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?

”This is horrible - go the legal, honest route, and never sell my house, go the rogue (but satisfying) route and maybe get a police visit.”

Unfortunately there is no honest route, since to sell your house you'll have to try to keep the buyer from finding out about the neighbour-noise problem.

It’s legal, but it’s not honest. But it certainly is a huge relief, if you can pull it off and they don’t come after you when they move in and find out.

A neighbour-noise problem is not as bad as a flooding problem. An uninsurable house on a flood plain is a truly terrible situation.

My dad finally moved away from noisy children in 1990 after the first ones started banging on the wall about 1984. The family next door had 6 kids during that time and the noise only got worse.

I'm sure the family tried but nothing worked. My dad used to sleep with a radio on to drown out the kids noise.

Yes that WBU

• They are just living their lives, not trying to annoy you. You want to deliberately aggravate the situation You must have been ranting to get a threat of the police. You won’t win this battle that way because A -Teens will sleep through anything , it won’t bother then and B- Once you start a war they have the time and immaturity to make sure that they win it. Get some earplugs - the orange foam ones in boots are cheap, comfortable and 100% effective.

Keep the moral high ground. Don't retaliate by doing anything during anti social house (I think it's 7am - 8pm?) but outside those hours I'd say anything goes (although adult kids will probably sleep right through anything you do). I bet the parents are chronically sleep deprived, imagine how awful it must be to have it going on IN THE HOUSE...

Otoh, I now want to go round to my neighbours and kiss them for being so quiet and considerate.

If you want to start a war with your neighbours ( which you would have to declare on selling) that would be the best way to do it. I wouldn’t. Contact environmental health at your local council.

Contact environmental health and ask them to put the black recording boxes in your main rooms.

Also keep a diary of the noise as you need to record a "catalogue of abuse".

Realistically this is your only option, personally I would move. I know it's drastic but unless EH can sort this out you're in for lifetime of misery.

I mean that 7am-8pm are 'sociable' hours, so anything outside THOSE hours is regarded as antisocial.

Sorry, typing with a dog on the keyboard...

@Pricklemyfancy

I wonder whether it would somehow be possible to mimic the sound of rats chewing and scratching behind the skirting?

It might just drive them crazy...

Get them back but not through the music all day option more than once as they could then get an noise order against you (yes I know)

So be very noisy until you leave the house, your children will love it too! GL

So tempting but in my experience tit for tat reprisals only escalate neighbour disputes. Please keep your actions reasonable and polite. And contact the council noise pollution department who will be able to advise. I would also keep a log of incidents and if you can record the noise. Years ago we called them and they dealt effectively with very antisocial neighbours.

Yes! An Echo by the party wall playing Slipknot when we go out appears to have quietened our noisy neighbours down. I've assumed they just had no idea that you might be able to hear your neighbours in a quiet village at night 🙄 Great thing about the Echo, is when you're on your hols, you can set it off in the middle of the night (cough cough). In the heyday of vinyl my mate Steve once went off for his hols, leaving a Motorhead album on repeat, he he he. Good luck!!

I would leave Alexa to randomly play loud music for 20 minutes, off for 10 & repeat from when you leave the house in the morning, drive them mad & stop them sleeping in, any questions it has malfunctioned.

I used to Hoover the walls early morning and let the kids watch TV as loud as they please .

I have anti-social behaviour from downstairs, upstairs and the left and right to me. These unsocialised individuals have pushed me to breaking point (I lost half my hair because of the stress it caused and the lack of sleep) I've tried everything but with no or slow success. I am now going down the environmental health route. I recorded it all for 6 months and it was deemed unreasonable and anti-social. They were then sent a warning letter, but no change, so I recorded again and an eviction threat letter was sent with a £100 fine if they didn't shut up, but still no luck. I had to record again and they've now been sent eviction orders. The whole process is a joke and has taken me over 2 years and it still hasn't reached court. Nobody gives a damn quite frankly - the police tell you to go to the council, the council tell you to go to your MP, the MP tells you to go back to the council and to call the police and they tell you to go to environmental health. Even when I first approached environmental health they doubted me until they heard the first recordings. Personally if you irritate them they will antagonise you further. It's unfair but these type of people don't know how to communicate so they play games. Go straight to environmental health and get the ball rolling. It takes time but will hopefully result in eviction. If they own their property they will face an enormous fine, which may stop them. I real feel for you. These people should be locked up.

You do have to declare any official disputes with neighbours when selling a house. This obviously might put some people off. I'd just sell up.

