Neighbour has built a bar

[Julshk73]

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?

You cannot build something like that without planning permission. I agree to contact your local councillor - that is what they are there (and paid handsomely) for.

In virtually every gardening programme this year they have been installing areas for outside entertaining, bars etc. Very nice if it's your garden, not so nice if it's your neighbour - you have my sympathy.

@PurpleyBlue

Was she looking at them all day to know they were looking at her all day? Maybe they thought she was staring at them?

really??

There seem to be so many cunts like this neighbour around.

RE security camera, you can get cheap ones that run off wi-fi plugged into the house and pointing out of a window. I have a Tapo for 20 pounds with a micro SD memory card. It doesn't work very well in darkness at night as the infrared reflects off the windows obscuring the footage (unless the window is open), but it's a cheap way of recording motion detection for most of the time to see if your neighbours are committing any offences like throwing over glass etc., and it's pretty discreet looking.

I am sorry you and DD are struggling with this, and your neighbour sounds horrible. I think I would be contacting Planning at the council, but thats a medium / long-term strategy. In the short term, I would mitigate your DDs distress with net curtains, a security camera (these are not horribly expensive now) and ideally, a PIR light that just happens to shine into his garden. If you are a bit clever with the position, the light might accidentally shine right onto the TV screen, thus buggering up his TV watching!

They can power into existing power supplies, I have CCTV front and back of my house, records film and sound,cost just under 210 quid Inc fittting

Problem is if he applies for planning permission isn’t he likely to get it? And then all you have done is piss him off as he’ll know it was you?

Or will the council decline it…..which will still result in him being pissed off but at least there woukd be no bar. I’m not planning on reporting my neighbour as I just think planning permission would be granted. 🤷‍♀️

What did he cut down in your garden OP and why??

@Lilibet2022

Call the council, call the police if they are making noise at 3am and for God's sake TELL HIM.

Telling these people does SFA. They don't care and won't listen. They'll also play the victim when the police turn up saying the op started it first. The police advised me no matter what my dickhead neighbour does or says to not talk to them at all and just report to them all the time. Apparently it can be seen as provoking them. Police and council every time. Police attendance is the best evidence you can have especially as it's taking years to get these arseholes moved on at the moment.

This. ^

People like this just need reporting to the council and the police. They think the world revolves around them, and are so arrogant they'd just laugh at the OP anyway.

I can't believe some of the posts I'm reading on here, where people are minimising the OP's worries and stress, and saying 'just put film on your daughter's window,' or 'just close the curtains!'

Why the fuck SHOULD she? It's SO rude and dismissive to say this.

I'm sure a few posters on here on taking the piss, because no way in hell can a single person in real life be happy with what the OP is having to put up with. No way in fucking hell would the people dismissing her worries and stress be happy with this. I don't believe it for a second.

As I said (and a few others have said,) report him, and the council will make him the the bar down.

@LonginesPrime

Telling these people does SFA. They don't care and won't listen. They'll also play the victim when the police turn up saying the op started it first.

I wouldn't confront them either - especially if they're already as brazenly abusive as they are - no good can come of it, and if they're drunk too, it's a recipe for disaster to try to stop them partying in the moment yourself.

I've lived next door to ppl like that and after naively trying to appeal to their reasonable sides when sober (which just made them more pointedly aggressive towards us), I concluded that once they're already being unreasonable in not giving a fuck about their noise levels and the disturbance they're causing in the early hours, they're not going to magically see the error of their ways because I pop round and alert them to the fact they're being too loud.

It's not like they don't realise they're inconveniencing others - it's that they don't actually care, so trying to reason with them direct achieves nothing.

That said, my current NDNs (we moved from the horrible ones) have loud drunken parties in their garden throughout the summer - but it's only when they get drunk and their judgement goes that they get really loud, and I know if I asked them to be quiet, they absolutely would (usually when it gets bad, another neighbour tells them to STFU and they all apologise and go inside).

