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?

I live in a 1970s terrace in a cul de sac of 100 houses and it is soo utterly peaceful and tranquil I love it. One side of my neighbours occasionally I hear her tv but she’s abroad for 6 months of the year and the other side is pretty quiet too!

I am just not sensitive to noise. I grew up in a detached house with a massive garden (2,3 acres) so neighbour noise was never a problem. I struggled with the idea of living in a flat when I left for uni, because I thought it would be so noisy. It wasnt bad at all..I have lived in a flat, and a semi since then but am back to a detached house with a decent garden. The only reason I prefer detached is so I'm not anxious about making noise for other people (although I've never had any noise complaints). I could live in a terrace as for some reason I honestly just don't hear noise even when it's there, but hearing people complain about neighbour noise and reading MN I always fear benign household activities may upset a neighbour so you won't catch me sharing a party wall anytime soon although we do have a well insulated and sound proofed Central London flat which I do use for at least a week each month when I travel for business

It's so worth it.

We spent over a decade saving - including working second jobs - to be able to afford to move from a flat to a detached house.

It's been worth every single year of not going on holiday and working extra hours and overtime.

This is such a weird thread!

It's like posting - AIBU to think having a huge amount of money must be so lovely - and then reading replies along the lines of "Yes, it IS wonderful. I know I'm lucky but I've had pots of gold since I was around 15 and I just couldn't go back."

With the occasional, "I just wouldn't be interested in lots of money - the stress of it for one thing. No, I'm more than happy being poor, thank you very much."

We live in a large detached house in a village near a town. Recently it has been much quieter, less traffic for one.

However, even here, in ordinary times we get rat runs in peak times. Overflying aircraft to the local airfield (none at the moment, bliss), and planes going into Heathrow and Gatwick (again none for weeks, double bliss). We also get tractors from the farm, and the drift of noise from the nearby A road, and railway. Everyone also has dogs, which bark, A LOT.

However, when all is quiet, we hear the calls of the Red Kites and the Buzzards, the huge variety of other birds, and pretty much nothing else. It has been a lot better recently.

Living in a rural village big semi, as we once did with a new baby and another not much older, you can still have the inconsiderate property developers, builders and DIY-obsessed neighbours in rapid succession, and then permanent residence, in the other half. How many extensions, other building and decorating projects and power tools in the house and garden can one childless older couple need?!

Or in a rural village detached, but with po-faced neighbours in the detached next door, who did lots of nasty shouting at each other and their kids with their windows open, and hardly wanted their own DCs playing out in their garden - 20 minutes, maybe twice a summer - let alone our DCs playing out in our garden. This was despite high fences, reasonable hours kept, no screaming, no kicking balls against said fences, no music and so on. Before them it was a nice family but still with fairly regular smoky BBQs and raucous tipsy parties, and loud noise, dust and disturbance from an extension and numerous other building projects.

I was just on the phone with a woman from a state in the USA who is having to work from home with 2 preschoolers in a flat with just a balcony.

In hindsight, I think we preferred the rural detached with no neighbours but things that went bump in the night.

It's all relative, isn't it?

I don't own a house and probably never will so there's that but I'm living in my parent's detached house at the moment. I'm sure it's massively better than a terrace (and definitely beats the flats I've lived in) but there is still quite a lot of noise from the gardens next door so my ideal would be to live in a house that was at least 10 foot from any others! Maybe in the countryside, in a small village.

On the ‘i could never afford a detached house’ thing... by far the most expensive house we’ve ever lived in was a 2 bed terrace in Clifton, Bristol. Our current 5 bed detached in the sticks was 100k less!

I’m in a semi, get kept awake by neighbour snoring and woken by their puppy crying every single day

Im in a terraced property with no garden and no worth while yard. I have a very active three yearold and a trip to the park results in a tantrum as he can't go on the swings. Its hell.

Depends on the semi. My semi is an older cottage and I rarely hear anything. My parents live in a70s built semi and when it’s quiet you can hear the neighbours switching lights on. You can always hear their voices, tv etc.

