To think my neighbour is being unreasonable...

[Blii]

Am I being unreasonable to think my neighbour is being unreasonable?

Recently moved into a house from a pokey little flat with my husband and our 3 children. The day before we moved in we had carpet fitters in to fit carpet through the whole house. This took a good few hours. After a couple of hours our new neighbour came round to complain about the noise the carpet fitters were making. I apologised and explained we’re getting the carpets fitted and hopefully they won’t be much longer. This was around 4pm in the afternoon and he complained that he gets up for work at 4am and all he wanted to do was chill out and watch tv but the banging from the carpet fitters is ‘going right through him’. I said I was very sorry but there’s not much I could do, we needed carpets fitted.
Fast forward to this weekend and he knocks on our door and asks for thumping to stop, now my children are used to living in a little tiny flat with no carpet and me constantly telling them to tread lightly because of the neighbours downstairs. Now that we don’t have anyone below us and we have a nice carpet I have not worried about the children running about and ‘thumping’ as the neighbour put it. They were play fighting on the living room floor at the time he came round to complain, he again said that he needs to get up at 4am and all he wants to do is chill out and watch tv, this was a Sunday afternoon. My children are all in bed by 8pm at the latest so any ‘thumping’ stops by then. I wouldn’t consider my children to be particularly noisy and we never had complaints when we lived in the flat.
Am I being unreasonable? Is he being unreasonable? I have told my children to calm down if they get too ‘thumpy’ but im worried about the summer months when they are playing in the garden, they have never had a garden before and I don’t want to constantly tell them off for just being children and playing. The neighbour lives on his own and the family that lived here before us had older children that had left home so he is not used to a young family living next door to him. I don’t want to be on bad terms with my neighbour but I think he is a little unreasonable. What do you think?

No point wondering why he's in that house. Council estates that don't have a significant proportion of owner occupiers are very rare, for a start.

I suspect he is just a grumpy sod, but have the kids been running up and down stairs? Or jumping off the bottom step?

As someone that lives in a semi it's amazing how kids can sound like a heard of elephants when they do!

It's important for your kids to play... and it was definitely unreasonable of him to complain about the carpet being fitted. BUT, you do live in a flat in close proximity (doesnt matter that he's not underneath, he can obviously still hear you or he wouldn't be complaining) - you both have the right to enjoy your homes so you need to reach a compromise

Maybe you should read the OP again.

I’m a bit 50/50 between saying I’d tell him to F off and you need to tell your kids to shut up because ‘thumping and shouting’ all day is irritating.

Kids make noise but it’s got to be reasonable. However, given that he complained about carpets being fitted I’d say he’s just a bit of a miserable test and needs telling to mind his own business

He should be glad you are laying carpets. Wooden floors would be much noisier.

We live in a terrace. And I am constantly reminding them to walk quietly up the stairs and not thud or thump about. It's just general manners when you live in a terrace or semi.

I would tell him to get stuffed and go and buy a detached house if he is so sensitive to noise. I cant believe he complained about you having carpet fitted.
My old neighbour used to bang on the wall and scream whenever I turned the hoover on. In the end I did go round there and tell him to get stuffed. I am allowed to hoover during the day and he doesn't work nights.

Never apologise. Never explain. As PP have said, he needs a set of earplugs and a life. You make ordinary family noise. Carry on. He's the type to complain about everyone and everything. Ignore.

Poor you! Next time he knocks I would say that you don't understand the problem, and that the best thing would be if he went to the council environmental health team so they can mediate. That way if you genuinely are making too much noise (which I hugely doubt) they will let you know. But if you're not, they will let him know.

His working hours mean that he has very demanding requirements - these are not your responsibility and you can't be expected to stop your children from behaving like children just because he's chosen to work this pattern. Your family life will be miserable if you go down this route - constant shushing. That's not fair to your children.

It sounds like he needs to be living somewhere with no neighbours.

When my friend had issues with her neighbour complaining I helped set up a microphone and recorded the noise for a couple of hours, when we played back we realised how loud it was! Remember it sounds worse without seeing what is happening.

I think your neighbour sounds miserable and moany but having had kids, I know they can be very loud.

We had noisy kids next door pretty much twenty years straight(new neighbours moved in a couple of times so a few rounds of young kids) honestly it never really bothered us at all, and wouldn’t occur to us to complain either even when we could hear tantrums galore! If it was late night noise I’d say you should watch out but like kids will make noise and I don’t think that’s bad personally? I think he sounds like a moan. Who complains on someone’s moving in day? To me that’s a misery guts and he will probably always find a complaint just for the sake of it.

He is being unreasonable, I agree refer him to council for noise assessment.

I live next door to children that like to ‘play fight’ the noise of them banging & crashing about drives me mad, it’s like living next to caged animals. If your children are as noisy as the kids I live next to then it’s probably not your neighbour who is in the wrong.

Have experience of a bloke like him myself. He used to bang, shout and pound on the door complaining of drilling and hammering. Three times it was true but at reasonable times, hundreds of times there was no such noise coming from anywhere local at all. No child noise at the time he lived there, sometimes we were in bed asleep when the accusations came, quite often I'd be alone working (PC/paperwork).

Based on my experience, I would advise:
Never confirm.
Never apologise.
Don't give peace offerings, certainly no free earplugs etc.
Barely engage.
If you feel able, tell him to fuck off.

People like him will make your life a living hell once they get the feeling that you are easy to command. Basically he is an entitled bully.

He rents a house, he doesn't own the street. He is nothing to you. You owe him nothing. His choice of housing and work hours are his doing and for him alone to bear the consequences off. You are not part of his life and you really need to let him know that, preferably in very strong terms early on so as to not leave him thinking you should live in ways to please him.

Many previous posters give sage advice based on their experience of reasonable respectful neighbour relations, this is not that.

His initial problem with the carpet fitters seems like a big ol' red flag to me. There is no way that I would have gone in head first like this to a new neighbour! But I'm not a complainer, I'm more a live-and-let-live person.

You say you're semi-detached - but do you share a wall with him? Wondering if it's worth talking to the person on the other side of him and trying to come up with some kind of joint strategy...