To think a great big semi or detached house must be SO lovely?!

[NeverYouMind123]

Terraced here. It's okay most of the time but I dream of living in a house with no fucking neighbour noise whatsoever. These walls are so thin I can hear the microwave next door. I dream of buying a semi detached in a few years with hallways next to each other separating the living rooms or when I'm really feeling ambitious I dream of a detached house, which must be the mother of all awesomeness. I know there is still 'area noise' but I'm not really a garden person so kids playing outside and lawnmowers etc don't phase me so much. But oh to wake up with no 'house noise' and to know I can sit in the lounge or lie in bed and have PURE SILENCE all day and not hear a dog bark or a door slam or an argument or a television. Is it as great as I think it is?

We live in a detached in NZ. The sea is at the bottom of the garden. From our front deck I can't see any other houses.
Nevertheless there are three neighbours building or renovating which starts at 8am. Another neighbour behind enjoys playing basketball all day which is 'thump thump thump thump [net] thump'. All the neighbours are leaf blower obsessed. One likes to tinker with his car with the stereo on full blast and directly next door the children enjoy playing bongos all day. It's bloody noisy!

I've just spoken to dh about how our Georgian house is built; discovered when we had to have tie rods put in.

The internal walls (including the party walls) are built up to the height of the room, with joists, which run from the front to the back, laid on top to which the ceiling is pinned and on which the floor above rests. Then another internal wall is built on top of the floor, over the internal wall of the floor below, iyswim.

The men who put in our tie-rods had never seen anything like it before.

The only internal thing which goes from the lowest floor up to the top floor is the central upright of the stairs. Some floors are dipping a bit - you go uphill towards the walls! - he house has stood for a couple of hundred years though.

Anyway, that's why the noise from next door carries in the way it does. It's echoing throughout the large gap under each floor.

One plus I found with a terraced house is that heating bills were much lower. You benefit from your neighbours’ heating and you lose less heat - unless you’re in the end house, of course.

My house is terraced, town house. I cannot hear a thing. Don’t know if I’ve got good walls or good neighbours.

Don't tar every terrace with your brush! There's a whiff of snobbery here! I'm end terrace with only a hall connecting us and part of the kitchen (and the smallest bedroom upstairs which we both use as offices). 1930s house so thick walls. All I hear is a low murmur on the odd day. Additionally I have the most wonderful neighbours. Bonus in having a huge, corner garden. Terraces are great!

I've lived in terraces or flats since 1986 so don't really know anything else now.

There shouldn't be snobbery with regards to terraced houses...London is full of them...some are worth millions.

So true formerbabe !!! Victorian terraces are far more expensive and sought after than large semi- detached new builds.

I would say my first floor flat in London in a row of 3 story terraces was significantly quieter than my detached 'can't see the neighbours houses' house in NZ. We were all acutely aware of each other and remained respectful. The occasional exuberance until 1am was about as bad as it got. I remember my lovely next door neighbours coming in from their late night shifts tiptoeing up the communal stairs and closing their door as silently as possible.

Here it's all day power tooling and leaf blowing and early morning/weekend/bank holiday renovations and garden parties that go on until daylight. It's as if not being to see someone creates an auditory shield

Yes. I now live in a lovely, cosy, thick-walled 1930s terrace. I like living in cities, within walking distance of the places I want to go. There are virtually no detached houses that would allow me to live the sort of life I enjoy, and I would certainly choose my end terrace over my in-laws' detached suburban new-build or my mother's isolated rural home, although I would upgrade to a bigger terraced house if I came into unexpected wealth.

I once lived in a terrace where my neighbours were a Blairite spin doctor and the sort of actress who is often described as a national treasure, so not exactly slumming it.

I live in Scotland, so have a 5 bed detached house with a large garden (for the same price as a 2 bed flat in Brighton). I have an 18mo, so am extremely grateful for that at the moment, we can move between the lounge, kitchen and dining room so we're not staring at the same 4 walls all day. Plus obviously we spend a lot of time out in the garden (the plan for this afternoon is to crack out the sprinkler).