We have a detached bungalow. Generally it's bliss but we can still hear the boy playing football over the road, Renovation Man two doors down and the visiting daughter next door who has a mouth like the proverbial parish oven.

Lol @BirthdayCakes - lots of Mumsnet threads are like that though!

@HadJab how much was the insulation, how do they do it and was it worth it?? I'd seriously consider this

It's lovely, I'm not looking forward to downsizing (divorce)

Yes it’s great - and am very grateful to have the luxury. Always lived in a terrace before my house now (detached). Have a noisy road outside but couldn’t care less. No people noise - ever. Bliss... I feel your pain OP, I used to be able to hear light switches going on next door in my old house 😣

@BirthdayCakes like a precious poster said our detached house costs less than some terraces I have seen in neighbouring areas. We have a trade off of being near a busy road. There’s always a compromise unless money is no object.

Haha.

Yeah, I don't know. The prime minister lives in [a flat at the top of a] terraced house.

Build quality and who your neighbours are both matter far more than simply whether you're 'detached' or 'semi' or whatever.

I grew up in an early 80s-built Barratt house [up north] & now live in a [Victorian era] London terrace. In the latter, fuel and maintenance costs are a little higher but it's generally [in terms of ceiling height, coolness, internal wall thickness, & so on] a far superior experience.

Then again, I suppose I might change my mind if I had say someone with a loud stereo next door blaring at all hours.

Not sure if we live in an extremely thick walled terrace but I very rarely hear any of the neighbours. It is an old terrace (140 year old) so maybe thats the difference

Text them once (my teenage daughter was staying there as was best friends with the girl next door and they had left the teenagers alone overnight and they had friends round) to say turn the music down - instead they shut the door and windows and we couldn't hear them.
Very occasionally if there was a screaming baby or child you could hear it in the distance if was no noise in our house (but not enough to wake you up or hear what it was, and it was only because the baby was in the room next to ours and the bed was against the wall - if we went into the hall or one of our kids bedrooms you couldn't hear anything - I managed to give birth in the house three times without any of the neighbours hearing anything (one time they knew because the midwife knocked on the wrong door but aside from that it was when they saw me with a baby days later)

I lived in a detached annex for a while, unfortunately the closest neighbours were a menace, had far less noise in my terraces... although exH once drilled through the wall to next doors lounge during DIY session .

I also lived in my ex in laws large houses when they were on holidays etc and the upkeep in just cleaning and mowing is insane.
I would only have a big house if I could afford cleaners, handy persons, and gardeners regularly.

I actually love the sentiment of clapping for the NHS and other key workers but don’t like interacting with my twatty ndn on the doorstep. We actually keep one step in so we can’t see them

We also have road and airplane noise (not too bad right now though). Plus we live on the edge of what is an OK-ish area with some rougher parts in it. I would have loved something quite isolated with zero neighbours near us and complete peace and quiet, but we couldn't afford it.

Yes it is .. aside from 18 months in our first house I have always lived in a detached house . I hate the thought of sharing paths and stuff . I grew up with no neighbours in a very large house and hope to get back to that one day .. but yes detached is lovely .. in the first house ( end of terrace ) we could hear our neighbour snoring!! 😱😱

It's like posting - AIBU to think having a huge amount of money must be so lovely - and then reading replies along the lines of "Yes, it IS wonderful. I know I'm lucky but I've had pots of gold since I was around 15 and I just couldn't go back."

This is true, it's a bit like that
We've got a big house & garden and I've never been as grateful for them as I have been during this quarantine.

But I've lived in much smaller places, and in my 20's I was on such a low income for a while that I was almost starving. At the time, it was normal for me and I was actually pretty cheerful. People in poor countries cope with far worse, again, often very cheerfully.

Of course it's nice to have a spacious house and nice things but I think as human beings we are mostly quite good at adapting and accepting our circumstances, even if things are quite difficult.

"Yes, it IS wonderful. I know I'm lucky but I've had pots of gold since I was around 15 and I just couldn't go back."

It's like watching a TV series about rich people. Who on earth would DO such a thing? The Crown Downton