AIBU to give neighbours a taste of what they expect me to tolerate?

[Pricklemyfancy]

DH and I work full time and are up at 6am Mon-Fri.
My DH and our 2 DDs (4 and 7) live in a semi-detached house which has been built without our stairs forming the 'barrier', iyswim. Our bedroom is next to their bathroom; my DDs' room is next to their younger child's (18) room.
Neighbours have 2 adult (18 and 20-something) children living with them.
Their "children" bang doors into the early hours, play Youtube stuff at a volume that can be heard clearly in our rooms, play some sort of Call of Duty style war game so we can hear the bangs and groans and explosions... this frequently goes on until 2am. We can fall asleep, but then are woken up repeatedly throughout the night.
I approached the neighbours some months ago and explained that we could hear their noises and were being woken up, and to ask if they could be quieter past around 10pm. They were lovely, but nothing changed.
I went around again last week to ask again if they could be quieter. This time I was received a bit differently, with the father saying he couldn't "tell people what to do". One night last week, the noises were so loud that I went around at 1am to ask them to be quiet. The 20-something adult child answered the door, said they had all been asleep (!) and told me to get away from the doorway or they would call the police.
Only one of them works; the others seem to mope around in dressing gowns all day when they eventually do get up. Would IBU to leave for work on Monday having turned my sound system on loud and directed at their walls from 6am?

Put your Hoover on their wall first thing in the morning, it will resonate through their house.

When our neighbours dog barked all night long, when she was working nights, I took to playing "loud dogs barking" videos on you tube, placed next to the wall where her bedroom is for a few hours during the day when she would be sleeping. She soon took it to dog training.

Ref that Mosquito device, and cat scarers.... I'm 39 and can hear the bloody things. Hate hate hate them

I’ve found noise-cancelling headphones very helpful in situations like this.

But ultimately the only solution is to make friends or move. Personally I'd move.

@Pricklemyfancy

My last noisy neighbours were violent drug addicts so I put up with it. The latest noisy bastards are more approachable when not drunk but otherwise are aggressive and confrontational. We can’t risk mentioning the noise when they are sober in case it kicks off when they drink and they attack us instead of each other. I can’t be doing with a life of being scared to leave the house in case they start something so I put up with the noise currently. I’ll choose the noise over the fear anytime even though the fact I have to choose at all is shit.

I honestly don’t think there’s anything that can be done about noisy neighbours other than moving if possible. Tit for tat can become violent and scary and make it difficult to sell if police end up being involved. So that’s why I would definitely vote against escalating.

But if your neighbours are not as scary, maybe the risk isn’t as extreme?

Forgot to add: all these “they’ll soon get it” replies amuse me. Some people will get it and change their behaviour. Some will get it and change their behaviour for a couple of days until they forget. Some people will get it and not give a fuck. Some will hear it, not get it, won’t even consider their own noise because they are the centre of the universe, and then decide you started the whole thing so deserve revenge. Then escalation.

DH and I were talking about selling the house just to get away from them

That’s what we did. Blissfully peaceful in our detached house. Moving was the best thing. Our old neighbours had older ones like yours and I sympathise with the loud game playing, I was unable to sleep until they all went to bed and was also up at 6am. It made me ill.

We have this issue, my dds room runs along our neighbors room and because theres no chimney there's no sound protection. We can hear everything and vice versa so there has to be some give and take.

What does help massively is white noise, DD has a fan next to her bed that's switched on low through the night, it masks pretty much everything.

Don't retaliate, it really won't help sort things out, they'll just do it back and things will escalate. The first thing I would do is try and speak to them again, galling as it might be, I would go along the lines of, "I really don't want to fall out with you, can we just have a chat about it" . Invite them in to hear for themselves if you can. They might tell you to fuck off but at least you've tried.

If that doesn't sort it out then you can contact your councils environmental health team. They have noise monitoring equipment that can be used to determine if the noise constitutes a statutory nuisance, and take action under the environmental protection act if it does. They will generally issue a warning first. There will be details on your local councils website.

I'd you are in social housing the antisocial behaviour team will help you out. If you are a homeowner bear in mind you need to declare any dispute before selling.

I've dealt with a lot of disputes like this over the years and it really helps if at one side is reasonable. Tit for tat situations make it impossible for an outsider to determine who is in the right.

