to have expected a warning from neighbour?

[wednesdaynovember2020]

We live in a terrace house, our neighbours have seemingly embarked on a complete refurb of their entire house

They didn't feel the need to warn us that we would be living next door to 6 weeks (and counting) of constant hammering and drilling. No signs of stopping any time soon, each time we think they might have finished another pile of junk appears outside and the banging starts again.

AIBU to have expected a quick knock to let us know, even just a note through the door?

I know these threads have been done to death but I'm just venting - I need something to take my mind off the constant banging!!

My neighbour told me they were having work done for six weeks because they're decent people. I appreciated them telling me and was fine with it

Thanks for all your replies

I absolutely don't expect chocolates or wine - literally just a quick 'Hi, just to let you know we'll be doing work for the next x weeks, it might be a bit noisy!' was all I would hope for. We've always informed them as we knew it would be disruptive

For me, being informed beforehand or giving a warning would have made a huge difference - yes I would still be living with the noise but being warned of something makes it so much easier to deal with, and I think generally feeling like your neighbours/other people show some consideration to you really does make a huge difference!

I just wouldn't dream of doing 6 weeks+ of very loud DIY (my office is on the other side of the house and I can still feel the banging) without letting my neighbours know!

Six weeks is still nothing...A mere blip in time of the dreaded ''Renovations''
Terraces, especially ones in areas where there is a lot of ''Gentrification'' are hellish for this.

My brother's neighbours {Detached houses, but close together} suffered a year of neighbours excavating out a cinema and swimming pool in the basement.
It was grim.

A house in Chelsea collapsed the other week, taking the neighbour's house with it.

My neighbours did do the PWA, I signed it, as if ever I can afford to have major work done {helping DS with deposit at moment} the neighs are more likely to agree without fuss.

More people than ever in 2020 are having renovations done {area with lots of 19th cent housing stock}

When I've done up houses ive always let the neighbours know because its basic manners. The work has been as brief as possible and neither too early nor too late. I've also bought presents to say thank you for bearing with. However in one of our houses they were never considerate so neither was I. People like this think they can make as much noise and mess as they like but then get upset if you make noise or pull them up on it. This is the reason I will never even say hello to any neighbours in future. I dont even ever want to think about them

My neighbour was like this as soon as they moved in they began work on an extension which inexplicably required access to MY garden. Fence panel was taken down (I think they were within rights to do that of course) but then it was my front door knocking 4 or 5 times a day requesting me to open my back gate so they could come into my garden and sort the roof from this side or something. I got quite arsey with them in the end, particularly when they stopped asking permission and simply strolled into my back garden, I happened to notice them when I glanced out the window, opened door and fully lost temper with them, asking what the hell they thought they were doing. "Oh we only need to do this" and had the nerve to roll their eyes at me like I was the one in the wrong. You don't just walk into someone's back garden surely??

They also suggested not putting the fence panel back up even though there was a deep gap between the gardens that heaven forbid the kids could have tripped or fell into. I insisted on it being put back up, they concreted it back in which I'm fairly sure hasn't been done properly and now it moves and creaks in the wind. I know I could have put my own boundary up but we simply did not and still don't have the money to do so.

When I win the lottery im moving to a house that has no neighbours for miles and miles.

They should have done as a courtesy, though in reality it wouldn’t have changed much for you.

I’m feeling like a terrible neighbour because we’ve got works going on which were meant to take 2.5 weeks and are still not finished 7 weeks later. The houses are all detached and double glazed so hopefully it hasn’t been too noisy (we haven’t been living here) but the mess outside is really unsightly. Plus our arsehole builders dumped a load of bricks on the shares grass between the houses, which will have killed it and will leave a horrible dead patch. I’m going to drop some chocolates round to the neighbours beside and opposite us when it’s done to apologise for the disruption. Luckily they’re all very lovely 😬

Just thought I would do a little update that we are finishing week 7 and counting with no signs of stopping yet and still not a word from them

I'm also being periodically treated to the vibrations of loud bass music through the walls, not sure if that's from the builders or their teenage son. Pass me the

Happy Friday everyone!

We recently did similar in our terraced house. We dropped notes through all our next to and across neighbour's doors so they were aware of plans and timescales. Not unreasonable to expect it.

That's exactly what we do @Twigaletta, I think that's why I feel so pissed off about it is that we've always warned them and we've never done a refurb that's gone on this long. Added to the fact they know that I work from home!

