To have told the builders to go away?

[highroadtothedangerzone]

The house next has had major building work going on for over a year. So all the way through lockdown with a very short break of maybe two months in spring last year.
It's annoying but I accept it as part of everyday life.
But, the local laws state that building work is only allowed between 8am-6pm, Monday to Saturday. Not on Sunday's, not on Bank Holidays.
They've had a really annoying habit of starting at maybe 7.45 fairly regularly. Skips get delivered very early. Or they start to gather outside the house chatting from about 7.15.
They turned up on one of the bank holidays last year and started banging at about 7.40am. I told them they had to go home (they did)
There have been quite a few occasions where I've told them to stop whatever they are doing as it's not 8am yet.
DH forgot it was BH today, so when the builder told him he was coming to do some work today he said ok. I wasn't happy, so he messaged him to say please don't start before 10am. 7.30, chatting outside and emptying lots of glass bottles into the recycling bin. 8.30, sanding or something that we could here in all our bedrooms
We told them to stop. They got arsey, denied they'd been noisy early. But they have stopped. For now. We messaged the owner who was pretty unhelpful and said they wouldn't do anything noisy till after 10am. But they shouldn't bloody he here at all!!!!
I'm just so sick of it. DH is much more laid back than he and thinks if we just let them get on with it the end they'll finish more quickly. But I just want them to follow the bloody rules. I work bloody hard. I just don't want to be woken up all the time by sodding building work?
AIBU? Or just slightly unhinged and making a fuss out of nothing? MN jury, give it to me straight.

@JustSleepAlready it was a huge job, it needed doing and it's almost finished. It is what it is.

YADNBU as anyone who's lived next door to this sort of thing knows. I have.
Usually the owner is living elsewhere whilst it's being done.

Wait until they're back in and enjoying their palatial abode and then have some work done yourself.

If they’re doing work at a neighbours house I’d have a chat with them rather than the builders.

They may have got permission for extended working hours.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/construction-working-hours-draft-guidance/draft-guidance-construction-site-hours-deemed-consent

@Bluntness100

As said, neither approach is wrong. Wanting them to comply and only work set hours, or wanting them to crack on and just get it done.

I think thought when you start arguing they have started work fifteen mins too early you’re likely going too far, but each to their own,

It's creep, though, isn't it? Start a bit early each day, turn up on a bank holiday. We've said to them if there are specific things that can't be avoided then they need warn us / let us know. I'm not completely unreasonable. Like today. If they'd turned up at 10am I'd have let it go. But they didn't.

The feckers are back, now

It's a Bank F-ing Holiday! YANBU!!!!

If you really want to be nice about telling them to bog off, go out with some mini-eggs, wish them a Happy Easter & to enjoy their long weekend...

Oh God, I feel your pain, OP.
We had this last year, with our immediate next-door neighbours. They moved out for the duration, and we were all left with the noise, dust and disruption right through the first lockdown. Their main guy had the loudest booming voice, and would regularly turn up at 7.15am, slam his van doors numerous times and have loud phone conversations in the garden when we had all the windows open due to the warm weather. There were regularly around 3 or 4 vans/lorries "temporarily" parked partially blocking the road.

Anyhow, we accepted all that as being par for the course, and gritted our teeth, but I lost my rag when a roofer turned up on the extra Bank Holiday we had at 6am and began hammering right outside my (open) bedroom window. We did complain (nicely, under the circumstances) about that one. Both the main guy and the neighbours themselves apologised profusely (the roofer had assumed that as the house was empty, it din't matter what time he turned up!) and they brought us a bottle of Moet and some truffles to say sorry.

Anyway, just as those builders finished and packed up to leave, the neighbours over at the back of us had guys (the noisiest scaffolders in the world) turn up to put up one of those major roof tarpaulin things, and we had it all over again throughout the rest of the summer.

We had 4 friends round for a lockdown-lifting boozy garden get-together the other night. We briefly wondered if we might be disturbing the neighbours, but I reckon they owe us a few.

I agree with you, I'd say something too. It doesn't really matter that they told your husband or not
They know they shouldn't be there

I'd have reported to Environment Health right at the beginning. Being stuck at home for a year with no respite at all is too much!

YABU

If you just let them crack on with it instead of making them wait around doing nothing and telling them to go home on days they can get work done, where weather and other things haven’t stopped them from working, they would be further along by now maybe even finished.

