To hate living in a terraced house

[Terracesarebad]

Woken up at 7 am this morning by next door’s son pounding down their stairs. Could feel the vibration in my bedroom which is the furthest room from them. He then spent the next hour running up and down them, slamming doors & generally being noisy. He is 11.

I appreciate that he’s a child but my god I just want a lie in after working all week.

We live in a 1970s mid terrace or should I say “townhouse” which means 2 lots of stairs on our adjoining wall for people to thunder up and down. Last night we were trying to watch a film and all we could hear was next door moving around. It’s like living next to a herd of buffalo.

As I type this the pounding up and down the stairs has started again 🙄

Can’t ever have a lie in, have to listen to other people constantly, why do we built such shit houses in this country with no sound insulation and expect people to live decent lives?

Yes, I hated it. When we had saved up enough for buying our first home I said I would only buy a detached property as one noisy neighbour could ruin our quality of life. We moved to a cul de sac where most of our neighbours have grown up children and/or are retired. We have young children but are very mindful of our neighbours and everyone gets along great.

I live in a 1900 semi. Ours are all built back to front. So my sitting room wall is their kitchen and vice versa and our halls upstairs join and bedrooms are on the outside walls. I rarely if ever hear them, even when all the grandkids are over. Occasionally if they have a dinner party I can hear them in the kitchen through our chimney when they are all singing happy birthday or something, but rarely any other noise. I think if our living areas adjoined we would have more noise than we currently do. I don’t know why more houses aren’t built with the living areas opposite like ours

We lived in a terrace for years and it sas noisy but luckily our neighbours kepr similar hours to us and were generally considerate. Although the instrument practice was a bit much sometimes. But i found trying not to be inconsiderate really hard. Babies crying in the night and constantly trying to keep the toddlers from being toddlers.

It’s about the build, not the neighbours. I used to live in terrace which was built around 1910 in a working class neighbourhood and it was fairly basic but you couldn’t hear neighbours at all. You could play loud music even and no one could hear it. The only exception was noise made in front rooms could be heard by passers by walking along the street if you had the window open but that same noise couldn’t be heard by the people on with side of you. They were great to live in.

YANBU. I can understand somewhat in some older housing as they can be hard to refurbish into better sound insulation if they weren't built that way to start with, but that it's still an issue in more recently built homes is ridiculous - we have the technology to do better than that, but as a pp said, it's all down to money & cheaper supplies win out.

In my previous Victorian terrace it was a big issue & YANBU to hate it. Now I'm in a '50s terrace and I don't hear anything inside from my neighbours, even though I know one of my neighbours regularly watches her 7 year old granddaughter: I can hear them when she's out in the garden if I'm out or have all my windows open and she regularly comes over to ask my DS to play so I know she's a pretty noisy, stompy child, but I only hear her when she's outside. It's far more about the build of the place.

In my experience Yorkshire stone terraces are more solid and you get less noise from neighbours than a brick built terrace .

YANBU this is why we would only consider detached properties. Don’t want to be hearing other people’s daily living events when trying to relax.

I’m surprised that nobody has thought of building detached houses.😉

@Overdon

In my experience Yorkshire stone terraces are more solid and you get less noise from neighbours than a brick built terrace .

Mine isn't even a brick. It's some black breeze block thing

even in Belgravia detached properties are more desirable than terraced...

Well, of course they are. But I don’t know anyone with a detached house in Belgravia. However, a terraced house is vastly more desirable than a flat. And a terraced house in London is more desirable than a detached house in the suburbs of X town.

We lived in a 1960s semi with paper thin walls and shit, loud obnoxious neighbours. My MIL was smug, saying she heard nothing from her neighbours in her 1930s (larger, nicer, better area) semi. Simply better built, yada yada etc.
Then the old lady living next door to her died, and a young family moved in.
Turns out the house wasn't better built and she'd just been lucky with neighbours. She hears everything from next door now.

