To Think Having ASD Doesn’t Entitle You to This?

[WheelieBinPrincess]

Just moved into our own flat after many many years of renting/saving. Outskirts of London, zone 5, which explains why we’ve bought a flat and not a house, a flat was what we could afford. But it’s a nice place. Not a new build, for context, but not really old either. 70’s I think. We are on the ground floor. Above us live a single mum and her teenage son.

We’ve only been here three nights but have been kept up until 3am or so by what was quite obviously someone using headphones and shouting into a mouthpiece. DH was a gamer so I knew what was going on. Think ‘NOOOOOO!!!’ And ‘FUCCCCKKKKKKKK’ at random intervals. It’s incredibly loud.

We have a 3 month old baby. Sleep is obviously precious enough as it is, he still wakes 2/3 times in a night to feed.

Anyway, this morning we popped upstairs and the mum answers the door-explained that we just moved in, can hear all the shouting, please can it stop because it’s a very unsociable time of night to be dealing with that level of noise, we have a baby, DH has work etc etc. She was very apologetic and said it was her 15 year old son playing Fortnite, and she went to sleep with ear plugs in but that he wakes her up a lot too.

But then she said there wasn’t much she could do because her son has ASD, it’s his hobby and only way of being sociable as he games with others online, he considers these gamers his friends so he won’t be able to stop doing it. She said in time hopefully we’ll ‘filter out’ the noise. He gets carried away and he doesn’t do it on purpose but she said again about his ASD and repeated that that’s the way he is and there is nothing she can do. Then she said we hope we have a lovely Christmas and closed the door

Now, I know this is Mumsnet and I’ve been here a long time. So, before anyone asks-

No, we can’t ‘move bedrooms’
No, we can’t move
No, we can’t afford a detached house.

But surely we shouldn’t just have to put up with it?! They’re having a laugh right?

My son is another very loud gamer with ASD, and it is a very important social outlet for him, BUT we have a very firm rule that the computer goes off at 10pm, no matter what. And if he gets unreasonably loud, he is given reminders about being considerate to our neighbours.

Your neighbour is being very unreasonable.

^majority (not all) of parents with SEN kids literally do nothing but pander to their kids, letting them get away with everything and use no discipline whatsoever, God help them kids when they grow up and try to navigate a world that doesn't give a damn about their ASD.^

Bingo... what a bloody vile comment.

@DoucheCanoe

You are of course free to believe what you like about me.

All I have said is that OP's situation is not acceptable and that the neighbour should be trying to improve the situation either herself or by seeking support and that there are autism charities out there that claim to offer support to parents.

I have also said that not every behaviour is acceptable regardless of individual circumstances and that acting like it is for autistic teenagers is not going to help them being accepted by wider society.

I'm not going to apologies for my views and I reject your label of me as prejudiced because I don't believe in endless tolerance of any and all behaviour.

@Floundery

your ignorance and attitude towards Autistic individuals absolutely need to be challenged

Sadly they walk among us @DoucheCanoe. A parent at my DS’ primary regularly tells other parents that I should “put my son in a special school” so her dDD doesn’t have to see his meltdowns.

Bless her naïveté. As if there are hordes of specialist school places that the LA is falling over itself to pay for. I think she’s been drinking the same Kool-Aid as @Eleganz

I agree. And they're here on MN.

I suggest addressing the issue with neighbour as a matter of urgency - not least because in worst case scenarios it might lead to an ASBO. 😢
This thread somehow reminds me of an article from a quite a few years ago. I hope this things don’t happen anymore.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/nov/18/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation

OP, even if you are able to sort this issue, someone else could move in years down the line and play music all night. Your only, permanent solution is to save to have your flat professionally soundproofed. My friend had to do it and it was really effective.

[quote Eleganz]@soapboxqueen

Do you really think that the response OP got is going to show her that that person has tried everything they can? I don't. She's been basically told to put up and shut up.

Much easier for people to try and claim that others are being discriminatory and thinking I'll of those with autistic children than actually thinking about the situation faced by the OP.[/quote]
There are making plenty of discriminatory statements knocking about on this thread. The kicker is pretty much all of them don't realise how discriminatory they are being because they know fuck all about autism or other co-morbidities.

How would you like this mother to perform when asked (probably for the millionth time) that someone doesn't like her sons behaviour.

She expressed that she understood it was happening, she explained why and that there wasn't much she could do.

What do you want from her?

I used to read threads like this years ago when my now adult daughter was a child.

Some of the attitudes on here are just depressing...

I know. It's very sad to see hateful attitudes toward disability but there you go.

@AlfonsoTheUnrepentant I used to fight our corner but have no energy for it anymore...

[quote Thornrose]@AlfonsoTheUnrepentant I used to fight our corner but have no energy for it anymore...[/quote]
I'm sorry to hear that and I sympathise totally. Sometimes I feel too tired too fight; other times I stand up and speak out. This is one of those times.

@cansu Thank you for sharing about your two children. I'm not sure if this came across in my post, but your situation with your son is exactly what I meant when I said that we're commenting about one specific situation with one autistic teenager, and those comments can't simply be applied to other autistics in different situations.

My reading of the situation was based on the OP mentioning that another neighbour had spoken to this boy and he'd appeared to understand and say he would move to a different room. I took that to signal adequate expressive and receptive language, and ability to comprehend the interaction, that this particular autistic boy has capacity to understand and engage meaningfully about his gaming and how it affects others.

