AIBU to ask neighbours to keep kids off trampoline in working hours?

[PineappleMojito]

Not really for me, for my DP who is WFH. I don’t WFH so this doesn’t impact but he is very bothered by it.

Next door recently bought a trampoline for their two kids. When they go on it, they’re really noisy - they scream and shout a lot, I’ve heard them on the weekends when I’m home and it is loud. DP is hearing impaired, he’s on work Zoom calls during the day and the noise is making it difficult to do his calls. One is a pre schooler and the other we think might be home at the moment because school bubble has burst. Obviously he is used to general neighbour noise during day, but he finds the screaming and shouting difficult as it’s right next to our fence. He’s using noise cancelling headphones for calls, but even with those it’s getting through and making it hard for him to concentrate and hear what’s being said.

Would he BU to ask them if they could keep the kids off the trampoline during his work hours or confine it to lunch time during the week? He has an hour break where he’d be fine with them using it, he normally goes out to walk the dog. They’re very nice neighbours and we’ve never had any issues, but he’s afraid to rock the boat.

In the same vein, others have to accept that they can't make all the noise they like, when they like, for as long as they like.

As someone else pointed out, as this is normal residential noise, no outside body is going to back the OP up on this.

There are thresholds as to what constitutes anti social noise. This is nowhere close.

I asked my kids if screaming & shouting while playing was necessary.
they said yes.

I asked why? they said because that's what kids do and it's part of the fun.

so there you go. straight from the horse's mouth. kids should be allowed to be kids.🤷‍♀️

Regarding your latest update you say you can't work in the bedroom because of people swearing and kicking off in the street - I think your husband needs to accept the area you live in isnt a quiet one but if he wants to work from home then he has to put up with the noise. People have a right to enjoy their homes within the law and your neighbours are doing so. They don't need to bend their behaviour to accommodate someone else's working hours.

Just seen your last post- of course he should move to the bedroom and try that!! I can’t actually believe that you think your husband’s wish not to work where he sleeps trumps your neighbours kids wanting to play on the trampoline and enjoy the garden like normal kids! The entitlement!

He'll have to move to a different room, even of it's not as suitable. Seems he's super sensitive so not sure you'll find any solution other than moving to an area with few neighbours.

• well we sure don’t do it when the kids are outside. Round our way you wouldn’t know which house the smell was coming from anyway!

Also, spliffs don’t scream

@PineappleMojito *

This gets better and better - they may not scream but they fucking stink. the smell of weed is foul. My neighbours smoke it indoors and I can smell it all the bloody time. You absolutely cannot be serious about complaining about a child making normal children noises, during the daytime, when you're producing that stench. How bloody entitled are you??

If his work want him to wfh, it's them who must compromise and acknowledge he can't do anything about it. Or bring forward his return to work.

That said, persistent screaming (not just the odd one) is annoying even if you're not wfh.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

I asked my kids if screaming & shouting while playing was necessary. they said yes.

I asked why? they said because that's what kids do and it's part of the fun.

so there you go. straight from the horse's mouth. kids should be allowed to be kids.🤷‍♀️

It's really not. Lots of things are fun but we don't do them. Smashing other kid's sandcastles is fun, chasing birds is fun, tapping on aquarium glass is fun, playing knock-a-door-run is fun... The list goes on. Fun isn't a reason to be inconsiderate.

@FrankButchersDickieBow

I think yabu sorry.

You can't ask kids to stop playing in their garden.

It's reasonable to ask them not to scream, though. Kids used to be capable of playing without screaming their heads off.

Ever wondered if maybe the neighbours think you’re stoned all day regardless and are encouraging the noise in retaliation?

How much consideration would you say neighbours should have for others who WFH during these times?

None. And I say that as someone who now works from home at least once a week. But my street is a residential area, not an office. I would strongly resist any suggestion that we should all be tiptoing around now because people are WFH and their Very Important Work means nobody can Hoover or cut grass or play in the garden.

There are a lot of bad tempered men tyrannizing over their households these days, but that cannot extend beyond the boundaries of their property.

If you ask them to stop being noisy in the garden during sociable hours, it's more than reasonable for them to ask you to stop stinking their house out with your weed 🤷🏻‍♀️
It lingers on my washing all the time from my neighbour and it does my head in.
Honestly cannot get over the audacity of you and your precious other half, who is so upset by the noise, but won't move to the bedroom and solve all the problems 😂

You would be unreasonable to ask them to keep them off it but I don't think you would be unreasonable to ask them to keep it down a bit. There is still a likely possibility they would react badly to that, though, so I guess you need to weigh it up.

I haven't read the full thread but I expect you will get loads of people telling you that no, you can't do this.

However, I just wanted to say that I have a similar problem and it has resulted in me selling my house because of it. We live very rurally, in a very quiet lane, nowhere near any schools or amenities and mostly elderly or retired properties. I moved her because it was so quiet. I live in a large detached house with 1/2 acre garden (in other words I did my due diligence..). However, it appears that there are no guarantees in life and a family moved into the house next door, majorly renovated and now their entertaining space is right next door to me. Their kids have a full size bouncy castle (the type most people would hire for the day for a party), trampolines and pools. Nearly every weekend a whole herd of random children turn up and they scream their heads off all day. Couple this with the bellowing father performance parenting and erecting speakers round the garden and singing along to toons, you can imagine the cacophony.