Builders start and finish early, that’s what they do, they may well have other things to do when they knock offs at 4, pick kids up, do a friend a favour... most tradesmen I know after knocking off will tend to fit in that job a friend or relative have asked them to help with. There are also several dads at my DCs school who working in building and trade who do school pickups.

Well, you're considerably more assertive than me. If you have daughters they're lucky!

@DishingOutDone

A year? They’ve been doing this for a sodding year? I think your neighbour is unhinged to allow this to continue. How is this part of “every day life”?!

My neighbour bought her house in Aug 2019.

It still doesn't have all its windows. Or a full roof.

We've regularly had builders working on Saturdays. She is doing loads of it herself and thats always weekends. DH is working from home.

There have been days when its a bloody nightmare.

She is unlikely to have it done by the end of this year.

"they may well have other things to do when they knock off at 4, pick kids up, do a friend a favour... most tradesmen I know after knocking off will tend to fit in that job a friend or relative have asked them to help with."

How is any of that the OP's problem, or sufficient excuse to disturb other residents so early in the morning?

@AliceMcK that may be the case but the laws about 8-6 Monday to Sunday are to minimise the impact that significant building works has in the surrounding neighbours. They needing to pick their kids up doesn't mean it's ok for them to break the law. I really don't think I was unreasonable for telling them to leave at 7.40 on the bank holiday last year.
The rules are there for a reason. It's not fun at all living next to a building site. They are there to give us some respite.

[quote highroadtothedangerzone]@DishingOutDone it was a big job. But it needed doing. I just want them to stick to the rules that have clearly been made to reduce the impact of work such as this on neighbours like me [/quote]
In sticking to those rules the work will go on for much longer. Personally I’d rather they worked 12 hours a day and got it all done as soon as possible.

@AliceMcK

YABU

If you just let them crack on with it instead of making them wait around doing nothing and telling them to go home on days they can get work done, where weather and other things haven’t stopped them from working, they would be further along by now maybe even finished.

Builders start and finish early, that’s what they do, they may well have other things to do when they knock offs at 4, pick kids up, do a friend a favour... most tradesmen I know after knocking off will tend to fit in that job a friend or relative have asked them to help with. There are also several dads at my DCs school who working in building and trade who do school pickups.

This.

It’s lasted a year because OP is sending them home and restricting their hours.

Totally agree tbh. It's Good Friday today and very relieved there's no noisy building work going on. It does get too much so I totally sympathise

Yanbu in the slightest. The rules are there and you are entitled to a respite from the noise and mess after a year. Our landlady had work done on our house a few weeks back and I told the builders that work could only start after 9am. They took over the entire ground floor of our house and we wanted the opportunity to get ready in peace. In fairness the lads were brilliant and every evening the place was tidied and they even managed to get the work done a day early.

You don't decide when a skip wagon comes - you order a skip and they send it when they send it. So on that you're unreasonable, it's the skip company at fault if anyone, not the builders.

PomegranateQueen Our neighbours are like that – did a loft extension almost two years ago and since then it's been one endless job after another, like having the entire garden dug up and patio relaid, and we've just had enough.

DH forgot it was BH today, so when the builder told him he was coming to do some work today he said ok.

I'd assume if i was the builder that it was okay

@GrumpyHoonMain really? I value having building work-free bank holidays and not being woken up by them early in the morning than the extra maybe 2-3 days that would add onto the the overall length of the work done in in a normal working day! How many people genuinely don't mind being woken up early on one of the few days in the year that you can enjoy a lie in? Especially considering there is very little respite from the building noise the rest of the time?

I get it OP. Our adjoining neighbours had a relatively small extension done a couple of years ago and the noise from 8am onwards was hideous but they worked within permitted hours, so we just gritted our teeth. Until the day they started at 7am, which just happened to be the morning after my FIL had died in agony. I hammered on the wall and yelled “it’s too early!!!” and they stopped.

I may have acted like a loon but whilst I get that neighbour noise is part of life, another part of life is consideration of others and making an effort to limit the impact of your actions.

If it was something that was going on for a few months I couldn't get worked up about early mornings or bank holidays.

But this has been going on for a whole year. No way! The OP needs some respite FGS!!

Yanbu. They’re taking the piss.
Those rules were made in the first place to protect the quality of life of the people living around the construction area. They’re being very cheeky and you’re absolutely right.
I would have complained too.