To want to enjoy my garden!

[FunLovinGal]

DP and I have spent a large amount of money and effort building a tikki bar, built in BBQ and hot tub in our garden (it’s a proper one - not inflatable).

As the weather was so nice yesterday and DP’s kids were at their mums we decided to have a garden party/BBQ and invited a few of our friends round early evening.

It was so great to try out the new BBQ, hot tub, and the bar is fab - really fun and quirky decor, inspired by our holidays. Made everyone cocktails!

Only thing is, we’ve put in a new sound system, so wanted to test it. But before you criticise me, it’s not like we expect to be able to play loud music all of the time - only thinking in the afternoons and perhaps a couple of hours on Friday or Saturday nights when kids aren’t staying with us.

Anyway, at 10.30 (so not exactly middle of the night!) our neighbour came and screamed at us over the fence to turn off the music and to stop talking. We weren’t even playing it that loud at that point as had turned it down - so we could all hear each other talk over it without shouting.

She said if we don’t shut up she will call the police! FFS! We’ve only just put it in so of course we wanted to enjoy it.

I’m so angry! We’ve spent thousands and fully intend to enjoy our new outdoor space. We would not play music to the early hours but it really wasn’t that late.

AIBU to just keep using it and make sure music is off before 11? The thought of not being able to enjoy our lovely garden is heartbreaking!

I would LOVE to see a photo of this outdoor space so we can all judge it. Bet it doesn't actually exist, sadly.

I understand having a party/gathering during the day but hell, sound system till 10-11 at night sounds extreme if you have next door neighbours.

Thing with this sort of thing is that is much louder and annoying if you’re not a participant.

It might be not too loud for you, but your next door neighbour might have the whole evening disrupted by your party.

Few years ago I used to live next to a couple who built a similar thing in their garden, but it also included lights. My bedroom was facing the garden so on a hot summer nights I had to have the windows & blinds shut due to the noise/lights. To top it off, their sound system was was connected to their Alexa, so we could all hear the woman’s shouting “ALEXA, PLAY [INSERT A SONG TITLE]”😤

Only two weeks before the next “occasional” party? I’m sure your neighbours are dreading the summer.

I hate selfish people like you. A similar problem left me suicidal.
I feel so sorry for your neighbours

I know, right! Loud parties twice in a fortnight and outdoors music on low in between. It would drive me spare! Birdsong... wind through the trees... someone else's crappy music for hours on end...

It's truly baffling how so many people just don't get it. They think because something isn't illegal that it's OK.

I had a friend round the other night, just chatting quietly on the balcony with wine. I started to get self conscious around 9.30pm that we might be bothering people and we were inside by 10pm, and this was on a weekend, just chatting, no music. I'm sure our voices were carrying and I know that the windows opposite are people's bedrooms.

I would be mortified if my behaviour was affecting someone's sleep or mental health. How do so many people just not care?

It isn’t nor, no, to impose your music on your neighbours. I’d be furious. What gives you the right to disturb multiple neighbours? Really shitty behaviour.

I can currently hear three different lots of music from nearby neighbours gardens. There's almost always at least one person with their music loud enough for the street to hear it and if I'm trying to enjoy being outside myself the neighbours music and them having to be louder to be heard over it does ruin the atmosphere but I wouldn't complain, we just don't use my own outdoor space much, and I also spent money making it a relaxing place for me and it just isn't when you can regularly have the neighbours music and drunken mate chatter.

You say "occasional" but I imagine your neighbours have seen all that money being spent and are expecting to be more like a regular weekly/fortnightly or more often thing of having to listen to your choice of music and if it was loud that you had to talk over the top of it to people in your actual own garden I imagine it's pissed off more than just one neighbour and she's probably thinks she's nipping it in the bud in case it's gonna be a regular thing. Which to be fair it kind of sounds like that's what you're planning.

9pm isn't late but it doesn't mean people aren't trying to get young children to sleep, or that people aren't in bed, lots of people don't get Sundays off and have to start work, dh regularly had 5am Sunday work starts and would indeed be in bed trying to sleep, GSCEs and other exams are being sat and some kids will be revising, dds friend revises on evenings because on top of school she has a weekend job so also works Saturdays and Sundays in a restaurant to save for uni.

The same happens when we go camping now, everybody used to have their music on low so that their own group could hear it but not so loud that other people can't hear their own or have to listen to other families shouting over their own loud music, now there's always at least two groups with massive speakers on so loud they're forcing the whole campsite to have to listen to their music and chat, and I think that sort of thing is becoming common in gardens now.

10.30 is definitely anti social. I wouldn't be happy if I were your neighbour.

So you went round to apologise but told your neighbour she went too far when daring to complain and you're having another party in a fortnight and she's got to lump it? Aren't you a peach!