We can't hear the neighbours when we're all in our houses. Consequently, DS is the world's lightest sleeper and will wake at the slightest creak of a floorboard.

You can hear dogs barking and kids playing on the trampolines/scooting up and down the street (I went out a lot last summer to ask them to keep it down because the baby was sleeping). The neighbours also they seem to have some sort of beacon that goes off when DS goes to sleep to let them know to mow the lawn.

Like someone else has said, the downside is cleaning. We have 4 bathrooms, the organised mum method is not up to that! It also takes over an hour to hoover. Both DH and I are very tidy people, and DS has already started to learn to clean up after himself.

We used to live in an end terrace and it was amazingly quiet. Our neighbours had 2 babies in the time we lived next to them and we never heard a peep. We were very, very lucky.

Our detached house is nicer just for the space and bigger garden for the kids.

There's a whiff of snobbery here!

@puffalicious Where?

Detached isn't always better.

My first house was a small 3 bed semi and I never once heard the neighbours through the walls or even out in their garden.

Next we moved to a 1980's 4 bed detached and the noise from the neighbours either side and behind us could be awful at times.

Now in a 1930's 4 bed hall to hall semi and we are back to no noise from neighbours and a lovely quiet life.

I love next door to a primary school which is usually very noise as you can imagine. It's strange having it so quiet

It's bloody brilliantly!
I went from a flat (nightmare as couple below had a domestic every weekend), to end terrace (lovely quiet next door neighbour but lots of garden noise) to a modern detached (again lots of garden noise) to moving to my forever home. Detached in acre garden and cows for neighbours. Absolute bliss ❤️

After experiencing nothing but detached houses for most of my life, I have gone the other way and love living in a flat, with neighbours in sight. Especially now

I live in the country with not a neighbour in sight. I always think when I read the stories about neighbours & noise on here if I moved To the town I’d inadvertently be the neighbour from hell - it wouldn’t even cross my mind to be quiet

Our building is detached..but converted into flats. We have the top floor under the eaves. The rooms are spacious enough...but its still a flat. I would love to have an actual house.

I live in a block of flats, ground floor and my balcony faces away from the sun for the entire day after 9am and looks into a wonderful view of... More flats! Yay!

I hate where I live, can hear everything my neighbours do and say, and opening windows means I smell the weed that my neighbor smokes on his balcony.

I am desperate to move. This has been torture tbh. And to top it off I have a lovely little nearly 3 year old who is a whirlwind 😂 so with no garden bless his heart he's taken to just running loops around the flat. Which is tiny 😂 I can't even do the washing up without him coming flying into the kitchen and running head first into my legs lol. So much energy so little space.

I'm definitely envious of all you folks with larger houses or gardens! Particularly the gardens!

Yep love our detached home, honestly too much of a snob to have bought anything else 🙈 sorry not sorry

I lived in a semi when first married. Modern build, I could actually hear my neighbour when she was having a bath ! Her husband playing the saxophone etc.
We moved to a detached house after 11 years . Not a huge garden. But lovely not to be able to hear noise from neighbours house.

Yeah it’s pretty great. Fields on all sides, uninterrupted views. Plenty of space- lockdown bliss. I grew up in a terrace and spent my 20s in rented flats in London having the time of my life. I thought I’d be miserable in the middle of nowhere but I wouldn’t swap it now .

We moved into our first detached house two years ago and mortgage free and it’s bloody lovely

Currently isolating in an end terrace away from my usual home which is really remote and I am shocked at how much of the new neighbours I can hear. Apparently she is a vicious hag and he is a weak scrotum. They are both loud and ineffective at having disagreements and lockdown does not suit them. Both work infinitely harder than the other. Counting my blessings for where I usually love and all I have to complain about is farm animals farting...