To be in tears over noisy next door neighbours?

[TinaTeaspoons]

The grandkids in particular are aged about 4 and 7 but screech and scream like toddlers when out in the garden. They are incapable of speaking in normal voices but then one of the aunts is gobby as anything too so the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. This can go on for hours and one of the kids usually ends up hurt which then results in loud crying. The aunts and uncles rile them up and encourage them to yell and scream. It's pretty much every Saturday and Sunday afternoon and all through the holidays. What's worse is that they have installed a hot tub right by our window which I can only imagine will make the situation a million times worse.
DH doesn't want to cause issues and will not say anything and will not let me. I cannot take anymore and think it's going to be a hellish spring and summer. Spent most of today cursing the noise and now in tears.

YANBU. Hell is other people.

Even for a few hours it is intolerable. The kids are not supervised and that makes it worse but as I said, my god, the voice of the youngest really grates. They don't speak to each other in normal voices, just shriek at one another. Then the adults join in, yelling loudly and whipping the kids up into even more of a frenzy. They just don't care and we are so quiet as neighbours that they are just taking the piss. The neighbours on the other side are in their nineties but think one is very deaf which actually helps in this scenario. But even the neighbours a few doors down would hear it. They know exactly what they are doing, they are just extremely selfish individuals.
I shouldn't feel grateful to get some peaceful sleep either. While I sympathise with those who haven't due to neighbours, it doesn't make my experience better or make it OK that many days have been ruined with their selfish excessive noise.
No option to move right now. I've just ordered some earplugs which is insane but don't feel I have a choice. It just really makes me angry that they would kick off immediately if we as a family behaved the same as them.

Cannot believe dome of the responses, constant shouting and screaming is not normal noise ffs. I'd move from these feral people who obviously don't give a shit about anyone else. That is so unfair for you to not even be able to enjoy your home without people yelling and screaming

Get a hosepipe and suddenly develop really poor aim.
Make really loud sex noises.
Employ a few choice swear words when outside.
Record them and take it round and play it back to them later so they can hear exactly how ridiculous they are sounding.

For everyone saying 'kids grow up', yes they do but they can grow into teenagers who play their music really loud every time their parents go out. And the parents can go out a lot once the kids don't need their attention anymore. We had full days and nights of music. And wish we'd moved sooner when it had all initially started!

I’d be thrilled if my neighbours were into German metal too 🤘🏻

Sprinkle some gellibaff in their hot tub

Put some speakers outside and play annoying music.
I read on a forum a neighbour was obsessed with his garden. Was outside every week end mowing first thing in the morning, clipping blowervacing. They asked them to do the loud bits later in the day but were ignored. The op found and old cd player with a celine dion album. They played the power on love outside all day on repeat. Not overly loud, but enough to drive them mad. I thought it was funny so had to suggest it here.

Speak to your local council. They will ask you to monitor the noise and give you a device to check frequency and decibel level.
It sounds like normal kids noise to me but I do sympathise as it's jarring when all the time. Yes they're kids but everyone is entitled to enjoy their own garden. I have little kids and always ask them to bring it down a notch "because we have neighbours" and be considerate to others.
The council will write to them if it's too much with a gentle warning. They won't know it's come from you

We don't get on with our next door neighbours, haven't since we all moved in 6 years ago.
Came to a head a couple of summers ago (we had already tried mediation). We were sitting out, having a drink and using the fire pit on a Sunday evening (around 7pm).. she opens the bedroom window and starts screaming at me that the fire pit is affecting her asthma....
long and short of it is, we just love very different lives. We use our garden as it's intended, BBQs, paddle pools etc and she is a shut in.
Sometimes, we just have to make the best of it! We have our fire pit to our other neighbour lol!

Part of the problem is that you now have an emotional reaction to the noise - your brain is actively listening for the noises and setting off your annoyance and upset. If you were living next to a train track or under a flight path your brain would filter out the sound as being unimportant so you genuinely wouldn't hear it.

Yes I’ve had this. They either scream or shout each others name continuously at the top of their lungs. From day break into the evening.
Worst thing is their dad and his massive booming voice shouting their names along side non fucking stop whilst they ignore him. It’s like torture.

Another neighbour who has 3 children asked me if I can hear hers (I can’t, they play normally, I can hear laughing etc. nice noises). She can hear them indoors as well so it’s never ending for her.

However it’s been quiet this year and I think the older one has had enough of it, which she should do as she’s 14!

It's totally shit and unfair but the only real solution long term is to move. They won't change and you'll be living in a constant state of anxiety because even in the quiet moments you'll be waiting for the noise to start up again.

Heaven is a detached house with no adjoining gardens, or at least with a garden configured so that you have boundaries well away from other properties. Easy to say, I know; harder to find, and afford! But you only live once, your home is your sanctuary so make that your goal, because sadly, there's always the risk of other bad neighbours even if these ones move.

In the meantime, maybe try noise cancelling headphones, or white noise. I wouldn't blast music back at them as others have suggested because people like this will just up the ante and become more selfish and aggressive. Neither would I lodge a formal complaint because you'll have to declare it if you want to sell your property.

There really ought to be better solutions to this because selfish neighbours can literally destroy your quality of life. But given the current situation and the fact you can't really complain without it making your own home unsaleable (or at least reduced in value) I would say do what you can to block out the noise as much as possible and make plans to move. Even if it means starting over in a new area where the kind of house i described is affordable, imo it's worth it for the quality of life.

