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AIBU?

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:
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Lilibet2022 · 20/06/2021 21:36

They're in their own garden, they are not harassing anyone.

Noise nuisance can count as harassment. The throwing the dog shit over into ops garden and being abusive to her is harassment too. She's already noted it up thread.

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user1471538283 · 20/06/2021 21:47

I honestly do not get the whole hot tub and bar in the garden thing when you have neighbours close by. It is not the things themselves it is the noise that goes with it.

Our noise abatement team are rubbish and at best send a letter out the next working day. I would try to involve your councillor or MP.

It sounds awful.

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Bluntness100 · 20/06/2021 21:56

I wonder why they built it so high, it literally will have to be, what ten foot off the ground, to see directly into a first floor window. That’s a massive platform,

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yougettocomeback · 20/06/2021 22:17

everyone scoffing and scathing at the idea of a teenage girl being terrified can piss off tbh. I would be terrified if a group of loud drunk men were outside my bedroom window all night, looking in and making noise. If I was medically vulnerable and my room had become a sanctuary of sorts over lockdown, it's completely understandable to feel devastated at the loss of that.

All of these ideas are great but they smack of women placating men and not rocking the boat. It's horrifying to read people commenting that she's overreacting or being dramatic. Why should she have to hide away and keep the curtains closed and shrink herself into invisibility so these men can get drunk outside her room? It's bullshit.

And everyone saying just talk to the neighbour. The aggressive, abusive one who has thrown glass and dog poo into her garden? The one who has loud parties until 3am with no concern for his neighbours? Yeah he seems like a great reasonable guy to have a chat with it.

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Skysblue · 20/06/2021 22:25

Amazed at the number of peope telling you to go and soeak to your neighbour. This is a person who did building work after 10pm daily for months andnis now having 3am parties. He knows he is an antisocial dick and he doesn’t care (and he is friends with weirdos who stare into a teen girl’s bedroom.) There’s no point speaking to a guy like this he’s not going to say oh wow you’re right I’ll take down the bar I spent months building.

Short term: privacy window film and a blind
Long term: speak planning department and ask for their help. Possibly may need to talk to a lawyer.

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Misty84 · 20/06/2021 22:30

Sounds so awful OP, I’m so sorry you’re facing this.

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Graphista · 20/06/2021 22:44

What is wrong with people?!

For starters I cannot imagine this is a structure that didn't require planning permission, so straight onto the relevant council dept about that tomorrow morning

Other than that if I were you I'd be raising merry hell across the council, police and with your Mp too.

Keep calling, emailing, go see Mp in person if possible shout as loudly as you need to in order to get this utter arse dealt with!

Those "confused" why they can see into ops dds bedroom many homes have bedrooms on the ground floor or it's maybe a bungalow

@Moorelewis you're behind the times it's more likely something like...

www.manomano.co.uk/pergolas-1828?modelid=31307093&refererid=689880&gclid=CjwKCAjwzruGBhBAEiwAUqMR8P1yUwkMeMz1AZIzv69f-jQ0n9uJIzGW4BfrkpwpPEpzuqnY6r-DhoC9MYQAvDBwE

But on a raised platform from sounds of things.

For op it'll be like living right next door to a sodding music festival most weekends!

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FakeColinCaterpillar · 20/06/2021 22:45

My friends neighbour built a platform to sit on and get more of the sunlight. Meant they could see right into her house (she was a childminder). Council made him take it down.

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Graphista · 20/06/2021 22:46

he should have stopped by 8pm every night (if in the UK)?

Where you get that from? For starters there are very few laws that apply Uk wide as Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own legal systems, in addition things like noise tend to be under bylaws determined by local usually town councils or at most county councils. Where I live unfortunately diy can be done until 10pm!

Which I think is Fucking outrageous as do many locals

With councils it really is a case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil! You have to be a nuisance yourself to get them to shift their arses!

my neighbour isn't quite the kind of gent you can speak to

I suspected as much! Neighbours like this don't give a shit and can turn nasty!

Wow! What you've posted is closer to a sun room or conservatory type extension which they would surely have to have planning permission for?

They sound horrendous, quite honestly if I were you op if possible I'd be moving!

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GreyhoundG1rl · 20/06/2021 22:53

@FakeColinCaterpillar

My friends neighbour built a platform to sit on and get more of the sunlight. Meant they could see right into her house (she was a childminder). Council made him take it down.