We did have a "discussion" about it last year and admittedly it has quietened down a bit but now of course I am on edge whenever I hear them outside.

The only thing I can offer to you at this stage is to purchase some flare ear buds for your husband - these apparently really work and often are used by people with autism who have sensory issues. They are only about £20. Additionally what helped me was a white noise machine and I got one for about £25 off amazon.

I hope that helps.

I would much rather have noisy children as neighbours than neighbours that smoke weed.
If you were my neighbour and asked for kids not to play in the garden, and I had been affected by you smoking weed (which is likely as it stinks) I would laugh

I honestly don't think there is anything wrong with letting your neighbours know about the trampoline issue. The world has changed, and we all have to get on board, people are now going to be working at home more, we should respect this and our neighbours that will be doing this (some not through choice). If you have a good relationship with your neighbour a quick word might not hurt, but its always a gamble. I personally would prefer if a neighbour mentioned it to me instead of feeling miserable in their own home.

the sad thing about this whole discussion is the absence of any notion among some posters of 'being considerate' of others.
Yes - children have a perfect right to play in their garden BUT with that comes a responsibility to to think of those nearby.
So many people are entitled to think it is me,me,me all the way and their entitlement totally trumps anyone elses rights.
OP - I sympathise with your DH - I don't have hearing loss but I am very noise averse. I enjoy my garden when I can - and wear earphones and music to drown out outside noise such as the roofers throwing slates off the roof into the skip next door (as they are currently doing).
And I am in a detached house on a quiet road.
Sadly the world has become so noisy and such a 'tower of babel' that children screaming (fun?) has become part of it.

No-one wants quiet as they used to - and those of us who do are outnumbered.
I tell my dog 'Quiet' if she barks in the garden.
When my children were young - they could play without shrieking - not sure why it is now part of the fun.

I wfh and there is a toddler in the garden behind ours. She plays out a lot since this week when the weather has gone nice. Screams and laughs a lot too. I work in the kitchen with the back doors open.

I would not dream of asking her parents to keep her quiet or indoors when I am working. That would be weird

@TheKeatingFive

In the same vein, others have to accept that they can't make all the noise they like, when they like, for as long as they like.

As someone else pointed out, as this is normal residential noise, no outside body is going to back the OP up on this.

There are thresholds as to what constitutes anti social noise. This is nowhere close.

Yep. Children being noisy during the day is the norm and not the problem here. It's a residential area.

@ThirdElephant

nice distortion of what I said.

I said "part of the fun"

you translated that to "is the whole fun"

I can't decide if you are deliberately misinterpreting things or just prefer to exaggerate unnecessarily.
Sorry you can't understand what someone actually says.

@PineappleMojito

You also say that your husband's company is not very helpful . Might this because his noise sensitivity has made life difficult for his co-workers in the past. I used to work in an opem plan office with someone like this and frankly he (why is it always he?) was a total pain in the bum

No. Not the case. He works in a data analytics team and the entire team has been told they will stay WFH until end of the year, maybe 1 day a week in office from autumn. He didn’t complain about noise in the office. As you can imagine, data analytics is basically an introvert haven so his team is full of fairly similar quiet ish people. Also, people don’t scream in the office as I hear that’s frowned upon!

Why not just work at the front of the house
That’s the bedroom and bathroom. Kitchen and study are at the back. I suppose he could move to the bedroom but not super ideal to work where you sleep. And we moved work to the back of the house initially because there was all sorts kicking off in the street during lockdown 1 with down the street neighbours who were pissed during the day. One of my poor clients once heard the torrent of swearing over Zoom, which wasn’t ideal!

There's no real reason he can't work From the front of the house. He can't have it all ways.

As a parent with young children and a trampoline in the garden, I was on your side until you admitted that you're just as inconsiderate to your neighbours. As they say, what goes around, comes around. Karma is a wonderful thing.

Your DH is the one with the issue so he is that one that needs to move - although I'm surprised he can hear if he has the windows shut and noise cancelling head phones - or does he expect to be able to have the windows open and still expect it to be quiet? Why should the kids have to stay out their own garden. I'd be fuming if I was told my kids shouldn't use their play stuff in the garden during working hours, that's practically all day and the school holidays are just around the corner fgs. It's impossible to control little kids noise levels when they get excited unless you are there all the time constantly reminding them.

Nothing wrong with your DP highlighting that its an issue. The world has changed and we've all go to try and get along. Yes, it could impact on your relationship with them and they might not take any notice - not much you can do if they don't either - but if its annoying and causing a lot of nuisance then just say something now rather than seething in silence and potentially blowing up further down the line.

I suppose he could move to the bedroom but not super ideal to work where you sleep

Fgs OP, what do you think hundred of thousands of other people have been doing?