No Swimming Pool After 8pm - AIBU?

[Varala]

We had a swimming pool built (outdoor) last spring which has been great fun for DD and DH (I’m not much of a swimmer), especially during lockdown.

We do have a large garden, but it is bordered by three other nearby houses. Two just by the garden, but one of the houses is up against one of the far walls of the garden, by the pool.

Earlier today, a note was found shoved under DH’s windscreen wiper (not sure what’s wrong with the letter box, but hey ho). It is signed “your neighbours” and requests that we not use the pool after 8pm as they are being disturbed by shouting and splashing.

Very rarely is the pool in use that late in the evening anyway, but on the rare occasion it is, there is certainly not any shouting (though a bit of splashing can’t be helped). Are the neighbours just jealous that we have a pool? I’m fuming and ready to go round each of the neighbours individually to discuss, but DH has told me to drop it and they’ll let it go. AIBU to think it’s nobody else’s business what we do with our pool?

the neighbour has arrived

🤣

So you paid to rebuild their wall, which means you actually know and have spoken to them before? Anonymous note is weird.

Why don’t you go round and say that you hadn’t realised you were disturbing them, and ask them to explain a bit more? Don’t go all “why leave a note”, just go in smiling and as if it was the most natural thing in the world that they had brought this to your attention by a note under your wiper. Make them talk about it face to face, I bet they backtrack.

The problem with these AIBU posts is that (obviously) we’re only hearing one side of the story.
8pm is though a bit early.
I can imagine however people larking around in a pool (I bet it happens) after 9pm getting a bit irritating.

You don't get to decide if you are a nuisance neighbour, your neighbours do and they have made that decision.

But some people would find any neighbour to be a nuisance neighbour because they can’t stand any noise. My grandad was one of these.

I do wish people would stop peddling this 11pm nonsense; noise of any type at any time MAY constitute a nuisance - a barking dog is a still a nuisance even if it does it throughout the days. It's more of a frequency and intensity issue. For the record, that's obviously not the case here, and your neighbours are wankers anyway for sticking a note on your car. Crack on. 8, 9 pm is fine.

I have no useful advice but please can I come and use your lovely pool

@slashlover good question, I'm curious to know how far the pool is from your house OP? I bet it's further than 5 metres.

Think yabu.
Having had neighbours who had a hot tub it IS noisy, noisy splashing you are not as quiet as you think!
Think 8-9 is reasonable.

I’m on the fence but only because my next door but one neighbour has been sending her screaming/shrieking and whinging kids out from 9pm - 10:30pm every evening lately and it’s driving me up the wall. The back of their garden is much more than 5m from my house but I can hear them over the TV when the windows are shut.... so please don’t underestimate how loud other children screaming can sound to you!

8pm is very very early though

I'd be annoyed if I was your neighbour.

I’d be really interested to know what people from countries that have pools as standard think. My feeling is that it’s sour grapes and 1. An anonymous note is cowardly and 2. 8pm is unreasonable. 9pm I could understand.
Honestly, I’d go and speak to them. People are rarely as bolshy in real life and you can work it from there.

5 metres is very close to their house tbh. Both our neighbours have pools but I can barely hear them as the gardens are large. That said, a bit of shouting and splashing isn't the end of the world and it's hardly going to be a regular occurrence in this country so I do think they are being picky. Plus it's odd to leave the note and not speak to you about it.

Is no one else just desperate to know ALL about how much it costs and how much hassle it is to have a pool put in?

When I've lived places with communal pools (never lived somewhere where I had my own), they've always had closing hours, and generally from memory it's been 10pm.

When I lived opposite someone with a pool, they were in it whenever they wanted... sure, I could hear them enjoying themselves, but it would be sour grapes to complain, and I'm sure we did things that annoyed them too sometimes (we were young, and had a noisy car for instance)

We only use our pool until half 7 in the evening, unless we have a 'pool & hot tub cocktail party '. We always invite our NDNS then even though they are not adjoining. It's only etiquette after all.

God no, I can't think of anything more stressful than having to be watchful of a constant drowning risk in the back garden.

8 is too early unless there are small children living in the houses alongside you. You ask if it is anyone else's business, yes it is unless you have a magic wand and can make any noise stay in your garden and not float into anyone else's garden. Your pool is not different to the noise from a trampoline or a party.

We use ours any time we like. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don't allow my kids to make any noise in the garden after 7pm. They are up until much later, but my neighbours have a right to peace and quiet - as we do. It seems that everybody is the same, and people can enjoy their garden without being disturbed

I found it hard to believe neighbours could be disturbed by the noise of someone swimming quietly, you probably make more noise just watering the plants.

Their business is the disturbance created, and I find the accusation of "jealousy" a bit childish.

It's bliss on warm summer evenings to be able to sit in the garden without being disturbed by the neighbours.

That said, ours is in the Centre of our backyard, quite a long way from both neighbours boundaries.

I think you can stop a “drowning risk” in the same way you stop a “running into the road risk”, it’s called a gate/fence/wall.

If people are actually swimming in the pool there tends to not be much in the way of shrieking. It would make for a very ineffective front crawl... If it's just a play pool (one of those ones that is only good for bobbing about in/cooling down in/a glorified paddling pool) then I could see their point about the noise.

I've trained my children to walk around the garden like pantomime burglars so that they never inconvenience anyone ever with their child like nuisances.

We moved house because some selfish neighbours built a pool up against the boundary, close to our windows. The noise was hell and by 8pm I would cheerfully have thrown grenades. They probably also thought I was just jealous. In fact I was fed up with the constant background noise of splash- scream- scream - splash all day long. I suspect everything is not as you imagine, OP.

loads of people here have pools but none of them has them so close to the neighbour's house, that's just... meh.

You may not think you're noisy but someone obviously does. So your first reaction shouldn't be "fuckers are jealous" but - "hmm, maybe we have been a bit loud and we'll try to be more considerate"