Did he think being a couple of feet closer to the sun would make him tan faster?!
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nighttimeonly · 20/06/2021 22:53

@Julshk73 just to let you know you don't have to have electricity to have cctv. I use the blink system, which starts at about £99 for one camera and its base unit. No electricity needed. Just screw to the wall using a waterproof outside arm (costs about £15 extra). Day and night vision and the batteries literally last for at least six months.

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Graphista · 20/06/2021 22:54

Long term councils and police are SHIT with nuisance neighbours

If they're making a racket past midnight I'd try 999 rather than 101

Not what 999 is for and could potentially get op in bother with police and lose their support

But I'd certainly be calling councillor and mp daily

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy I'm as bolshy as the next mner but honestly neighbours like these have no shame and no limits. Going in gung ho can potentially put the op and dd in actual danger. Have you never seen the news stories about neighbours like this who've assaulted the complaining neighbours? Even killed them?

My old neighbours were a bloody nightmare, when I complained about the noise they were making (daily, loud music, stomping about, slamming doors, shouting and screaming - they seemed to argue among themselves most days! Then also at times diy inc before 8am on a sun morning and I'm not talking the odd bit of hammering I'm talking heavy duty drills and sanders...) I was at first advised by the council to use the mediation service. So I spoke to the mediator and explained what they were like AND included in that explanation that on the one occasion I had tried to speak to them (I was calm, I barely got out the start of the sentence) I got a barrage of foul language screamed at me and the door slammed in my face, and that wasn't the end of it. I'm in a block of flats, every time they passed by my door they would kick it and thump it and shout and swear at me. When they were notified an official complaint had been made they put the torn letter through my letterbox and damn near put it in! Called police who basically eye rolled at ME, the next incident they accosted my dd who was still a child at the time in the stairwell/close and frightened her. I called the police again but this time I said if they didn't handle it properly I'd be complaining about the police and explained what the previous officers had been like. A sgt called me and apologised for the way the previous officers handled it and said she'd be attending herself with a community officer and would ensure neighbours knew to back off and to be fair it was at this point that things calmed down a LOT! They were still noisy sometimes but it was a lot better than it had been. I don't know what that sgt said but it pretty much worked. Then the neighbour fell pregnant again (they already had a toddler and they'd shout and swear not only in front of him but encourage him to call dd and I names - this is the kind of people op is dealing with!) but these flats aren't really big enough for a family of 4 so thankfully this meant they moved out, but wow do I feel sorry for whoever their new neighbours are!

I think people's anti social behaviour is getting worse.

It is, and one of the reasons it is would be because most of the time they get away with it because the authorities won't make and enforce laws that would create much more peaceful homes for everyone

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Graphista · 20/06/2021 22:56

They'll also play the victim when the police turn up

Yep - I was accused of all sorts inc one particular thing I'm not physically capable of! Which the police could see I couldn't as could only be done by someone tall and I'm 5'2"! Also because I'm disabled!

They also tried making a noise complaint against me at one time - when my flat was empty cos we were on holiday at the time! Another time accused of loudly arguing with dd when she was away that whole weekend with her then boyfriend. Complete bullshit

I’d buy a fire pit and lots of green wood interesting idea but again could get op in bother

Those commenting as if op "making a fuss over nothing"

1 clearly have never had shit neighbours like this

2 need to address their empathy bypass

3 I wonder on threads like this if they ARE neighbours like this!

In fact I think the thread can at least be clearly divided between those of us who've had neighbours like this and those who luckily haven't

Many of them on this thread, judging by a lot of the comments.

Quite

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Graphista · 20/06/2021 22:58

Sleep disturbance, noise and aggressive behaviour puts you COMPLETELY on edge in your own home. Imagine being in a state of anxiety where you feel under threat all the time in your own home?

What is she doing that she cannot be in her own living room?

Op and her dd have a right to privacy and peaceful enjoyment of ANY room in their own home! I really don't understand the ignorance of posts like this!

OP apparently did nothing about it other than to post on MN.

Then you need to read again

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)

Right there in the 1st post!

Don't be silly, of course they answer calls, it can just take a very long time. I was held in a queue recently for 40 minutes.

Not always I called to report an incident last week and at the 30 min mark here it cuts you off! 4 times it took me to get through to someone (and yes the incident was still ongoing at this point - neighbours ex banging on door and shouting at her through the letterbox, I was keeping an eye through peephole and if he'd gained entry I'd have dialled 999)

It's damn near impossible to get hold of police these days

really ask yourself how much are you a part of the problem when it comes to the entitlement of some men!??

