Neighbour wants no drilling this afternoon

[Daisydrum]

We are having work done on our house. The workers are only here M-F within normal hours. Our neighbour has asked for no drilling this afternoon because of important calls. Not sure if they are being unreasonable?
We did warn them months ago work was coming and when work was starting.
They have had about 2 years worth of work on and off, often during my important calls (and they’ve had it on evenings and weekends).
I’m not sure if the builders will need to use the drill or not but there will certainly be some banging as we can’t expect them to do no work for the whole afternoon.
Not sure what to say back.

You’re talking as if builders are lazy idiots who want to sit and drink tea all day and don’t have any autonomy or deadlines to work to.

No I haven’t and you know it.

"CharlotteUnaNatalieThompson

I'd ask the builders if it was possible to plan their day to avoid drilling this on but if it wasn't then too crack on. And I'd reply to the neighbors saying that you've asked this but obviously having had work done themselves they'll know it might not but possible"

This is perfect.

It's not an unreasonable request for one afternoon. The call could be for any kind of reason not just a work one - I recently had a hospital consultation that I have been waiting 18 months for and there was a lot of information to take in; a friend is a foster carer and has had to attend some important meetings over zoom with sensitive information; someone else I know has parents with worsening care needs and had to spend a whole afternoon making calls to the doctors/care agencies/nursing homes/social services etc and needed to concentrate etc etc

Why are some people acting like builders have zero flexibility with their work at all?

I had my kitchen refitted early this year and I had to do a couple of zoom meetings one morning. I just told the fitters so that they wouldn't come and interrupt me working in my room but they were more than happy to rearrange and do quieter jobs (or at least not the loudest ones) until my meeting was done.

Sometimes jobs have to be done in a specific order and so they might not be able to put it off if other jobs can't be done until it has finished but equally sometimes they have other jobs that can be done without drilling. If the request is put to the builders then they can either say "Sorry, can't move on till the drilling is done so we either carry on or clock off early, which do you prefer?" or "Sure, no problem, we were going to do the drilling today and start the tiling to.orrow but we can just crack on with the tiling now and do the drilling tomorrow"

Hi all, thank you for all your responses. They were work calls. They’ve given me a couple of hours where it’s most important.
The request came in this morning. For this afternoon.
I have spoken to the builders and they are going to take a later lunch over the two hour time and won’t be doing any drilling but will do some other work. We can’t afford to lose the time.
These neighbours only ever contact us if they need something.

Id start off by asking the builders how practical this is and if they can work around it. If they agree I would tell the NDN that you have asked them as a "special concession" but that you are not going to make a habit of it. If the need arises again they will have to make other arrangements.

If the builders say it will impede their progress I would tell them to crack on and send a Mumsnet reply. "Builders say its not possible to gurantee no drilling at this time so I will leave it with you.."

The dont reply to any more messages. Texts can always get lost or not noticed.

That’s nice of you to agree but I’d make it clear that this is a one-off because it doesn’t seem like it’s anything exceptional and I wouldn’t want them thinking that they can just ask whenever they want. If they get arsey, I’d say something like ‘well, as you remember, your own work was rather noisy so I’m sure you can understand the position I am in’.
If I had had my own works done for 2 years, no way would I dare ask that someone else be quiet unless it really was an emergency.
Good that the builders could be flexible though.