You have my deepest sympathies, or rather empathies, as we too seem to have neighbours who live by the 'Gospel of Anti-social f@#kwits'. I have never known one family have so many anti-social behaviours - barking dogs, excessive DIY, radios and TVs through the wall, dope smoke drifting dow the street, abusive, and yes horrendous grandchildren screaming in the garden for hours. I have 2 lively boys, one with ASD and they don't make anywhere close to the noise these kids make. And yes, its the irritating adults encouraging noise that is the worst bit about it. They don't come round as much, but a few years back it would be every weekend, hours of screaming both days. All the other neighbours doors and windows shut all summer along the back of our row. Horrendous.

Since money is no longer the badge of behaviour, I think some sort of personality test is needed when people are viewing houses:
Fairly quiet, considerate of others, noises within usual living - you can live anywhere

A bit noisy, maybe lots of kids or dogs, prone to parties - semi detached or detached for you

A complete f£%kwit who doesn't give a toss about anyone? - Butlins for you, along with all the others like you, with a big soundproof glass dome around you, as far away from other humans as possible!

Sounds awful, but if this is a home you've bought to live in for a long time I wouldn't move. Those children will grow up and the noise reduce. It is what happened with our neighbours.

.... or those little children will grow into teenagers blasting out their music and inviting their mates round for party time!

You have my sympathy. We have a similar family at one end of the garden. They are actually 100 yds away but I can hear their screaming kids in my sitting room with the double glazing closed.

Some people are just unbearable.

Crazy advice.

It then becomes a competition to see how bad you can get to each other. Where does it end, a beating, a stabbing, a broken window.

If we did the same to them, they would be straight round, that's what really irritates me. One rule for them. One for us.

Always the way with noisy neighbours, always hypocrites too. Ours have loud kids, knocking balls into our garden, noisy DIY projects, slamming doors, a piano against the dividing wall that I've been listening to for five years and they still can't get a tune out of it. Then they bought a dog. Next door to them already had a dog that barks constantly, so theirs is a nervous wreck that howls every single day, encouraged by the kids.

A few weeks ago I watched TV for the first time in ages and they went berserk and put their TV on so loudly it was booming through the wall.

It's really time for my lottery jackpot win. I want my lovely quiet detached house in the countryside...

I second the speakers idea but would go for more classical music. Try any of these. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/memorial/classical-music-for-funerals/

We had neighbours who made our lives miserable - they moved in during lockdown and were obnoxious from the start. The kids could not just play, it had to be at top volume and they were mostly unsupervised. They swore at the tops of their voices and liked to stand on things and shout at us over the fence. They leant over our fence and drew using chalk all along the top. The hot tub just the other side of the fence was in use constantly. It made our garden unusable. There was shouting in the house all day every day. I could go on and on!

They were renting and suddenly, one weekend, they disappeared. We saw the landlord after a couple of weeks and asked what had happened. They had stopped paying rent (over £1000 a month) 6 months previously and were due to be evicted but disappeared the weekend before. They trashed the house - took a hammer to the kitchen and bathroom, urinated on the carpets in every room, pulled the electricity sockets and light fittings out and, as the landlord was of Asian ethnicity, wrote racist slurs all over the walls. It has taken him 6 months to gut and repair everything. They also left 4 skips worth of stuff!

So awful neighbours are life ruining. We have lived here for nearly 30 years with no issues so were not moving but we were VERY glad when they were gone. The police were involved, as I am sure is of no surprise!

Op I really feel for you.
Read up on manifestation.
I take it from your post they are unfriendly so you don't feel you can talk to them.Unfortunately some families are completely and utterly unaware of anyone outside of their own family and don't know and wouldn't care if they did about the volume of noise they make.
You can speak to the council but how much that would achieve is doubtful.
It's either hoping things eventually quieten down or moving or retraining your brain to not let it annoy you.(difficult).
You should not have to move but peace of mind is particularly important.
I doubt passive aggressive loud music of hours will help,they will just put theirs on louder.
Maybe,just maybe they are on mn,read your post and realise what selfish people they really are.

Massive sympathies OP. I had something very similar. This wasn't "normal" garden noise either, the kids seemed to shriek and scream and be so LOUD all the time. As were the adults in the family, everything about them was loud. I put up with it for about 3 years then moved. It was heartbreaking at the time because this was my forever home we had totally renovated it. We put blood sweat tears and £££ into it. However, this family moved in and just started with the noise. Before kids it was loud parties and loud cars then post kids it was swimming pools, pool house, trampoline, full sized bouncy castle and hot tub every weekend. Despite noise cancelling headphones, white noise machines, putting radio on etc nothing drowned them out, we could even hear them in our detached house with triple glazing and all the windows shut and the TV on.

Sadly, I don't think there is much you can do apart from move.

There really should be more done about noisy neighbours.
I disagree heavily that it's just family noise as well. It really isn't. Screeching and screaming at the top of their lungs for hours on end is not normal. They shout to each other also and as a family they seem to think it's funny to be as noisy as possible. Really odd.
Their hot tub is directly next to our window and can only hope that their electric bills will be so high that they won't keep using it as it's too costly. Awful, selfish people. I've ordered earplugs and will consider the council. I'm sure they will agree that the noise is beyond ridiculous. I can only hope the teachers at school have mentioned the shouting as am sure they do it there in the classroom as well. There is no discipline in the home that's for sure.

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