Could you afford to buy some nice headsets for the call of duty player? Could leave it anonymously ? I thought headsets were the way to go? So maybe if they not working they can’t afford it?

If you all leave early for work you may be disturbing them too. Of course YANBU. Retaliation though tempting can escalate.

Can you do things that you can control- like could you use ear plugs? (Clutching at straws possibly)

I live in a detached house but close to neighbours - they are noisy reving engine fixing cars at a reasonable hour but was driving me crazy. Saving up for double glazing!

@Pricklemyfancy
Loud sex, every night for a week, that might make them realise how much you can actually hear through the walls.

I had a problem similar to this years ago, I put my speakers to the wall, covered them with every available quilt and pillow and put on Bat out of Hell at full blast, Couldn't hear a thing in my house but drove the bitch next door up the wall.
At one point she threatened my then wife with her dogs. I fed the dogs laxative chocolate through the letterbox when she was out. The bitch took the dogs to the pound (much better than being with her).

That George Ezra Shotgun song on a loop. Most irritating song ever. Bloody awful. Drive them nuts 👍🏻

When I was in a rental, I may or may not have done the following:

• placed an old fashioned alarm clock in a strategic position and left the house for the day
• rearranged some seriously good and loud speakers to face the walls and gone shopping whilst leaving Wagner playing at volume

In the end, the estate agent got involved, said I was too sensitive to noise (bullshit!) and I then negotiated to leave the contract early rather than involve the council in inspections of a converted property which had clearly not been properly insulated against sound and which made me question whether or not it was adequately insulated against fire.

I moved out and reported the building to the council’s planning department anyway.

I agree with not escalating by playing music. I would however play loud noises of babies and children crying. When or if they complain, you can explain that your children were woken up by their noises of video games/music etc. And there’s nothing you can do.

@Pricklemyfancy. The Council will give you a log/ diary to fill In. You will need to keep it for 3or4 weeks and then they will visit. When the music/noise is really bad call the police but try not to do it on Fri or Sat when they are busy. You are more likely to get an instant response if you say that they have already threatened you. They could get an ASBO. I had neighbours who “entertained” and could not do it without SOUND in the summer with windows open and the smokers outside shouting and cackling until 3am. The police told them that they had the power to remove equipment that was causing a nuisance (not sure if this was true ) but the sound went off!! Next week the same again. Police and Council sorted out a court hearing and they got ASBO. I live in a road of mixed housing, mainly detached houses and bungalows but the noise could be heard 300ft away. When the friends departed, they turned the radios up full volume and one got done for drunk driving as the police “happened to be passing” just after he headed down the road. It is not nice when oiks ruin an area, you might be able to get the council to visit at night, once they have studied your log you should be given a number to call. There are local laws regarding nuisance at unsocial hours but you would need the council to explain it all. Don’t put up with it and if you have pets don’t let them out alone, really nasty types take it out on animals. but I’m sure you read the papers. Good luck

Can you phone the police when they wake you up with their noise in the middle of the night?

It's not something the Police deal with anymore, it's your LAs environmental health dept that you need to contact. Having worked for an LA (not in env health!!), they'll send them a letter and you'll have to keep a noise nuisance diary. It's a long drawn out process.

Do they own the property or is it through an HA? If it's HA, make an ASB complaint to the HA. We have a property behind us that was bought by an HA and they wheeled in a pain in the arse family who were so noisy we could hear them in our house which is detached. When they kicked off, I kicked off with the HA every time and so did a few other neighbours. Consequently the family aren't in the house anymore.

Had a very similar experience with previous neighbours. After repeatedly trying to ask them to quieten things down I to thought a slice of karma was in order. Three hours in of a blaring tv I received a phonecall from my landlord as the CFers had reported me for the noise. They still have their music going at 3am most nights

If you retaliate they will see it as legitimising their own noise or even a game they are more then happy to play and win. Remember you have jobs to go to and young kids that need to learn at school, they don't!

Having been through this twice with neighbours I strongly advise that you move if you can. If you cannot move then you need to deal with it through the council.

Your council should have a phone number to report noise complaints, they should give you a reference number each time you call and an officer should come out to witness the noise. Call out hours are typically late evening and through the night. They will come and make a report if they are able to witness it, and will offer you advise on how and when to report it.

Once witnessed they will receive a letter. The hope is that this will reduce the issues, if they are council or housing association tenants this can be quite effective, as a report is also made to their housing officer. With private tenants and owners sometimes mediation is now offered.

If it doesn't stop then you need to report the noise every-time, and they come out and witness it every-time. Keeping a diary logging all instance and reference numbers. This will form the basis for a prosecution.