Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to go into CF neighbours bedroom

104 replies

Gardenwoe · 17/07/2021 15:42

Am I going mad or is my neighbour a CF?

Background: We live in a terraced house, and our bedroom is on the ground floor (recently converted/redone) and a patch of wet appeared near the skirting board on the wall. Couldn’t work out where it’s coming from as we know there are no pipes there, wondered if it might be coming through from next door as they have a disused shower room against that wall. Always got on Ok with neighbours (we have been here for 18 years, they have even longer) so asked if he could take a look his side. There’s so much junk there we couldn’t even get close to where the possible water leak could be coming from, so left it at that and realized we would have to investigate from our side.

So we asked our builder to pop in and take a look at some point. He’s also a close family friend, so when he turned up yesterday just as we were leaving for work, we let him in and left him to it. We knew he was going to have to take the skirting of and make some noise knocking out some of the bricks to try and see if the damp course had been breached.

Our front door was open so the builder could go in and out to his van parked on the drive immediately outside. Cheeky neighbour hears the banging, arrives at the front door, rings the Ring doorbell. No answer. Peers through the open door. Checks up the stairs (townhouse) Then wanders into to hallway…opens bedroom door where builder is working , goes into bedroom and demands to know why he’s making all this noise! (11am btw, not unsociable hours) Builder explained what he was doing, neighbour moaned obviously unhappy and left.

DH went round this morning to ask what he was playing at, entering into our house/bedroom uninvited. On not getting an answer when he knocked on the door he should have turned around and waited for us to get home or rang us. His answer was that we should have let him know we were going to be making noise. (Builder was finished in under an hour)

AIBU in thinking the next time I see his front or back door open I should go round and go into his bedroom?

OP posts:
toocold54 · 17/07/2021 18:30

It would be go round and investigate with the owner and the owners consent, not just let yourself into someone else’s house and trespass!

😂😂😂
I never thought you’d have to explain to grown adults that you’re not allowed to just let yourselves in to someone else’s home Grin

EmeraldShamrock · 17/07/2021 18:32

I wouldn't see the big deal if it was my neighbour of 18 years.
They allowed you look in their bedroom to investigate the leak.

TheGlassBlowersDaughter · 17/07/2021 18:55

And if someone had broken into your house then you'd be quite happy that your ndn ignored banging noises and an open front door? Hmm This isn't a big deal. He probably thought whoever was in, couldn't hear him over the banging. I think it's fairly common to go straight to the source of the noise, if it's too noisy for the person to even hear you knocking at the door or ringing the bell.
Only caveat would be that we are in the middle of a pandemic and in those circumstances I'd be annoyed someone wandered into my house, But you should have let the ndn know that you were going to have a builder in knocking at the wall, not least because you should have got his permission if your builder is tapping bricks etc with no knowledge of where pipework is or what the construction of the walls is like.

Bluetrews25 · 17/07/2021 18:55

Jeez, OP, I hear you.
I used to live next door to one of these types.

The best Christmas present he could ever get would be a high vis waistcoat and a clipboard.

Original poster
Gardenwoe · 18/07/2021 00:15

@ExD1938

You asked were you entitled to go into his bedroom and poke around? You might be in danger of letting his assume you don't mind people making free and easy with your home. But - almost a bit off topic - did you find out what was causing the damp patch? Hmm.
Sorry been at work! Still no idea... builder has cleared out a load of rubble, definitely no pipes, and the damp course intact. It's a mystery
OP posts:
Original poster
Gardenwoe · 18/07/2021 00:17

@CovidCorvid

Well I assume you had completed a party wall agreement before commencing work on a party wall? This would have alerted him to all proposed work so I don’t see why he needed to come round?

Of course if you hadn’t done this and were knocking into a party wall without telling him he quite probably wanted to know what was going on and if it was going to affect his house?

Not a party wall, an internal wall - ours.
OP posts:
CovidCorvid · 18/07/2021 00:27

sorry, my mistake. You said they had a disused shower room against the wall so I assumed it was a shared wall.

VanGoghsDog · 18/07/2021 00:33

[quote Gardenwoe]@Comeondoit you sound about as nosey as him then!

He's your typical curtain twitcher bless him, I call him our own personal neighborhood watch - he's at the window the moment someone new is in the road! There have been numerous other things over the years, but we tolerate it because 1) it's good to keep good neighbourly relations and 2) it's reassuring to know that should anything untoward happen he will be watching!

And the noise wasn't atrocious - it was hammering out of 2 bricks and the removing by hand a load of rubble that had been dumped by previous builders in the cavity wall. There was no industrial machinery/power tools being used.

I just feel it was an enormous intrusion, and I would never dream of entering someone else's house uninvited, so rude! [/quote]
What did the neighbors say when you served the party wall notice?

