To despair of new neighbours' shrieking children?

[saraclara]

It's been a glorious afternoon, but I've had to spend it indoors, and even with my doors closed I can hear them. I don't know how they can shriek for this long without having really sore throats. It's not ordinary play shouting, it's just pointless daft shrieking as far as I can tell. They've been out there for at least four hours. There was a break for about 20 minutes, then it started up again. I'm guessing from the tone of the shrieks that they're about 7-9 years old?

There's nothing I can do about it, is there? This is it for the spring and summer.

I could weep.

You are not being unreasonable, I have a neighbour at the back of my house, hardly hear the children, a childminder the other side and hear playing and splashing water etc, no issues, I have a nursery across the road with an outside area, lots of chatter but nothing too bad, neighbours to me left, nightmare, sound like high pitched kids on helium, screaming, ‘normal’ voice is really, really loud, both of them, the dad tries to calm them and the 6 year old ignores him and shouts back, the mum then shouts at the dad, she also sounds like nails on a blackboard, they do apologise all the time but I’ve written off my garden between 7 am - 6pm. We can’t have windows open, working from home is awful in hot weather and my daughter has to wear earplugs when studying for her A-Level exams.

@Checkingout811

My son who has several disabilities including autism has a very high pitched shriek that can go on for hours. Couldn’t give a flying shite if it pisses my neighbours off or not

How lovely of you, you sound delightful. Do disability’s mean we don’t have to care about other people too?

Crikey. I also have a son with non verbal autism, I let him play outside for 1/2 an hour at a time and bring him back in if he starts making too much of a racket. I give a shite though that it may be pissing my neighbours off 🤷🏼‍♀️

@OnPlanetJanet

OP I’m with you. There are kids a few doors from us and I love hearing them giggling and the occasional shouts but kids next door, constantly shrieking - I’d be twitching after half an hour. I think I would go round and say something eventually. I bet all their other surrounding neighbours are fed up with it to.

I'm really hoping that one of the other neighbours will say something! Everyone around must have been driven mad yesterday.

@cathybates

If it bothers you so much, get your house on the market and move away to a remote location where you won’t have to hear anyone!

Well by that logic I should have jet washed my drive at 7am this morning like I wanted to, rather than waiting until 10 like I am doing. Anyone who doesn’t want to hear my jet wash my drive at 7am shouldn’t live near other people.

@WalkersAreNotTheOnlyCrisps

Crikey. I also have a son with non verbal autism, I let him play outside for 1/2 an hour at a time and bring him back in if he starts making too much of a racket. I give a shite though that it may be pissing my neighbours off 🤷🏼‍♀️

I have every sympathy with you. I know how hard it can be. A lot of the parents of the children I taught got very distressed about neighbour relationships and their children's problems. It sounds as though you are doing a great job balancing the two.

@EastWestWhosBest

Exactly . We had a “ guest dog “ staying this week which is a real barker . If he went out and was barking for more than a minute or too we made him come back in , because we were considering the neighbours .

That’s what you do .

And ok children playing is a natural sound but if my grandchildren were shrieking and screaming for too long I would ask them to tone it down .

@DurhamDurham

If I was you, I’d poke my head over the fence and say very loudly but pleasantly, ‘hi what are you doing? It’s quite loud, can you be quiet I’m trying to read, thank you!’ Keep it pleasant but firm

You cannot tell people to be quiet in their own gardens because you're reading that's ridiculous. You can ask people to keep the noise down if it's really loud and to stop shrieking for hours on end. But to expect people to be quiet so you can get on with your book is hilarious.

It doesn’t have to be reading, again just a ‘polite reason’ I didn’t mean for anyone to take that sooooo literally. It’s was just an example, it’s really about consideration for others isn’t it? Just realising that others are trying to enjoy their gardens too.

Yep, I'm another one if the dogs bark, back in the house they go...

There's no need for it.

One of my neighbours kids was like this. Constantly bloody screaming. Thankfully they have now moved and a young family have moved in. It was lovely hearing the children play, yes there was the odd shriek, but it wasn't constantly like before.

@saraclara I sympathise truly I do. You'll probably find the other neighbours are waiting for their other neighbours to say something to avoid them being the ones becoming the bad guys.
I'm currently the bad guy after being the only one who dared to tell our delightful neighbour's unsupervised -feral- DCs to please not damage a memorial so I can see why people chose not to say anything. As you said huge difference between children playing and constant shrieking and screaming.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all op. Why don't some parents teach their children to be considerate of others?

