Looking for some advice on the following:
I’ve lived in my property for four years and moved in when I was pregnant with my first child. Within a few days/weeks of moving in, a few neighbours complained about parking. Most of the issues were that they didn’t want us to park on the public street outside their houses as they did - ridiculous as any taxed car can park there but we had a specific issue with parking with our next door neighbours.
We live in an end terrace and have an allocated parking space outside our house. The parking space is shared with these neighbours but can comfortably park three cars. They have one car, we have another. When I was 6 months pregnant. Our neighbour came round and started shouting at me as someone was parked in her space and she couldn’t get out of her garage. It transpired that the car belonged to her other adjoining neighbour who were desperately trying to get their 90 odd year old mother from the front door to the car. She did shout at them but said she had unfinished business with me.
A day or two later, she came round to discuss her issues. She said that she found me to be incredibly rude as I’d assumed the middle space was shared between us (it is) but she doesn’t want anyone parking there. She acknowledged that the parking that day, in her space, had nothing to do with me but still thought we were taking liberties by letting guests park in the middle. I apologised as I hadn’t meant to cause upset and we agreed to share it.
Since then, they’ve complained that our joiner left dust in the cracks of the pavement after he’d swept up after himself and insisted my OH sprays down the pavement with water, which we have. They’ve complained about our surround sound TV - we’ve turned it right down. They’ve complained our shared fence post bends into their garden, we’ve tried to mend it. They’ve complained about music being played during the day (not loud) but we’ve switched it off immediately. We never make household noise between the hours of 9-7am. We try to be as considerate as possible but the one thing we can’t help are the noises our children are making. We have a 3 and a half year old daughter and a 6 month old son.
Last year, she complained that our daughter, then 2 screams a lot. I asked her to clarify and she said that this wasn’t crying or tantrum screams but excited screams during the day. A combination of me trying to teach her not to and her just naturally growing out of it.
Today, my auntie was visiting and on returning from a meal out, my auntie arrived home first. She parked a little too far over to let me get the baby seat out and had said she’d move the car once he was out but unfortunately, my neighbour returned home from a weekend away and was fuming.
She collared me immediately and said it’s about time we had a chat about noise levels again. She said that my daughter had finally stopped with the screaming and when I said that I do try to get the kids to keep the noise down, she responded by saying that she chose not to have children so why should she have to listen to noise from mine. It just so happens that whilst she was away her lodger had been making so much noise that my daughter thought someone had broken in which I did mention but I’ve come away feeling very anxious about it all. I’ve recently been diagnosed with post-natal anxiety following my son being hospitalised, amongst other things (he’s fine now). I feel I should point out that most nights my children sleep 7.30-7.30 and have since 8 and 10 weeks old. It’s rare we have a bad night. I also feel that on all other matters of complaint, we’ve bent over backwards to accommodate her. I know she’ll come round in a few days and I’m at a loss as what else I can say to her. Any thoughts or advice would be welcomed.