VanGoghsDog · 18/07/2021 00:36

Not a party wall, an internal wall - ours.

Still sounds like it is a party wall. They have a shower room the other side, even if it's internal it's a party wall.

Blossomtoes · 18/07/2021 00:37

Not a party wall, an internal wall - ours

How would his shower room be involved if it’s not a party wall?

HalzTangz · 18/07/2021 00:55

@Comeondoit

I don't see what the neighbour did wrong tbh.

He wanted to know where the noise was coming from, probably sounded like someone was breaking in to his house.

Door was open, no one answering so he investigated. Fair enough I'd say.

So would you be happy someone waking into your house uninvited just because your door was open.
HalzTangz · 18/07/2021 00:58

@Flowers500

I didn’t realise it was a rule that you couldn’t speak to your neighbours’ builder about a shared issue that he’s working on? Genuinely— not saying to be shirty, but I wouldn’t consider that to be off or innapropriate in any huge way. If that’s the crux of the offence I think it’s minor and something where we would have to agree to disagree
Then he should have waited until the builder answered the door, or left the property when he finished working
ineedaholidaynow · 18/07/2021 01:09

I can’t believe people would just walk into a neighbour’s house without invitation.

memberofthewedding · 18/07/2021 01:30

I have a few baseball bats around the house for uninvited visitors.

NumberTheory · 18/07/2021 01:35

if my neighbour sounded like they might be coming through shared wall (which it may have sounded like if he was knocking bricks off) and they were not answering the door, I might enter in order to find out what was going on and ensure my property wasn't at risk. If you leave it and they come through the wall it's too late. You and/or the builder really should have informed him what you were going to be doing before he needed to come round and find out.

NumberTheory · 18/07/2021 01:37

Sorry, just seen that it wasn't a shared wall (why was his shower room a potential issue then?). Then that's different and pretty bad, though to some extent it depends how long he tried to get hold of the builder.

Hothammock · 18/07/2021 02:14

I am bemused why you are fixated on your neighbour investigating noise at yet you are willing to get a builder to dismantle your wall rather than make your neighbour move their junk and check where this water is coming from. It all seems disproportionate to me!

Jent13c · 18/07/2021 08:05

I'm genuinely surprised that the vast majority of people when hearing workman noise next door and a builder van outside would rush towards the source of the noise including actually entering the property. Unless there was water pouring in through my house or something that constitutes an actual emergency I would never have gone in.

Original poster
Gardenwoe · 18/07/2021 09:11

@NumberTheory

if my neighbour sounded like they might be coming through shared wall (which it may have sounded like if he was knocking bricks off) and they were not answering the door, I might enter in order to find out what was going on and ensure my property wasn't at risk. If you leave it and they come through the wall it's too late. You and/or the builder really should have informed him what you were going to be doing before he needed to come round and find out.
For those concerned about us knocking through/down a party wall.... this is the size of the hole. And literally 2 brick behind the skirting have been removed, and then there is a cavity....the neighbours wall other side of cavity hasn't been touched.
AIBU to go into CF neighbours bedroom
OP posts:
Cissyandflora · 18/07/2021 09:14

@Gardenwoe did you find the cause of damp yet?

VanGoghsDog · 18/07/2021 09:24

It's still a party wall and you have broken the law by not serving the notice. You do not have to actually go through the wall for the notice to be required.

Original poster
Gardenwoe · 18/07/2021 09:36

@Cissyandflora still no idea a had a fan on it all weekend and it's not even dried out yet as you can see

@VanGoghsDog Do behave. A couple of things. He was 'given notice' we've been talking about it over the garden fence. He knew we were getting our builder in to have a look, he just didn't know when. Additionally does that mean when we had that plug socket put in - abs the wires chased into the brickwork we also needed a party wall agreement? And finally - this thread is about the audacity of him entering my property without permission from anyone. So why the derail about party wall agreements I'm not sure.
But thanks for your input anyway

OP posts:
Cissyandflora · 18/07/2021 10:19

@Gardenwoe as it’s an interior wall you’re going to need to open the wall more and find out what’s going on.

Bargebill19 · 18/07/2021 13:57

@Gardenwoe. Do you have a remote camera scope that you can use.? Might show something else in there which in turn may lead to a solution eg if water is dripping or pooling and then running along a piece of metal/brick work/ etc.
(In answer to you other question - because people are …..)

NumberTheory · 18/07/2021 16:59

It’s hard to know what your neighbours experience was.

It may be that he was just nosey. It may be that from his side it sounded much more like you might be going through his wall. If the latter, I don’t think he was unreasonable to enter your home while that was happening since no one answered the door. If the former, he was.

Swipe left for the next trending thread