Wwyd, neighbour noise

[Struckbylightning]

This is more of a what would you do question, hoping for some wise advice. We have just moved into a new house, which we all love, apart from one problem. In the evenings we can hear noise from next door. It’s often a rhythmic thumping base sound, but sometimes voices from the telly.

At first we wondered if we were living next door to a house of teens, but we introduced ourselves over the fence the other day and they are a lovely elderly couple. The man is clearly a little deaf, so maybe he just has to turn stuff up to hear.

But it’s driving us, especially my husband, crazy. He is on about moving again, and I just can’t bear the thought of doing that again so soon.

The obvious course of action is to go and talk to them first, but what to say without coming across as total arseholes? How does one even begin that conversation??

I think if you buy a house attached to another it's the risk you take.

If it's just someone trying to hear his tv I really wouldn't have the heart to say anything tbh. Turn your tv up too maybe?

Soundproof the wall?

I'd sit in a different room if possible?

Eeek I feel your pain because it took ages to get all of my older relatives to accept that it wasn't us talking too quietly but them not being able to hear as well.

Buy the old boy a nice set earphones 😉

How loud is the noise? Neighbour noise is to be expected most of the time. Next door plays the banjo next to my head but I don't mind that, upstairs has had loud performance sex and likes to binge watch Schitts creek loudly with both our windows open. She also have a young screaming baby. Downstairs is a shop which is the worst, loud bassy music 10 hours a day, and seems to vary in volume.

You either get used to it, or every time you hear ANY noise it will send an instant rage through you.

In the meantime, my solution when its bad is my own TV or music on (not loud). Its amazing how it distracts you from the sounds. Or headphones when you and DH are not together.

You can't go round I don't think, they can't help being deaf, and its not fair to ask, they'll probably fret about it constantly if they're as nice as you say and ruin the enjoyment of the show.

With my grandpa, we got him some headphones which he actually loved. My mum discovered subtitle function all by herself. Latest stage is my own DH, he accepted he might have a hearing problem when I pointed out that whenever he'd been the last to bed and turned the TV off, in the morning I would find it with volume set on something in the 90% not the 50% range.

I'm having the same issue in my new house. The noise is unbelievable and can be heard clearly in parts of the house that aren't even attached to next door, including in the storey above his and in our extension. Yesterday it was so loud my toddler couldn't stop crying and kept running onto the landing pointing out of the windows and covering her ears.

My DP finally had enough a couple of weeks ago and knocked. He's not at all confrontational so went about it the wrong way. He asked if they hear us at all and he said no and that he'd never heard our daughter, then asked if we hear him so my DP said yes, we hear your tv and radio really loudly. Nothing has happened to the volume since so we think he thought we were worried her could hear our daughter.
He's fairly elderly but doesn't actually seem to be that hard of hearing.

We moved because we had twatty noisy neighbours and this new issue just brings back all the issues we had previously. Honestly, if we could afford to move i would do it tomorrow.

Yes I accept that some neighbour noise is to be expected, sadly we could afford a detached house. But this is pretty intrusive, especially the bass noises, somehow you can feel it through your bones. I think I could probably learn to live with it, but it’s really really stressing out DH.

Thanks for the suggestion of sound-proofing, DH has been googling tonight and he reckons it may cost 5 grand! And we would probably have to loose our lovely old fireplace.

I don’t want to make the old boy feel bad, so I’m trying to think of how I could word such a conversation.

PissedOffNeighbour22 I really feel for you! Stress like that can really affect your whole life. My DH is loosing sleep over it. This is our first home that we have actually owned and it’s put a real dampener on the joy!

A success story!

My neighbour’s TV got louder and louder until I had to turn my TV up and eventually couldn’t watch anything quiet.

I eventually plucked up the courage to talk to my lovely but formidable neighbour. She demanded I came in to see how loud the TV was…my face must have been a picture (it was SO loud!). She went and got her hearing checked and got hearing aids. She says it’s changed her life . Moral of the story: you can but ask.

@Struckbylightning

Yes I accept that some neighbour noise is to be expected, sadly we could afford a detached house. But this is pretty intrusive, especially the bass noises, somehow you can feel it through your bones. I think I could probably learn to live with it, but it’s really really stressing out DH.

Thanks for the suggestion of sound-proofing, DH has been googling tonight and he reckons it may cost 5 grand! And we would probably have to loose our lovely old fireplace.

I don’t want to make the old boy feel bad, so I’m trying to think of how I could word such a conversation.

To successfully retro fit sound proofing you'd probably have to reduce your room size on that wall by 200mm (you need separation voids,various absorption materials and rubber mounts to stop bass in particular and to bring down the ceiling/lift up the floorboards (whichever is cheaper) and unless you followed it all the way on the shared wall upstairs and down it would only have a limited effect. Could easily eat up a lot more than £5k. Try to befriend them and buy them headphones and save yourself a lot of grief