Totally agree

@CustardySergeant I took that to mean "medical needs" which may also explain why the dd needs to be in bedroom at times in the day

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Lilibet2022 · 20/06/2021 23:32

everyone scoffing and scathing at the idea of a teenage girl being terrified can piss off tbh. I would be terrified if a group of loud drunk men were outside my bedroom window all night, looking in and making noise. If I was medically vulnerable and my room had become a sanctuary of sorts over lockdown, it's completely understandable to feel devastated at the loss of that.

@yougettocomeback agreed. I am more than capable of 'holding my own' when needed but even I thought twice about telling the pissed up coked up dickhead neighbour and her visitors to STFU myself recently. There's a misconception that everyone can just up sticks and move if their neighbours are hell. Many don't have the immediate resources and even in social housing made even more difficult especially when the area you're in is renowned for antisocial behaviour no one looking for an exchange will touch it with a bargepole. What you say you'd do and what you'd actually do in those situations when you have to think further ahead than the noisy night is two different things when you've got the safety of your DCs to think of. So I can totally understand how OPs DD can be feeling intimidated by it all.

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NutNutmum · 21/06/2021 00:10

@Julshk73 Please don't follow much of the advice on here to get a RING/BLINK/EUFY Wifi camera ect. These are not fit for your purpose. This is coming from some one who uses a lot of CCTV, they do half decent internal camera and door bells but its a waste of money for what you need. You need it to actually be used as evidence if needed and have people recognisable at distance and actually work. These system are not designed for real security and the quality is pretty poor compared to a cctv system designed to do just that

WIFI camera out side are really poor and have poor range due to the interference from weather lighting, walls etc, and can be blocked quite easily and can be very difficult to keep stable recording that don't miss frames and have dropout of signal intermittently.

You have 2 choices if getting power externally is an issue.

1.get a 3/4G CCTV camera with solar panel. which will connect via a mobile phone sim card and can be placed any where. Also you don't need to worry about WIFI signal.
www.amazon.co.uk/stores/page/3B4F1EF6-7E69-4CC4-A2CE-C287989BF468?ingress=0&visitId=a96132d8-18b3-48b6-9c71-a5dfe38cc8eb&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

  1. Get a POE camera and recording box. this is the best option, a POE camera is a power over ethernet. Basically the camera will get all its power from a network cable connected to a recording box (looks like a small skybox) so you only need to run a network cable to your camera. These will also store all your video for a couple of months if needed. Very easy to set up just plug cable into the box and then into the cameras.


www.amazon.co.uk/stores/page/080347EF-4B26-41D8-AC2A-3826A7423168?ingress=0&visitId=a96132d8-18b3-48b6-9c71-a5dfe38cc8eb&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

Alternatively contact a local CCTV installer and ask for a POE setup, they are worth their weight in gold, and despite what people claim on MN about not recording Neighbours ect. I have problem neighbours and mine records them, the police have viewed mine multiple times and sorted my issues even taken footage and never once said any thing about how they were recording ,.they were just glad i caught it on camera.

Send me a PM if you need any advice :)
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Lilibet2022 · 21/06/2021 00:26

Good advice @nutnutmum mine was a pretty packet but worth it. It doesn't stop the dickhead neighbours being shitty but it does make them think twice. I've no doubt they'd be twice as insufferable if I didn't have it. Our electric went whilst we were out recently and thought we'd lost it. I was most impressed when checking playback that there was hours of footage still there and wondered how such sorcery is possible. Both police and our housing have checked positionings and the feed I can see off my phone "nowt wrong with that" was the reply from the former and the latter told me I didn't even need the signs up. I'd put them up to cover myself legally. Flowers to both you and op.

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Wheresmybiscuit3 · 21/06/2021 00:45

Nothing constructive to add except that I’m sorry you are having to deal with idiots like this. Flowers

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Lilibet2022 · 21/06/2021 01:19

For those who have commented "they're in their own garden they're not bothering you". Our CF is currently in her sex pond with her visitors cackling loudly. She has one of those voices that carries over four counties. One DC has exams tomorrow and has gone to sleep with headphones in the other has school in 8 hours time and I've got a full day starting at 8am. This twat can sleep it off during the day. We can't.

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Tuberoses · 21/06/2021 01:32

As soon as you report this, it goes on record and you have to notify potential buyers of your house. Then you’ll be trapped. My advice: tell nobody, sell your house and move. The neighbours are already aggressive and this hassle won’t ever stop.