My ndn's spawn are screamers. Eight constant hours of it yesterday. And the oldest one (about 9yo) had the nerve to try to tell me off for making a noise after I fired up the lawnmower

Honestly I know it's annoying but they are at school most of the time. Children are allowed to play in their garden. This period has been disproportionately hard for children and I would make a few allowances to be honest

Get a step ladder take it to the closest part of their garden and ask them to keep the noise down as they are far too loud and it’s giving you a headache

We have a child two doors away who is the same.

She has older brothers and not only shrieks but fake cries all the time.
It goes like this:

‘It’s my turn on the swing now’
‘No it isn’t I’ve only just got on. You need to wait’
scream and fake cry
Mum stick head out of windows and shouts and child.
Repeat.

The really annoying thing is that because of the layout of our houses you can’t access the garden from the house directly. And the house is much higher than the garden. Therefore it’s much easier to shout from the living room window, which is about 10ft up, then it is to go out.
The only saving grace is that this household seem to have spent the last year filling the alley that goes from their back door to the garden with crap so I don’t think they will be able to access the garden at all.

I assure it almost certainly is ordinary play shrieking. Children have higher pitched voices than adults and squeal etc with excitement, its totally normal.

I assure you it’s not normal for children to shriek for 4 hours non stop.
They can be really loud, shout instead of talking, shriek & squeal intermittently but if, as the OP says, it is non stop for hours at a time, they need to be told to pipe down.

I have every sympathy with you. I know how hard it can be. A lot of the parents of the children I taught got very distressed about neighbour relationships and their children's problems. It sounds as though you are doing a great job balancing the two.

Yeah he can drive me to distraction at times, so I’m acutely aware it will probably be intolerable to others after a while.
I wouldn’t have allowed his NT sibling to scream like that outside either though.

Some people really don't understand 'consideration' do they? Children learn reasonable behaviour from considerate parents. I have no issues with children being noisy, they have higher pitched voices which carry. But shrill, mindless shrieking is another level. My sympathies OP.

I was in the park with youngest GD yesterday. She waited her turn to go on a popular, high piece of equipment, but adults were pushing in front to lift much smaller children on to it. She told me she had said excuse me, I was waiting my turn, but she was ignored. Later I went with her to try again, and there was another reasonable adult who ensured her child also got a turn.

@torquewench

My ndn's spawn are screamers. Eight constant hours of it yesterday. And the oldest one (about 9yo) had the nerve to try to tell me off for making a noise after I fired up the lawnmower

Wow. Did you tell them that you will stop mowing your lawn only when they stop screaming day in day out?

@saraclara we had this exact problem last year. Hour after hour of shouting. It really got me down. Eventually we made contact and asked really, really nicely if they could reduce the time the kids were shouting for. Not stop using the garden, not stop playing, just try to keep it down.

They improved massively and straight away. In fact the whole family, parents included, have autism and they simply didn’t realise.

We’ve stayed on friendly terms and when the shouting does start up I can be fairly confident it won’t last all day.

Pop round with a small welcome gift and just ask. It might just work.

Neighbour noise is awful. We are in a terrace with tiny gardens so I’m conscious of keeping the kids quiet and not going out in the garden too early. But when neighbours are routinely playing loud music, swearing loudly and crashing in and out smoking until 4am you might find yourself saying ‘Be as loud as you want’ to the kids. They aren’t really though and don’t shriek thank goodness because that would drive me insane.

We are moving soon, a lot due to noise, and will have a much bigger garden in a rural area. Really hoping it will be peaceful and will be very mindful of noise for the neighbours in the hope that they return the favour.

Just be equally shouty after their bedtime. It might then ensure they have little sleep, and they will then be quieter next day.

@QueenPaw

There's normal play and there's screaming/shrieking. I've told this one before but they really need to know not to do it. Next door had a child who shrieked all the time/shouted help/mum constantly. One day it went on for ages as usual and eventually I went out to tell her to shut up only to find her hanging from the window upstairs. She lost her grip and fell as I stepped out, landed on the concrete and broke her pelvis and both her legs If she hadn't constantly shrieked, I would have gone to look earlier and could have shoved stuff on the floor or dragged her in If they're constantly shrieking and then a bloke tries to drag them off, who's going to know?

...and the award for 'posts about things that didn't happen' goes tooooo... !

My neighours have very loud boys but luckily not all the time! Children playing noise is expected of course but if it were mine I would not let them shriek loudly , thats very unfair on the neighbours.