Neighbours in their gardens, is it cultural?

[Marine59]

Hi guys I have moved to England and have really settled in very well and am enjoying myself and my job a lot. There's just one problem I am really struggling with and I want to know whether I need to get over myself because its a cultural difference or whether it's a real problem.

So in my country people are festive and I believe myself to be too! But where I live, it's rows and rows of houses with very small and cute gardens, maybe each garden is 20m2. And lots of the neighbours (mainly young ones from their voices) are what I consider to be disrespectful - music and television from inside at maximum volume with windows and doors open, going in their garden in big groups and speaking and laughing at maximum volume...

Of course I understand having a good time, but I'm used to people going out for this or doing it inside, and then when outside lowering their voices.

It means when you're outside in your garden you are basically like as if you were in their party. I don't mind noise of course, that's normal! For example my neighbours right next to me, they have barbecues and eat outside, but they really understand that our gardens are small so they bring their voices down just a tiny bit I can tell (in fact they apologised to me for their barking dog which I thought was so kind! It didn't bother me at all, it's just an animal).

I don't want to be a bitch and I'm just wondering whether I need to accept this and get over it because it's a cultural difference or whether this is considered bad practice? Is it normal? I think maybe it is because on my street I'd say I have heard maybe 4 different houses do things this way. What do you think?

No OP it’s not cultural it’s bloody rude, entitled and annoying they can’t be a bit more respectful - but surprisingly seems about half saying YABU

Very glad to be lucky not to have this, you seem very tolerant, I would be looking to move.

Middleaged yobs king of their castles but without regard for others.
I have a pair at loggerheads with each other
One revving a motorbike outside the.others garden the other garden parties in sunny weather until midnight.
I was considering surreptitiously knobbling the bike and watch the fireworks.....however it's quietened slightly so I'm off the boil.

It is recent, the same with opened windowed cars always blasting the worst music.

Sorry
Hope it gets better or the weather gets worse😁

Yes, I would agree with you. Thankfully we have larger than average gardens here, back on to a nature reserve/wood, our nearest neighbours are pensioners.

😂😂

I got sick and tired of it where I lived. Forty years ago the terrace has low fences and you knew your neighbours. Then 6' fences became the norm, you didn't know your neighbours and noisy smell BBQs became the norm. It isn't cultural as one side I had Polish neighbours and the other an English couple. When the Poles parented they stopped the BBQs. One day I was talking to a neighbour from down the street and he came out shouting at me for making a noise at 8:00 - it was a warm summer's evening. I told him to shut up and he became very aggressive pushing me backwards. I had no choice but to give him a good slapping. He never crossed my path again!

YANBU
This is why I don’t have any neighbours.

Personally I think it’s extremely common and I couldn’t stand it.

Sorry if I’ve offended anyone on here, but I’m being honest.

Honestly, you're not being unreasonable. Unfortunately many, many people just have no idea how to behave communally now. Ear plugs will tone the racket down enough for you to enjoy the rather precious sunshine.

Definitely not a class thing. Particularly where children are involved, I live in a very middle class privileged area and the noise from entitled children who totally rule the roost in middle class homes is loud and constant. Nothing awful, just screams and giggles of playing. In a working class area I think the children would be told to keep it down. It doesn’t bother me at all - I seem to be able to block noise out pretty easily but it’s constant.

TV in the garden, no way! 🤣

Your being unreasonable OP. If you can hear noise from 4 houses it's just general noise.

If you were just complaining about your next door neighbour I would think maybe they would keep it down. Half the bloody row though. No.

@ScruffyGrape horrendous, utterly horrendous.

This thread is filling me with despair for those with such awful neighbours, I can’t believe some are condoning the constant disturbance of others.

Why is it so hard for some people to understand the very very basics of a civilised society.

@Superdupes

Think again, I had very noisy middle class neighbours in a posh suburb before and we are hardly quiet ... neighbours and I love a back garden party, we take turns to select music!

@Superdupes @gogohmm one wonders then, how the parents of these screechy children were brought up.

YAnBU and you have my sympathy - I live in a terraced house and have exactly the same problem - my neighbours seem to invite dozens of family members round the minute the sun comes out and they all shout at each other for hours - louder and louder as drink is taken - plus barbecue smoke and smell etc. They are not unpleasant people generally, but really thoughtless and inconsiderate in this respect. We just put up with it as it’s not worth getting into an argument with them, but I do find it very intrusive and rude…. Perhaps it IS cultural!

Yeah, I recognize that! That's what I find most annoying and baffling about British people, how much they swear! Especially here on mumsnet. When people swear, it leads them to be extra loud, so swearing and being loud goes together. It seems to be a way of showing how cool and sophisticated one is in the UK, so many of my friends from Oxbridge, especially the females, swear all the time and look so proud of themselves for being so 'progressive'. Add a glass of prosecco, and it takes your ears off.

You are not being unreasonable. Unfortunately, there are a lot of selfish, ignorant people in this country.

Same here.

Exactly, well said!

You are not being unreasonable and there is a special place reserved in hell for people who have a TV rigged up permanently in their gardens to make an “outdoor cinema”

People work nights. I'm an ICU nurse currently trying to sleep during a gruelling set of nights... impossible when people think it's fine to make hideous, inconsiderate, raucous shouty, often sweary, noises ALL DAY LONG.
I get so little sleep during these types of 'summer fun' days that I often feel as if I could be unsafe at work and choose a horrible public transport route in as I certainly don't feel safe driving, espec in the morning at about 9am having been awake for far too many hours due to interrupted daytime sleep... think of others

I live in an old 1900s terrace house. Might this be the type you live in? Unfortunately even the quietest of noise out in the back yard travels very loudly. I’ve laid in bed listening to my conversations when they’ve been sat outside having a fairly quiet chat. Where my DM lives which is more a new build estate the noise is less even though there are kids and people out all over the place.

Agree.

It’s normal to the inconsiderate, selfish, entitled people.

I have this too, elderly neighbours playing golden oldies hits full volume with their conservatory door open. Also look after their grandkids after school, one likes to scream a lot just for the hell of it. Assume the grandparents are deaf 🤔

What's funny about that?

I can't begin to imagine the mindset of some of the posters on here who think it's acceptable to have music or television blaring out in their gardens.

My neighbours decided to have friends round at 10.30pm , in the garden drinking and smoking weed till 3am I was up at 5 am for work 😩