Surely keeping your neighbours awake until the early hours, or alternatively waking them up at 3am, EVERY WEEKEND is unreasonable?
Background:
I've lived in my terraced house on a small quiet street for 11 years. Never had a problem with neighbours or noise until the last 4 months and I'm at my wit's end. I feel so on edge every weekend.
For a few years the house that shares my living/dining room and bedroom walls was home to a family with 4 kids. Most recently it was a young couple with a dog. Previously I'd hear some normal day to day stuff from that side, sure they heard it from me, but it was nothing annoying or interfered with daily life or sleep. Nothing anyone ever needed to mention. We knew each other to say hello, exchange a Christmas card. That's about it.
The family in the house behind has a big do once a year but that shuts down around midnight. It's not a party area at all. It's mainly older people and a few families.
I say all this to show I know what the noise level between the properties is. I'm not new to it.
Problem:
The young couple next door sold the house earlier this year. A young woman (mid to late twenties) moved in, with her young daughter, during last lockdown. During the week it's fine. But at the weekend the daughter is with the dad and my neighbour has her mates around. From the first weekend she moved in, it's been almost every Saturday night. So over 4 months of either being kept awake until 2/3am, or woken anywhere between 3-5am by her coming home with friends and carrying on the party.
It started during lockdown (which was even more frustrating) and I hoped once places reopened she'd be someone who was out in a bar or club. But I suspect she's the only one of the group with her own place and so they all come here. Sometimes when they're too hammered to go back to their own places. Other times they just stay here for the long haul.
Once the summer arrived they moved to sitting in the garden until 3am or later, with music playing inside the house loud enough for them to hear outside. Which means I can hear it from all directions. The street is dark, every house and garden is dark, because it's night time, and she and her friends are out their with lights on, music playing, wittering away and breaking into song. I've heard other houses slam windows shut. She's oblivious. Because she's off her face.
The more they drink, the louder the get. And they drink A LOT. Mixed with energy drinks. The "babe" the "omg" and the cackling. I can hear whole conversations, the exact songs they're asking Alexa to play so they can sing bad karaoke.
The first time, back in April, I let it go, thinking she was lonely in her new place and also wanted to show it off to her friends. The following week, when they came home and at 4am and sang karaoke until 8am, I put a note through the door. Polite - welcome to the street, hope you're settling in, but you might not realise the walls aren't that thick and you woke me from 4am-8am. Last week you kept me awake until 2am. I could actually hear quite a lot of the conversation and some of it sounded very personal and you might not want neighbours not know that much detail. Thought you should know.
She posted sweet apology note back, said she was really sorry, didn't realise and would keep it down.
And then has carried on exactly as before. Every weekend.
They are so loud that even through the wall I know, for example, that her parents bought the house for her after her latest breakup, of which there have been several (her friend proclaimed her to be amazing and, I quote: "I'm going to use a big word, she's....resilient"). One of her friends hates everyone they work with and is annoyed they didn't get a promotion. Her older sister, ironically, wants to move house because her "neighbours are trash". Someone's boyfriend cheated, but they "don't need that baggage". Literally, I know everything about them it's that loud. All to a soundtrack provided by Alexa, who's called on regularly.
I have tried banging on the wall at 1am. I've tried loudly slamming my windows shut at 2am when they're in the garden. I even resorted to desperately shouting "please, please keep it down" when they woke me at 3.45am coming home shouting "Alexa, play 'happy and healthy" and proceeded to try and learn it by playing it on a loop and shrieking. That was despite me going to bed in earplugs. Nothing worked.
On advice from a friend who's had a similar problem in the past I've kept a log of all the incidents so that I could report it to the council. I also kept a copy of my original note and her reply. But I really don't want to have to go down formal channels. I also live alone and hate confrontation. Covid has meant working from home too, so I'm literally here all the time. I don't want any trouble or animosity.
But this past weekend when she had 3 people arrive at midnight and stayed out in the garden with music playing from inside the house and raised voices and cackling every other word was "babe" or "f", until after 2am, I just couldn't take it anymore. When I called out that people were trying to sleep, one of them told me to f off....
I put a handwritten letter through the door the next day saying that the noise from her house and garden was continuing to disturb me and I suspect several other houses. Specifically on these occasions (listed every date and time from last 4 months to show the clear pattern), that in 11 years no one in the street had made the amount of disturbance she had, and in the last 4 months I've bought industrial earplugs and new headphones just to try and get some peace at weekends. That I can't relax when it sounds like the party is in my house, that it's increasingly stressful not knowing when it will end and I can go to bed, or if it's quiet and I go to sleep will I be woken up in the early hours? This is despite the ear plugs. That I have sought advice and can take this to the council but wanted to approach her again first, and she had promised to keep it down back in April. I'd rather solve it informally. But that she and her friends could go to any number of places to party, but her neighbours have nowhere else they can sleep. Please can this issue be ended now.
I've not had a response and honestly I hate confrontation and don't particularly want one. I just want it to stop.
The neighbours the other side of her (the end of the row) are away every weekend with their caravan (lucky them) and so can't back me up by saying anything.
I feel like I'm alone in a weekly nightmare and I don't understand why she doesn't see that her behaviour is too much. But I'm pretty sure it's because she's so hammered she has no idea what day or time it is, let alone notice that every house in the street is trying to sleep.