To move house or wait?

[Milsplus3]

I live in a lovely 2 bedroom house in a lovely area with my children and fiancé. It took a long time for us to find it and as we had been let down with another house just beforehand it felt like fate. The issue is that we have terrible neighbours. We rarely sleep because of their noise and they are very intimidating so we can’t speak to them as they find something else to bother us with. It’s making life very stressful, even more so from lockdown as I have been home a lot when I would usually escape to work. We have spent so much money making the house our own and we would make a huge loss if we sold soon. It has made me fall out of love with the house as I just feel unhappy and trapped here now.

Where we live houses rarely come up for sale, the only houses available now are small 2 bedrooms similar to ours with no space to extend. While they are lovely, I worry that if we buy one that meets our needs now, we will have to move once again later on as we are planning another baby and would ideally like a 3+ bedroom house next time so none of the children have to share. Moving out of the area isn’t an option for us at the moment.

So my question is do we put up with the neighbours until our dream house comes up or do we move away soon to escape the neighbours and worry about a larger house later on? What would you do?

Here's how I dealt with neighbour noise problem when we had recently moved in:

• kept calling environmental health on them until they finally got a noise abatement order which lasted for a year
• the minute the order expired and they started to get back to their old ways I reported them to the Council as I strongly suspected they were dodging the bedroom tax. Council came for an inspection and since then it's been largely ok. Still sometimes loud noise but nothing like the unbearable stuff we had to put up with in the first year. And I don't mind some occasional loud music I just can't cope with drug fuelled parties and incredibly loud music starting up at 3 am on weekdays....

This was seven years ago. While I HATE calling the authorities on my neighbours- and have very good relations with everyone else on the street - this was just something that had to be done. I simply wasn't prepared to move again so soon because of such idiots.

I’m scared of declaring neighbour disputes and losing more money in the sale or not being able to sell at all. I would love to report them but I know they will retaliate and make life more difficult for us. I’m glad it worked for you, I just don’t think it would stop them.

Bumping