Neighbours treat their garden like a living room

[Norgernert]

I realise this could be entitlement / snobbery / nimbyism, hence looking for a genuine perspective on whether IABU.

We live in a quiet, semi-rural steading conversion, so a smallish cluster of houses in converted farm buildings. We’ve lived here for 20+ years, and it has always been blissfully quiet.

2 years ago the last working farm building was sold off to someone who converted it, and now they live there - young family in their late 20s with toddlers (we are in our 40s with teenagers).

The problem is, they are so very loud

Their conversion forms a courtyard, and they just treat the courtyard as another room of the house. They usually have double doors open, TV or music on, shouting from one side to the other.

It carries right through the area. There is no getting away from it, even going for a walk in the previously quiet fields.

We have had some respite in the winter when it was cold, but they are back to normal today and I just know it will be like this until autumn.

Do we just need to suck it up and accept that we have been lucky until now?

Try living in an ex-council flat in south London … zero sympathy! If I had a garden I’d live in it as much as I could

So bugging, I agree, and sympathise. There’s nothing you can do though unless you could do something super bugging for them and then cut a deal? Like, have a very fishy kipper barbecue right near their open french doors first thing in the morning? Then be like hey, I’ll kill the fish if you kill the music :)

@evian76

So bugging, I agree, and sympathise. There’s nothing you can do though unless you could do something super bugging for them and then cut a deal? Like, have a very fishy kipper barbecue right near their open french doors first thing in the morning? Then be like hey, I’ll kill the fish if you kill the music :)

You might be on to something there. If all the neighbours simultaneously had bonfires or BBQs then the smoke would force them to shut themselves in. Keep this up for a while until they realise how much 'antisocial' neighbours can negatively impact on their home and life.

Always make sure my children were not overly rowdy or screaming when playing outside, if they started to cry as a baby or after a tumble i brought them straight indoors. I was brought up to be quiet as lots or elderly and ill neighbours, not allowed outside to play before 10am either. These ways have become lost over the years and sadly most of us are all faced with noisy neighbours (hope i do not sound like a cow). They may not realise how much noise they are making, or if the courtyard would amplify sounds.

I don’t think YABU. I’ve lived through this myself. My neighbours and surrounding cul de sac were lovely until lockdown hit and couldn’t get rat arsed in the pub. So they had weekly street parties with trance blasting til 2am. They also allowed their rude, extremely loud children run amok and screech for hours on end with no discipline or care. I had to take phone calls parked in the car a few streets away they were that loud.
They also completely blocked the streets with all their cars during these weekly parties.

It came to a head summer 2020 when we adopted a timid and neglected cat and their music and shouting terrified him he was shaking and our walls were actually vibrating with the volume. That was it for us, we ended up telling them how unreasonable their behaviour was - but because they were all drunk it turned into a slanging match.
Needless to say we moved out 1 month later when we found our dream house in a quieter area with extremely considerate neighbours. Best thing we ever did.

My advice - speak to them kindly before it builds, it can escalate unnecessarily and you have a Right to relax in your own home and not have to listen to screaming or shite music all the time when the sun Weather is half decent. Good luck - I’m sure you’ll have more mature neighbours than we did!

Just wondering though if anyone else like me dreams of living on a private island with not a sinner for miles? I dislike neighbours

@Usernamerequired

Just wondering though if anyone else like me dreams of living on a private island with not a sinner for miles? I dislike neighbours

There is a reason that truely detached properties standing within decent sized grounds fetch a premium.

Why should you have to move??? You love your home and have been happy there for all those years. It's these particular neighbours who are causing a nuisance to you and the other people who live in the neighbourhood. The kind of set up you describe makes for a very close-knit community. From what you say the rest of your neighbours are friends and in agreement with you; so the new neighbours must feel somewhat left out (their fault because of their antisocial behaviour). Maybe a friendly visit from you and your neighbours to say how their noise is affecting all of you, even though you live three doors away. Best to try and get them involved in the neighbourhood rather than antagonise them, they may be more considerate if you show friendship towards them. If they continue, go round again and politely tell them you will inform environmental health if it continues, and mention the Planning breach. If they don't turn the volume down after that, do indeed inform environmental health, and also the Planning department, because they have clearly breached planning permission. They will then either have to apply in retrospect or get it knocked down and built to the original specifications, which will both be costly. If they continue to be obnoxious and you and your reasonable neighbours continue to object to their behaviour, they may well end up moving away. However, I hope that you can all sort this out between yourselves without any animosity.

This is antisocial behaviour as they have been approached about the noise. Sorry is it good enough. Before contacting the Council to ask for a warning to be given, write a diary as evidence, make recordings.

It sounds hellish OP.

@CuddlyCactus is giving good advice.

Banding together and drafting a precise list outlining all complaints, your belief that their ignoring of their planning permission and reverting to earlier plans, has exacerbated the noise and your intention to send in a formal group complaint via a solicitor, to the council.