I sincerely hope it pisses down.

it’s not like we expect to be able to play loud music all of the time - only thinking in the afternoons and perhaps a couple of hours on Friday or Saturday nights when kids aren’t staying with us.

That's a lot more than just occasionally, we love a family party in the garden but we only have them about once a year and rarely in the evening.

I have never heard of an outdoor sound system, I have several friends who live on small holdings and live as rurally as you can get but and none of them have an outdoor sound systems despite having no neighbours. I can imagine it must be hell if there was a house with one on a housing estate.

so many people have outdoor living spaces these days - I thought it was quite normal.

And so many people have awful neighbours they are trapped next to.

People do have outdoor living spaces, they are called gardens. Maybe you could move your outdoor space indoors instead, it would me much warmer in our unreliable weather and climate. You could have loud indoor hot tub tiki parties all year round.

DP is upset about the sound system but he doesn’t want to fall out with the neighbours.

Im surprised at how many angry comments I got as so many people have outdoor living spaces these days - I thought it was quite normal.

You really aren't getting it. Are you in your early 20s and childless? First time living on your own? Because you clearly have no respect for the fact that everyone else has worked hard and spent ridiculous amounts of money on their own homes and gardens, too, and really don't want it ruined by selfish assholes who are tone deaf when it comes to their own wants and noise levels.

Yes, people have tables, couches and chairs in their gardens. They do not have sound systems that everyone else in the neighborhood have to put up with listening to in their own gardens. Imagine you wouldn't like it much if you're neighbours put a big speaker next to the fence, pointed it at your garden, and popped on loud opera when you were trying to have quiet enjoyment of your own property with your family.

Asides from the noise, your "outdoor living" will be impacting on wildlife, as well. You are very much in the wrong, and I pity your neighbours.

Oh come on - it’s a bit OTT to suggest my party could have made someone suicidal!

I’ll just have to enjoy the bar and hot tub for now and keep the music low until things settle down.

no, you should keep the music down full stop.

Read this thread which is running right now.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4567700-to-think-we-have-no-choice-but-to-move

Oh come on - it’s a bit OTT to suggest my party could have made someone suicidal!

Not really constant annoying noise can drive you crazy.

Oh come on - it’s a bit OTT to suggest my party could have made someone suicidal!

But your parties might. You know when you're going to have them. You know when they are going to start, when they are going to stop. You (roughly) know what's going to happen at them. You can shunt your kids off. You can call the party off when you want to go to bed. You can cancel it if you are ill, you have a bereavement.

Your neighbours don't have any of this knowledge, any of this power.

Do you know how many of your neighbours have small children, that go to bed early? Babies, that they are waking through the night for? How many of them are doing shift work? What about those that are chronically ill? Do you care?

This!!

I do hate this current spate of people turning gardens into tacky replicas of the indoors. If you want to enjoy the outdoors, surely you would want it to be like the actual outdoors?!

@FunLovinGal One of the main reasons I sold our last house was noise, music and smoke from a neighbour. It made me so stressed.

Who the actual hell installs an outdoor sound system in a garden that isn't set in several acres away from other people? I'm so angry on behalf of your neighbours. Playing music in a garden is not ok unless it's a party that you have given adequate notice for.

I am SO grateful for considerate neighbours. I always think about how noise travels and 10.30pm might seem ok to you, but for me that would be so late and annoying because my children are very early risers.

I feel stressed just thinking about this. If I was your neighbour watching a bloody bar and hot tub being built in your garden I would have been anxious too.

The comment about only doing this sort of thing when your partner's children are not with you speaks volumes.

If I was your neighbour I'd be reporting you to the council every time you played your music/made noise with your horrible sex pool, sorry, hot tub.

What kind of moron installs a sound system in their garden?

You deliberately set up your new garden so you could play and hear your music IN YOUR GARDEN. You do realise, don’t you, that your garden is not contained in a soundproof glass box so your selfish choice means your neighbours are bound to hear music played over a sound system whenever it is played and however “quietly” is is played. It’s not like having a window open on a hot day and someone occasionally being able to hear your music from outside.

And as for your pathetic “oh she won’t be able to hear my music VERY MUCH most of the time.” No. She and the rest of your neighbours, for whom I feel profoundly sorry, shouldn’t have to put up with your music at any time.

You sound incredibly incredibly selfish and ignorant. This could easily drive someone into depression and feelings of suicide. I really struggle to understand how you can't understand this. It sounds like you live in a terraced or semi detached and not once in this process did you think of anyone but yourselves.
Also congrats, you've very likely devalued your neighbours house. If they try to sell and potential buyers will see next doors garden, any sane person will run for the hills.

Oh dear. Your right to enjoy your garden does not trump your neighboursz' right to enjoy their garden in peace! A hot tub and sound system are not appropriate for a normal-sized suburban garden, sorry.

I bet your poor neighbours' hearts sank when you had the hot tub installed...