I'd pop round and ask if I were you OP. At least you'd know, even if it is weeks and weeks more! They might think that because you haven't said anything you can't hear it too badly!

I'd do a "Hi! I'm not complaining as such as I realise you're obviously doing an awful lot of work to the house, but I was just wondering if you had an idea of an end date? It's been pretty loud in our house and it would just be good to have an idea of how much longer it might be".

That’s awful! 100% should have told you. Bad enough when neighbours put a planning application in and left us to find out via the council. Really not on.

Re those with Party Wall they must legally give you 2 months notice and come to agreement with you. If anyone has work being done on party wall I would be marching round to builders/owners and telling them you’ll be getting an injunction (at their cost) unless they stop immediately!!

YADNBU. Even if you can't do anything about it (e.g. work from a different location) it's the courteous thing for them to do IMO.

Had a similar situation here a couple of weeks ago, with the empty flat next door. It was only 3 days but it was still disruptive when trying to concentrate on work, make calls on Teams and participate in video meetings, especially when they were drilling the party wall in the room next door to the room where the computer is set up.

I did manage to speak to one of the workmen & found out that the owner works abroad & apparently communicates via a surveyor to the tradesmen. Pointing out that many people are working from home and it would have been polite to let the neighbouring flats know about noisy building work taking place (e.g. even just a quick knock at the door before they started) was met with a blank look.

3 days doesn't remotely compare to 7 weeks ... or a year, but I do think it's basic manners and not unreasonable to let people know, regardless of the timescale.

Sounds awful OP.

Can you go and have a conversation to find out how much longer they expect it to go on for?

I recently wanted my neighbour about my kitchen refurb - told them the hours of work and said to let me know if there were any problems.

They then had their driveway dug up and redone, blocking my access and causing a huge mess. Not a word😂😂

When one of my neighbours moved in, she came round personally to let me know of the building work. I recently extended the same courtesy to her. Didn’t need to tell the curtain twitcher the other side though. She’d already stalked the builder (apparently a friend of a friend works with his wife) and given him her life story before he even started work 🤣

YANBU. My charming ex-neighbours did this too! Moved in and absolutely gutted the house, spending weeks knocking down walls and god-knows what without warning us. And then, once they moved in, had the fucking gall to complain about us using our tumble dryer at 8pm and walking 'heavily' on our stairs. She even put a note through our door to complain about the noise when we weren't even there, so obviously they were a bit mental.

Be warned, you may have moved next to perpetual DIYers. I honestly don't know how many DIY projects you can do on a bog standard 3-bedroomed house, but ex-neighbours were definitely going for some sort of record. Then it was landscaping the garden, with bags and bags of gravel, then doing the drive with mud everywhere. Then six months later, digging up the garden gravel and putting down turf. Madness.

Totally YANBU. Our neighbours are planning on extending single storey (which I have no objection to) but the first we heard was a letter from the council. Surely the courtesies thing would be to speak to your next door neighbour to advise of the plans, rough time scale for completion and an apology for the noise? Or is that just me?! I’m actually pissed off tbh that they haven’t even stopped to consider their neighbours especially seeing as I work from home. Some people are just so blinkered and lacking in basic common decency. Not a lot you can do I guess🤷‍♀️

I ended up knocking yesterday as their teenage son was playing music loud enough I could hear it clearly from outside their house at 8pm - I didn't ask about the building work but I did say can you turn it down because it's vibrating the floor and it's been so loud lately I'd really appreciate some quiet!

I regret knocking now because they've definitely been louder in the past and I feel like I just snapped on this occasion so it didn't feel completely warranted - I was trying to refrain from knocking until I desperately needed to so it had more impact, if that makes sense! But I was just so fed up of listening to constant banging/drilling with loud music added on top.

The dad answered and just seemed pissed off that I was asking for something again - so now my anxiety is in overdrive that they'll retaliate and be louder than ever but nothing I can do about that now.

On the plus side, it has been slightly quieter this week so I think that they are in the final stages of decorating - thank god. I just so wish that people were more considerate - I absolutely understand that part of the parcel of living in a terrace is hearing your neighbours, but at the same time I understand that also means I should limit the amount of noise I make to be a good neighbour!

Our new neighbours have extensively renovated, and it really got me down in the end.

The plumber doing the new boiler and drilling an outside flu pipe through at 7am on a Saturday was a real highpoint