We ended up moving to a detached, after 6 years of noise hell it was the best move we ever made.

I think I know two people who live in detached houses, both in rural spots. Every single other person I know is either in a terrace or a semi-d. We’re a small island, we don’t have the space for all of us to have a garden right around our houses.

I'm quite lucky both set of neighbours are mature single couples who are out at work during the day and when they're home they are really quiet, so I don't even know if they are home or not. However, I can hear my neighbour sneeze sometimes so the walls must be quite thin therefore, I ensure my children are told to quieten down if they are getting too loud.

I used to live in a terraced and when me and the ex were going through a very sticky patch and extremely long period of no intimacy at all, We could hear next door shagging every night. Rubbed salt into the already open wounds! I’m detached now and it’s bliss. Laminate floors don’t help with noise.

I lived in a terrace house. It was hell. The neighbour would scream at her 8/9 year old daughter that she was a fucking bitch. She'd also have blazing rows with her boyfriend (never heard them 'making up', though). And she had three or four dogs that were mental.

When we moved we would only look at detached houses.

Those of you who say you only consider detached houses, where do you live? I’ve just looked on Rightmove, only one detached house for sale in my area and it’s £1.4m.

1900s terrace here walls are 55cm thick.
No noise what so ever.

Actually, if I stick my head in the old fireplace I can hear if they play music sometimes if they’re having a party because the wall there is about 1/3 as thick as the rest of the house.
Luckily I don’t spend much time with my head in the old fireplace.

I don't understand why they don't build houses so the halls are beside each other and so rooms are not adjoining as much

I assumed all semi detached houses were like this until I read differently on MNs

Totally agree! Our neighbors think playing guitar or violin at 9pm- well gone midnight some times, is perfectly acceptable, despite knowing we have 2 small children that will be in bed! 😡 have tried asking them to not multiple times to which we get 'oh yeah! Sorry!' Stops for a week and then starts again 🤦‍♀️

@HelloDulling

Those of you who say you only consider detached houses, where do you live? I’ve just looked on Rightmove, only one detached house for sale in my area and it’s £1.4m.

I live in a 1930 semi and the walls are thick, I hear nothing from the side that adjoins me, we have long drives with front gardens and private rear gardens. This was our second house as marrieds and I've always felt safe here.

However I have been thinking of moving, I'm alone now and want something smaller and easier to maintain (at least I think so). I agree that there are many houses for well over a £1m, some flats I've looked at are over £900k!

We're having this debate ATM actually. We can afford a detached house with a very small garden, and less bedrooms, or a bigger house with a large garden that's a semi. I think we're going to go detached. Noise is a big factor.

@HelloDulling

Those of you who say you only consider detached houses, where do you live? I’ve just looked on Rightmove, only one detached house for sale in my area and it’s £1.4m.

Nottingham suburbs/outskirts I guess it's be called you can get a 3 bed detached for £210k plus

I can’t afford a detached house in my town (desirable location just outside a city) but if I moved half an hour further away to another town, I could possibly get a small detached house on a new build estate. Then I have to compromise on traffic/commute/amenities etc but I am considering it!

We live in a 70s mid terrace. Had no idea how thin the walls were until ndn moved in about 4 years ago but it has been constant shouting, banging and music since then. Earlier this year they did a whole house refurbishment (obviously didn't give us any warning for the months of non stop noise to be polite!) and since then it is even louder, they must have knocked out some cupboards in their dining room which adjoins ours as I can now hear everything they say (read: shout)

We have really small gardens and we back on to lots of other terrace gardens and fortunately they are all completely quiet, just happy chatter and kids playing which is great. Unfortunately for us our ndn are the only ones who like to make themselves known in their garden by playing loud music and shouting at eachother over it. Four evenings in a row this week!

They went out yesterday and it has been utter bliss and pure silence. I have just heard their front door bang shut so they have obviously returned. I feel miserable and anxious already.