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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Neighbour has built a bar

329 replies

Julshk73 · 20/06/2021 10:25

My neighbour has spent the last three months building every night beyond 10pm. Sawing hammering, no use of my garden this year so far. Yesterday they unwrapped their new building.

It's a bar.

On a raised platform.

That looks right into my daughters bedroom.

She is terrified as a preteen as grown men were staring in all day yesterday.

Then the drinking began.

Until 3am we couldn't even hear our tv for the shouting screaming and chanting.

The council noise team aren't working due to covid. The police don't answer calls anymore on 101 (we tried several times on advice of the council).

What can I do?

My daughter is extremely distressed at losing her privacy and I cannot deal with parties that go on until 3am that are so loud we have no respite.

Help?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
Annehedonia · 20/06/2021 16:08

Fair enough @Biscoffin

Blueberrycreampie · 20/06/2021 16:11

Our neighbours built a decking area which looked out over our garden, and as we didn't get on with them, used to try and intimidate us with their large family hanging out their and being noisy. Council made them take it away 👍.

HalzTangz · 20/06/2021 16:12

Definitely bullshit.

I have a camera on the front of my house, it views my car parked on the road and partially captures the house opposite.

Police requested my footage and thanked me for the coverage as it actually helped catch a murderer. Not one officer complained that the camera picked up the house opposite

M0nkeybars · 20/06/2021 16:18

If it's raised etc they may have needed planning permission for this (e.g. decking higher that 30cm needs planning permission) - I'd look into it. You may be in your rights to ask the council to get him to dismantle it if he hasn't got the right permission and the fact that it overlooks a bedroom in your house doesn't sound right.

HalzTangz · 20/06/2021 16:19

The only thing I don't understand is the direct view, surely they need to be at eye level to have a direct view into her room.

I can look at any 1st floor window from my garden but can't see anything directly, I woul have to be about 8ft off the ground to see directly in a first floor room.

I doubt the neighbour or men can see in her room at all. This part I think you are being over dramatic about. But as others suggest, blinds, nets or mirror film will rest your mind.

Drinking until 3am, you could have reported to the police 101 is still being manned but can take a while, you can also report online.

For abusive behaviour CCTV, it's not expensive at all

Lilibet2022 · 20/06/2021 16:21

Also ignore the terrible advice to, have a cctv Camera trained on their garden!! You will be liable under GDPR if you do that!

OP having cctv covering your property and points of entry would not be a breach of GDPR. It isn't.

whatisthisinhere · 20/06/2021 16:24

In my area you can report it on line as anti social behaviour

Lilibet2022 · 20/06/2021 16:25

@HalzTangz yep. I had a professional company come and do mine. Booked for x amount of cameras. Came out told me I only needed half of what I'd had.
Got speaking to someone who has their house adorned with twice as many as I'd originally ordered and thought it was a not excessive. Police always ask them for footage and are always grateful. Council said otherwise after the local drug dealers complained when they were caught in the background of a robbery... Hmm Grin

Blueberrycreampie · 20/06/2021 16:35

@Blueberrycreampie

Our neighbours built a decking area which looked out over our garden, and as we didn't get on with them, used to try and intimidate us with their large family hanging out their and being noisy. Council made them take it away 👍.
there
BritWifeInUSA · 20/06/2021 16:37

Is the bedroom on the ground floor (I know you said “first floor” but I don’t know which country you’re in and here in the US the first floor is what the UK calls the ground floor)? If so, bar or no bar they will always have been able to see into that room. If her bedroom is upstairs the broth don’t actually be able to see anything in the room except for something that’s right up to the window because the a toe will be wrong to see into the room itself. Try it yourself. Stand outside and look up into an upstairs room through the window. You won’t be able to see everything in the room. Our eyesight can’t turn around angles.

If she had a tree outside then the room would always have been dark. Blinds will be lighter than a tree outside and if you tilt them upwards no one will be able to see through them as again our eyesight doesn’t turn corners or go around angles.

GreyhoundG1rl · 20/06/2021 16:37

and the fact that it overlooks a bedroom in your house doesn't sound right.
It doesn't sound right, but not in the way you mean. Op hasn't been able to explain how this is actually possible.

BritWifeInUSA · 20/06/2021 16:38

A toe = angle!!!

Graunaile2017 · 20/06/2021 16:43

Not nice, but seriously , she's terrified?? Uncomfortable and annoyed fair enough, but what is she terrified of?
Why was she in her bedroom all day watching the men stare into her room? Get some blinds or curtains or both.
Go in and stare back at them, open the window and talk to them , ask them to move away and to stop staring in.
Change rooms with her until you get it sorted out.
Speak to the neighbours.

tenlittlecygnets · 20/06/2021 16:52

The neighbour is a selfish twat, but I'd have gone round the first time he did antisocial hammering and asked what he was doing, then asked about planning permission. He's a selfish dick if he thinks an outside bar in a residential garden is a good idea.

But you have plenty of options: council planning dept, and noise dept.
Local councillor.
MP.

And in the meantime, go round and talk to them. Say you can hear their noise, it's antisocial, and ask them to keep it down after a certain time.

And put up trellis and fast climbing plant to screen your garden from them, and put up film or blinds in your DD's room.

BeckyWithTheCurls · 20/06/2021 17:04

Not every house it built at the same level!

Our old family home was a similar set up, we were below the neighbours behind us, my bedroom basically was at the same level as their back garden!

EastWestWhosBest · 20/06/2021 17:16

@BeckyWithTheCurls

Not every house it built at the same level!

Our old family home was a similar set up, we were below the neighbours behind us, my bedroom basically was at the same level as their back garden!

Many houses have gardens on a slope. If the end of the garden, and position of the bar is at the top of a slope it might make it level with the bedroom window.
Phphion · 20/06/2021 17:23

The OP already said that it's not on a slope, it is just that the bar is on a platform.

Flaunch · 20/06/2021 19:57

I’d build a frame out of some electrical conduit or something and make a large double sided panel with the ugliest fucking fabric I could find on their side and block their view.

Some people truly have no respect for anyone else.

EastWestWhosBest · 20/06/2021 20:43

@Phphion

The OP already said that it's not on a slope, it is just that the bar is on a platform.
Sorry. I missed that post.
a8mint · 20/06/2021 20:44

@Phphion

The OP already said that it's not on a slope, it is just that the bar is on a platform.
Its not going to be an 8ft high plaform to bring it up to first floor level is it!! Grin
GreyhoundG1rl · 20/06/2021 20:48

Yes, I'm bemused as to how high this "platform" is likely to be...

Phphion · 20/06/2021 20:52

That is the mystery... @a8mint

Hankunamatata · 20/06/2021 21:00

Wi Fi cctv

Hankunamatata · 20/06/2021 21:01

Contact police and lodge a harassment complaint

GreyhoundG1rl · 20/06/2021 21:28

@Hankunamatata

Contact police and lodge a harassment complaint
They're in their own garden, they are not harassing anyone.