Local papers like these types of stories if the letter somehow found its way to them.

As a group you have far more power and sway acting together.

At least they don’t have BBQs daily. My neighbours do. Literally every evening meal is one from about now until October. I don’t mind that they use their garden as a living room and are noisy. But the smoke from about 4 onwards… our gardens are extremely small and in the summer with windows open our house stinks of smoke. And any washing outside is doomed. They pick theirs in but never think they should warn me. They don’t use BBQ fuel they cut down growth on a tree in their garden and burn that. It drives me crazy we cannot be outside in the evening as the snell is so bad but there is nothing I can do about it.

Having read the whole thread, I can see some good advice and some points of view that the OP could consider taking action on, plus some personal stories which make you a bit sad that people are inconsiderate. But, a range of tolerances, posted by a cross-section of people too - sometimes with diverse views. I'm hoping that the OP has been buoyed by these, including one that may have been a neighbour. What has surprised me though (and sorry to be off topic) is that these have been plundered to produce an article for the Daily Mail without the OPs knowledge. I'm quite new to Mumsnet, and didn't really realise that this was a thing. Naive, maybe, or obviously, but I don't really think this is on. Sorry I will get back on topic now ! x

@Aniita

Loud voices I don't mind. But there is a special place in hell for those who subject the surrounding gardens with music on a sunny day.

This

We have similar a few doors away. A family, who moved in three years ago, have converted so their house opens up and the garden becomes another room. They are loud, their children are loud even their two dogs are loud. Both their immediate neighbours plus several others, have asked them to turn the volume down, but it hasn't made a difference. Everyone living around them is irritated. Now one of their next door neighbours has put their house on the market saying they cannot stand it anymore. They were away last week - it was lovely.

Some people are incredibly selfish

Bad neighbours, unless you've experienced them first hand you can't imagine the torment. Music so load you need to wear earplugs in your own home, screaming through the night, computer games at full volume, so it's like being in a war zone (3 in the morning) fighting, drugs, naked yoga (in the road) car damage. I sympathize with you but unfortunately people like this think it's normal and will never change.

@BoredZelda

If you didn’t want to hear neighbours, you should have gone for fully rural.

No. OP’s neighbours are the ones who should have gone fully rural, then they would be welcome to make as much noise as they want.

Children will grow up. The noise will then abate. I think you can ask for music or TV to be turned down - it may help if you say it has woken you / keeps you awake / can hear it over your own TV etc, but voices you cannot do anything about - people do have a right to live (and scream). We have the same with new neighbours.

It's not unreasonable for them to use their courtyard and enjoy it. It sounds lovely. Personally I'd be befriending them and joining in! However if the music is too loud late at night then I think it's fine to gently ask them to turn it down. Better to make friends rather than enemies in this situation

I lost a sale on my house due to neighbours like this. I'd just have a quiet word with them - ask if they can turn down the noise a notch. Be super nice - lovely how you're out when the weather's good etc but the noise travels and seems to be amplified by the courtyard setting.... so many neighbour probs arise cos we don't talk to each other...

UNBU, you have the right to 'quiet enjoyment' of your property in law.

Good-luck, I despise people who are inconsiderate, your neighbours sound inconsiderate!

@Norgernert

Just a thought but you've given an lot of description and a diagram so if your awful neighbours do find this thread, or it does get picked up by any kind of journalist, then it's going to be a doddle for them to work out who you and the Deliverer of the Anusol are.

YANBU I suspect those who don't agree are just not having this go on - yet - many of my neighbours behave like this - they seem incapable of socialising indoors, even in winter, and not because of covid - they do all their smoking, chatting, drinking ,eating, cooking, phoning in their gardens, play loud music or computer games, I to the point I honestly wonder what their houses are for - my neighbourhood has gone from being a quietish suburb to some kind of permanent campsite - drives me nuts, I have to go out to have any kind of peace, even rain doesn't stop them, they simply put up massive canvas shelters

Perhaps you could try the friendly approach. Put on a smile, lean out your bedroom window and shout ‘Oi! Keep the noise down!’ Stay smiling and ask them over for a cuppa. The worst of your situation is you feel powerless.

That must be awful - you’re not being unreasonable, they’re being incredibly inconsiderate. Tbh I’d have to say something. If your other neighbours feel the same maybe you could all say something! If that didn’t work I’d have to move (but in winter!). It’s the kind of thing that can really impact on your mental health.

YANBU.
Dismaying that so many people think it's ok to do what you want in your own space with no thought of how it may affect others. Whatever happened to consideration to others.

Just make them aware that noise carries a lot and you can hear everything all the time. If you can hear their tv over yours when you have windows closed that is just ridiculously loud and I feel your pain. Kids noise i can handle but tv and music if it’s constant you really need to have a word. I expect they just don’t realise and I’m sure they wouldn’t like it the it the other way around when they are trying to get their kids to sleep it relaxing when they are in bed.