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?

@HappiDaze
Yes, its definitely younger people and from a comment above I think maybe it's a generation thing. But I'm young too! However I grew up in an apartment (normal in my country, for us houses are really not something that's very standard in cities) so maybe there's something there...
Maybe it could be a weather problem too, maybe people aren't used to being outside all the time if usually it's raining, so when they go outside they don't understand people can hear everything.

One guy in the garden opposite never comes in the garden, but he has all his doors and windows open and plays fatboy slim and eye of the tiger in maximum volume from his living room, its like being in a (really bad 🤣) festival, this is from 10:00AM.

I agree with you. Of course enjoy our gardens but be considerate of neighbors and lower voices just a little. And that’s all you’re saying which is very reasonable.

When I was younger I didn’t have much awareness of how much attention was paid by neighbors because I never paid any attention to what my neighbors were doing, so it might be age related op, as you suggest and probably not due to cultural differences.

I don’t mind a noisy party once in a while but currently there’s one on my estate ( the rest of the houses are currently really quiet ) are presume are playing games. Chanting and cheering loudly from the men , accompanied by screeching women all at the tops of their voices. Those really moronic booming voices men use to convey how hard and manly they are whilst using as few syllables as possible.
They must realise it’s properly anti social. Fine if you live in the middle of no where. Not so much in an estate of packed in new builds.

Enjoying your garden in a way that does not intrude upon people living in close proximity are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Unless you are one of the people with a magic noise force field around your property. There are a lot about.

I think the quality of life has gone down quite dramatically since the pandemic. It's like people have forgotten how to behave. Seems to be an increase in rude, entitled behaviour. People seem to think nothing of decimating the countryside so long as they have a good time. There is nowhere you can go now to have a peaceful time without there being several other people with out of control dogs and anti-social picnics etc ruining it for the rest.
I know I sound quite bitter, but walks I used to do regularly and rarely saw a soul on have been blighted by people since the pandemic.

Same with people and their gardens. People on the whole used to be more respectful of others. Sure they'd have music on and children in paddling pools etc. Now it's like several discos and theme parks and no one cares if their noise impacts on others. I can regularly hear louds music from several streets away and feel sorry for the neighbours that have to live right by the selfish sods

I am literally nine minutes away from stick in my head out the window and shouting to the teenagers below to shut the fuck up. They have been screaming like banshees to each other for the last 4 1/2 hours. At 10 o’clock I will snap

I think Brits are like overexcited kids when it comes to summer and just can't seem to control themselves!
Neighbours kids are very loud but I can often hear mum trying to quieten them down so at least there's some consideration for others there and I don't mind that.
Neighbours at previous house (small terrace) would throw the back door open every morning with radio 2 blaring out whilst they talked loudly in the garden all day. Literally all day. Then come evening they would turn the radio off and put their TV in the garden and blare that out instead. They were late 40's/early 50's 🙄

It’s just seasonal op! Sunshine in the uk = boozing in the garden! Probably won’t last long though!
Seriously though I feel your pain and I have pretty considerate neighbours. One particularly yappy dog though! Hope you enjoy being in the uk apart from the noise and that you get some rain to enjoy soon ☔️😊

Glare out the window. Completely unseen, but furiously 🤣🤣

Round here all the under 40s are working full time. It’s the over 60s that make all the noise here!

Only some children screech once they can talk

Just been listening to next door playing his country and western records for the past two hours on a speaker he has rigged up in his garden, that’s after been woke at 7am this morning when he and his guests decided to have their morning coffee in the garden having a loud conversation ☹️

It will rain next week and they'll all go back inside 🤣 but yes it's a thing.

Eye of the tiger at 10am would piss me off no end.

But we must seethe silently and wish for bad things 😬😬

It's fine when it's low level chatter etc but not loud crappy music and women screaming and cackling with laughter or men shouting loudly I mean WTF do they have to screech and scream constantly. Get a grip people.

Fortunately where I live if any permanent residents are out in the garden with friends etc it's just normal drinking and chatting which you barely notice much and normal sound level of music

But if someone has rented their house out via effing Air B&B then no one gives a crap and you get all the screeching and shouting etc.

I have been known to tell these people to keep it down after a certain time and actually generally they do and politely apologise ( not always but mostly they do) most people are fairly decent when it comes to it ( some are rude , entitled and insane) then I get s bit tetchy

I've had my neighbours playing music loudly and repeatedly shouting at Alexa. They didn't have any guests (I would expect music at a party).

I think some people have no idea of their noise levels and others just don’t care. I’m all
for get togethers and children playing in gardens but there should be some
level of consideration for the neighbours. If I can hear your conversation word for word and you are five gardens away, you are too loud! Some people just think they need to speak loudly because they are outside. Others are just inconsiderate twats.

The loudspeaker conversation thing which happens all the time nowadays is infuriating.

I had this on an induction ward even, as well as them watching ‘Friends’ on their phone without headphones. Appreciate they wanted an oxytocin hit but it drove me mad when already in a stressed environment.

When did we get so bad-mannered and inconsiderate, I wonder.

Do you live in a nice neighbourhood, with respectful neighbours?
If not there's your answer.

I grew up on a rough estate in the 80s and there wasn’t much noise from neighbours in the summer. Grew up and moved to a ‘naice’ area and it’s quiet, even the dogs aren’t barkers! But in my friend’s garden in a different place it’s nuts. Constant shouting, loud music, sounds like Battersea dogs’ home.

In British (and by extension a lot of former British colonies including India) the garden is culturally an extension of the home. In Indian areas of the UK people can even have wedding receptions in tiny little gardens lol

Oh my neighbours love their loud speakerphone conversations in the garden at 7am, and it was like that during lockdown...when there was no escape! I end up spending majority of my time wearing headphones for some peaceful times now.

I dont understand why people think its okay to have speakerphone calls in public, I wonder if the other person on the other side knows everyone else can hear their convo, id be quite pissed off if my froend had me on speakerphone, I dont want other ppl to hear my business.

Maybe noisy happy people are just blowing off a bit of steam . Let's not forget we were all confined to base during COVID for so long that gardens have just become an extension of the house. So maybe meeting up with people again and a bit of a sod it attitude (because they are thinking they should live now , may die sooner than expected due to potential COVID related issues kinda attitude??) has given people a little more cockiness lately. Hopefully it will just calm down a bit soon . 😁🤔

Fair enough I only have the one so not a big sample

Currently experiencing this, but it’s to be expected as I live in a terraced house. Just wait for it to rain 😂

We are so lucky! On one side, we have a lovely lovely couple around our age with grown-up kids like us; the other is a younger couple with boys of 8 and 11 who all go to bed early.
The only noise we have tends to be when people are having 'work done', and that's usually bearable!