OPs neighbours are obviously the first type, so appealing to their reasonableness won't help as they don't have any.

THIS! ^ In spades!

Why the fuck SHOULD she? It's SO rude and dismissive to say this.

I wasn't being either of those things. I suggested it would have helped yesterday and now they have returned it would help today until OP can get hold of the relevant agencies.

You can get wifi cameras that don't need external power

@MilduraS

Quite a different situation as assume you moved into your house knowing there was a bus stop there. OP didn’t choose to live near a bar.

I hate the victim blaming on this thread- saying why’s the daughter in her room all day; and shut the blinds etc.

OP I would see if they need planning permission, I would plant something along my boundary which will grow and provide privacy; I would report the noise pollution and record it and film it.

My neighbours built an outside bar years ago. I think they used it once.

@roobicoobi

Why the fuck SHOULD she? It's SO rude and dismissive to say this.

I wasn't being either of those things. I suggested it would have helped yesterday and now they have returned it would help today until OP can get hold of the relevant agencies.

I wasn't aiming it directly at you roobicoobi. Moreso at the multiple posters who have said this. 'Just put film on the window' or just close the curtains' And as for the poster who said 'oooh it's no big deal, and some people DO like to make a fuss.' ( @Waxonwaxoff0 at 12.05,) well, I don't even know where to begin with THAT one!

If he's really that unpleasant rather than report to planning maybe it would be better to get a WiFi camera pointing at the bar. If they feel spied on then at least they will know how your daughter feels.

Is there any way to attach a screen on the side of the house?

And do keep a noise diary because they won't be able to know who reported that.

Our Ring camera is battery powered. It needs charging every 30 days or so but there's no need for power cables or an electricity supply. Something like that could help you.

Do you own or rent?

Bad neighbours are awful, we gave up reporting and just moved.

Look also at something like the blink system that is both wireless and battery and are small. Not hugely obvious but not that would make any difference. Also agree with privacy film on the window for a start.

What’s the real problem here? The noise? The fact they can see in your DD’s bedroom (which is easily resolved) or are you just another Mumsnetter that doesn’t like their neighbours enjoying their garden? Are you sure they were all Men? Were there really no women there? There were also no home nations playing last night so I don’t know why they’d been football chanting….

Lots of people have built bars in their gardens over the last eighteen months because of Covid and because they’d rather stay at home than cram into pubs or bars, plus we don’t know how long restrictions will last and whether or we’ll go back into lockdown. As a one off it wouldn’t bother me. Obviously if it starts to happen all the time then that’s different and you’ll need to deal with that in due course.

@osbertthesyrianhamster

There seem to be so many cunts like this neighbour around.

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

@BiscoffAddict

What’s the real problem here? The noise? The fact they can see in your DD’s bedroom (which is easily resolved) or are you just another Mumsnetter that doesn’t like their neighbours enjoying their garden? Are you sure they were all Men? Were there really no women there? There were also no home nations playing last night so I don’t know why they’d been football chanting….

Lots of people have built bars in their gardens over the last eighteen months because of Covid and because they’d rather stay at home than cram into pubs or bars, plus we don’t know how long restrictions will last and whether or we’ll go back into lockdown. As a one off it wouldn’t bother me. Obviously if it starts to happen all the time then that’s different and you’ll need to deal with that in due course.

You don’t know why rowdy drinking until 3am in next door’s garden might be a problem? Seriously?

Plus you don’t see that the construction of a bar suggests that it won’t be a one off?

We’re thinking of moving to West Durrington - right on the edge just off Titnore Rd. I keep reading on here that’s it’s not a good area? I’m thinking as I’m on the edge, hardly any neighbours it will be fine. And I’ve lived in London, Brighton so not fazed by a lot. Any advice on the area/schools would be much appreciated. Thank you.

or are you just another Mumsnetter that doesn’t like their neighbours enjoying their garden?
I’m going to move next door to you and bellow til 3am each night, “JUST ENJOYING MY GARDEN”