I guess.

The thing is the neighbours are lovely, not at all unreasonable, and not doing DIY at unsociable hours. At one point he would warn me ahead of time and that helped.

The autism meltdowns are getting worse and worse though: during the summer it was awful, and in summer they have the door and windows open too. I've asked if it's possible to keep them closed to at least contain some of the noise. Hopefully in winter the windows will be open less.

I feel so ashamed that I completely lost it at the weekend. They must have thought I was nuts as I'm normally a quiet friendly person.

I work form home a lot these days and term times is bliss but school holidays it's just horrific.

I've tried speaking to the other neighbours about the other screaming that goes on, and confronted the children themselves, but no one takes it seriously, and I think I've just made myself a bit of a laughing stock.