Please don't read this as an assumption that I would say the same about your son, in your situation, because I wouldn't. I totally hear you saying there is a very wide range of abilities and behaviours in autism, and that's why I stated the assumptions I was working on about this person's profile before I made my comments. And I accept my assumptions may be wrong, even if I made them as carefully as I could from the OP's posts - but I think that is part of the nature of posting on MN, and why so much back and forth is needed to unpick what responses are based on?

I'm so sorry to hear you had such a struggle with your neighbours. 🌺

I find it very depressing that apparently some parents of children autism can't seem to grasp that if you have met one person with autism you have met one person with autism ,and just because their kids can accept rules and boundaries ,other children like mine are so severely impacted they have no concept of rules and boundaries

Btw when I echoed the suggestion re funding for soundproofing, I was thinking of Family Fund, as we've just been signposted to them ourselves. If the family is renting privately and their tenancy could be affected, I would hope soundproofing would be offered by someone somewhere before potentially making a family homeless.

@x2boys

I find it very depressing that apparently some parents of children autism can't seem to grasp that if you have met one person with autism you have met one person with autism ,and just because their kids can accept rules and boundaries ,other children like mine are so severely impacted they have no concept of rules and boundaries

That is very true. I am weary of the anecdotes of what some posters do with their children as they assume that if it works for them then, by God, it should work for everyone.

Find out if they are rental tenants. If so, who is their LL.

Most tenancy agreements have a clause to prevent nuisance to neighbours. So you could pressure their LL about noise control.

@laurasecord

My DH and I absolutely detest living next door to a boy with ASD. He makes our life hell with his noise. There's fuck off we can do as mum just says oh he's autistic. What about my mental health? Dh's mental health? We've complained loads of times. Nothing changes.

So basically I think you will get nowhere with this. Being loud isn't acceptable, especially at unsocial hours, ASD or not. Of course you'll get called ablest 😲

Move then.

Autism is currently diagnosed using the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Up to the 1970s the DSM was used to diagnose homosexuality as a mental disorder but when society accepted homosexuality as a natural difference rather than a condition it was removed from the manual. Yes society currently views all autistic individuals as disabled but this doesn't mean we are, in the same vein being a member of the LGBTQ+ community doesn't mean you automatically have a mental disorder.

We don't talk about autistic people in the same way as neurotypicals, for example, there is no distinction between a well-rounded autistic individual who isn't disabled by their differences and an autistic person with learning difficulties, MH issues, no confidence etc, which is why this thread is thread has so much misinformation on what this teenagers life/needs may be.

What we've learnt from this thread is he is a teenager likes staying up late gaming. When another neighbor let him know he was keeping him awake, he was really considerate and moved rooms. Great - hopefully once OP speaks to him directly there are no more issues.

All this post had to say was "I've just moved into a flat. My 15 year old neighbour has been up the last few nights gaming till 3am and it disturbs my sleep. Spoke to mum about this but she said she won't speak to him. Any suggesstions on how I could handle this?

Hopefully, in future the OP will be more mindful about re-enforcing false stereotypes when they have no relevance to her post.

@2bazookas

Find out if they are rental tenants. If so, who is their LL.

Most tenancy agreements have a clause to prevent nuisance to neighbours. So you could pressure their LL about noise control.

What a great idea. Perhaps with enough pressure the landlord will evict them.

joobleydoo
Thank you for coming back to say that. I really appreciate it.

No. It's not ok.
She should soundproof his room

I'm looking into panels for my youngest, not because he makes a lot of noise but because he can't tolerate it.

@x2boys

I find it very depressing that apparently some parents of children autism can't seem to grasp that if you have met one person with autism you have met one person with autism ,and just because their kids can accept rules and boundaries ,other children like mine are so severely impacted they have no concept of rules and boundaries

@x2boys I agree.

Not a chance in hell ds would be quite if I told him to be. He is too impacted to give a understand or give a shit about rules / boundaries. It’s not as if we don’t try to keep his noise down, it’s all i bloody do.

Unless I’m to masking tape his mouth shut he makes the noise he makes and that’s that and nothing I say or do changes that.

He’s also often awake early hours, despite being on 2 sleep medications 🤦🏻‍♀️

[quote Eleganz]@DoucheCanoe

You are of course free to believe what you like about me.

All I have said is that OP's situation is not acceptable and that the neighbour should be trying to improve the situation either herself or by seeking support and that there are autism charities out there that claim to offer support to parents.

I have also said that not every behaviour is acceptable regardless of individual circumstances and that acting like it is for autistic teenagers is not going to help them being accepted by wider society.

I'm not going to apologies for my views and I reject your label of me as prejudiced because I don't believe in endless tolerance of any and all behaviour.[/quote]
So even though nobody has said that the OPs situation is OK you just want to say it isn't OK again, as if everyone else disagrees.

Even though it's been pointed out to you repeatedly that there is in reality no support and about short comings of the offers of support there are, you still think the mother should magically find a solution anyway.

You don't have to apologise for your views but don't expect that we don't see what you are.

@DoucheCanoe

My autistic child had hospital school an hour a day and some tutors provided by their school. Took contacting my MP etc etc to get this provision.