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Lilibet2022 · 21/06/2021 02:23

goes on record and you have to notify potential buyers of your house. Then you’ll be trapped. My advice: tell nobody, sell your house and move.

Not everybody owns their own house. Those in social housing who live near you will also be trapped if no one does anything too. I get it's not fair on either homeowners or tenants but perhaps putting better pressure on entitled dickhead neighbours is a better idea than putting up and shutting up?

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Lilibet2022 · 21/06/2021 02:26

*putting pressure on police and council to deal with dickhead neighbours I meant to say.

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Bluntness100 · 21/06/2021 07:16

@Tuberoses

As soon as you report this, it goes on record and you have to notify potential buyers of your house. Then you’ll be trapped. My advice: tell nobody, sell your house and move. The neighbours are already aggressive and this hassle won’t ever stop.

No one will buy it anyway. It’s got a massive bar on a ten foot high platform next door looking directly into one of the bedrooms.
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HeartvsBrain · 21/06/2021 07:19

GreyhoundG1rl, many thanks for your concern, but I can handle my own madness, so please don't worry. What I obviously can't do, is write a coherent post where people can understand what in my head seems clear. Anyway, no worries, as somebody has obviously asked for it to be removed, but it wasn't me!

I think that in my post to the OP I implied (well that is what I was attempting to do, while maybe using a bit of poetic license as well) that if these drunken, noisy, idiotic men, again sit staring at her daughter's room for hours on end, rather than just odd glances in that direction, then the police need to go around there straight sway to stop that horrible and intimidating behaviour before it becomes a fun routine for the imbeciles. I am well aware that the police will not, and indeed cannot, drop everything and dash around to someones house on the strength of a phone call complaining about their neighbours causing an upset, because there was a group of them drinking in the neighbours garden. However, how ever innocent amthose mens actions might have been, and probably were, if we are to believe the OPs original post, her daughter was very distressed by the men staring at her nedroom window for long periods of times. The OP has also told us that her DD is medically vunerable, and about the atrocious anti-social and in fact, bullying and threatening behaviour from their neighbour on various occassions in the past, and going on that information, I think being scared and upset by these men was a perfectly reasonable reaction.

So how do you get the police to attend whilst the perpertrators of this behaviour (whether it is actually criminal or not - it often takes whole juries to come to that conclusion, so it certainly isn't possible for you or me to know how intimitating their behaviour was, or whether or not there were ANY illegal reasons for it) are still there, and still doing it. I suppose the OP could lie and say she heard gunshots and saw people mainlining in her next door garden, or, she could tell a possible truth that she felt that these men were a safeguarding threat to her daughter, and that her DD was already terrified by them, and that she - the OP - was concerned that they could actually be part of a paedophile ring. I don't see how the police could possibly ignore a call like that, and if they did attend then they would have to ask the men (hopefully individually) why they had been staring at the young girls bedroom window for ages? Their answer would almost certainly be that they didn't know it was a girl's bedroom, and that the way the bar faced that it is just in their general line of site, and they hadn't realised that they had been staring at it. Unless the police had any prior knowledge about the men they were speaking to, they would have to accept that this time, but it would be noted down, and their names taken.

If those men had any sense at all, they would never sit staring at that window again, in fact most of them would probably decide that drinking at that bar, in that garden, with it's orientation as it is, just wasn't worth the hassel, and thereby the OPs biggest problem would be solved. The OP could then go about checking planning regs and keeping a recording of the noise levels through an app on her phone, so that she could report the noise pollution to the council, and with proof of what she was saying.

I don't suppose that you now think Greyhound that there might be some method in my madness, you probably still think that I am "absolutely unhinged"? 😂 If you do still think that I am away with the fairies then fair play to you, but playing with the fairies can be great fun, but if you ever stumble across any, don't accept anything to,eat or drink from them...

Two last little notes, I re-read the MN rules as requested by MN, and it says that any other posts showing my op would be removed too, so you may need to be prepared for your post to me to be removed too (for the record, I won't be putting in any complaints about your partial copy of my post, or about you effectively calling me unhinged!)

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roobicoobi · 21/06/2021 07:23

@Tuberoses

As soon as you report this, it goes on record and you have to notify potential buyers of your house. Then you’ll be trapped. My advice: tell nobody, sell your house and move. The neighbours are already aggressive and this hassle won’t ever stop.



You don't think potential buyers will notice a huge outside bar facing them when they view the property
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