I think sonic device left on all day - or several, right next to or on the walls and put your house on the market.
My friend had to move after 2 years of awful noise and antisocial behaviour from neighbours. She wished she had just decided to move earlier. She managed to find a tiny detached house, but it was worth it.

I am surprised only 7% think you’re unreasonable! What exactly do you expect to achieve by retaliation - ‘oh goodness, terribly sorry - I had no idea how bad it was, golly, must stop, do come in for a cup of tea’?

@gafferareyouthere That is really interesting - it doesn't seem like too much disruption, either. Thank you! Maybe a half-way-house between putting up with them and moving

Good idea to ask if they could wear headphones after 10, it's very reasonable and easy for them to do

From past experience I have found that playing bagpipe music very loudly for hours on end with the speakers turned around and right up against the wall does wonders for getting noisy neighbours to hush up .

@Aridane Yes, pretty much. Doing nothing is not an option, though. The more I'm reading about Mumsnetters who moved and found happiness, the more I'm thinking about getting the house valued. The council won't work - I've since looked it up thanks to an earlier post and we would have to admit to having made complaints, so that's an absolute non-starter. I think people are right about us having more to lose than them. I think (and this is insanely childish but it's giving me a LOT of relief) that if we sell, once we've exchanged, then they'll get Beethoven through the walls all day. Actually I'm thinking really clearly about this now. I've only ever read threads on Mumsnet, but this has been brilliant - thank you all!

I’d certainly be banging doors, using washing machine, vacuum and have a radio on loud in the mornings. If you can’t beat em, join em!

If you're wanting to move house at any point I'd avoid doing anything that could count as a "neighbour dispute", as much as it's horrible living next to noisy twats like yours.

”I think (and this is insanely childish but it's giving me a LOT of relief) that if we sell, once we've exchanged, then they'll get Beethoven through the walls all day.”

Think about it, but don’t actually do it. Don’t leave the unfortunate buyers with even more hostility to cope with than is unavoidable.

Our neighbours were like this.
Remember to keep to the moral high ground though. You won’t make things better if you get into tit for tat like this.

As it is we found that our neighbours got a lot quieter as the children got older.
Like you this seems to be a family where no one goes to work so no one needs to get up in the morning.
Sending 6ft 4 DH round at 2am seems to make a difference too.

But neighbour’s children are adults. It’s unlikely they’ll become quieter.

You can get some indoor cctv cameras that will record the noise really effectively. We got a motorala one from argos for about £50. In the end we moved because it was so awful, ours was just awful and if anything got said it escalated. I absolutely feel for you because it's insidious and just destroys your peace of mind. Local council, pcso and environmental health, do a little Internet research and get some advice about what your options are. As others have said record every instance, date and time. Our local council had a recording hotline that you could call and hold the phone at the wall. Good luck and keep your head. It's awful being at war with your neighbour if you can avoid it do so... But don't let them ruin your peace with their selfish bullshit. How hard is it to just turn it down?

I feel for you OP, I really do. I think retaliation won't work, sadly, tempting though it must be. My (non-serious) ambition one day is to actually be the inconsiderate noisy neighbour rather than the other way round.

You are all so grounding and reasonable! Didn't think about the environment our potential buyers would move into. Thanks, @underfall. I'll definitely visualise it, but I won't do it. God, just thinking about it is good, though. Just spoken to DH about moving and it turns out he's been thinking about it - just nervous of being 'bullied' away, as he sees it. Looks like we'll be contacting estate agents! Feel better just for thinking about that.

@Pricklemyfancy

Thank you x Am looking into moving but when I bought the house it was a lovely quiet cul de sac and very pretty where everyone had pride and planted flowers etc. Now its changed for me with this new neighbour and other neighbour smokes weed all day which comes in through my windows. Thing is if i do move can get the same all over again!

I'd turn the speaker to their walls, find the loudest music you can and go out. I had a neighbor that took no notice when I asked him to turn down his music. I only had to give him the speaker treatment once. He quickly learnt the lesson. 🤷‍♂️

they might back down, or they might double down, the latter is more likely because 'my home is my castle' ...people tend to get defensive quickly and then want to punish you for attacking them