To think that having a bbq on a Saturday afternoon is perfectly acceptable?

[fabmaccawhackythumbsaloft]

I live on a new build estate and a group of neighbours have for,ed a nice friendship group. On Saturday afternoon one of the group hosted a small bbq , planned from 3-9. There were 10 of us to begin with but people drifted off . We were sat around a table in the garden, the Alexa speaker on the doorstep playing the radio but not loudly as we were all chatting.

At 7pm a bloke appeared at the back gate to say he was trying to get his 1 year old to bed and would we turn the music off. We did but continued to sit in the garden .

At 8 pm a post appeared on the community Facebook page saying that people having bbqs were selfish and had no regard for parents trying to put their little,ones to bed in weather we were not equipped for and with no option to close their windows .

I responded simply saying peaceful enjoyment of your own garden is not prohibited, that yes they did have an option to close the windows and this was the first bbq my friends have had in the 2 years they've lived there , that we weren't exactly having a rave , that we all have or had children, that having kids doesnt give you autonomy to tell others what to do and that if they didn't want to hear other people living on an estate wasnt a good idea.
I also said we were planning on moving inside the house at 9pm
Then the insult's started. I did respond (I know I shouldn't have) saying perhaps if anyone had an issue they could come and knock on the door and discuss it like adults instead of being keyboard warriors.someone
Posted a copy of the councils nuisance noise policy ( which ironically showed night hours to be between 11pm and 7am ! ) this was 8 pm

More insults . Gifs with popcorn . Someone said " i suggest you blah blah blah blah blah .
I lost it . I said I suggest you fuck off before I turn the music back on

Today the whinging post had been removed

What the fuck is wrong with people ? It was a sedate afternoon bbq consisting of 10 people aged 35 ~ 50, not an all night rave !
Aibu ?

Nobody thinks their parties are loud but they are.

You did absolutely nothing wrong in hosting at all. Neighbour was just an annoyed and grumpy idiot but their expectation was completely unreasonable. They live in a community.

The FB was just tit for tat, leave it alone next time.

Good lord. Thankfully your neighbours don’t live in Australia, where BBQ’s are a consistent national pastime and not just a once in a blue moon event. I can’t imagine a neighbour complaining about a BBQ that was still going on at 7pm. If dinner (the most popular BBQ time), they usually start with nibbles, drinks at 5pm and would go to 10pm as standard. If someone complained everyone would be really perplexed, and outraged. As for those saying people shouldn’t have BBQ’s in heat - hahahaha, so funny.

He needs to get some noise-insulating curtains and white noise for the bedroom. your BBQ was not unreasonable.

The heat is to blame.

I live in a mid terrace with a rather rude neighbour who parties until 3am and stomps up and down 3 floors in stilettos all night while screaming at someone. This is every Friday and Saturday. New build so paper thin walls and I have a baby.
Simple I use white noise until LO is on a deep sleep. I use a fan at night in this heat and close the windows anyway (spiders). He has 0 grounds to complain.

If he really can't cope he should move to the countryside 😂

This happened to us last weekend. Neighbor threw a small (30 person) backyard wedding after party and it got loud. Our bedroom overlooks the garden which borders their backyard. My baby was distracted by the music so putting her to bed was near impossible. Instead of calling the cops (I live in America and my neighbors are Black), I picked her up and made us a little fort/makeshift bed in the living room! It was glorious as it’s also the only room
in our house with an ac! She crashed within seconds, btw…

I do feel for those parents, but also understand that it’s summer. Also, 7 is an early bedtime for summer?

Terrible conduct from you tbh, yabu

As pp said people tend to get much louder when they drink alcohol.

Hello, OP's neighbour!

Yanbu, unless you live in the middle of nowhere then you have to expect normal amounts of noise from other houses near you

I live in a flat on a major road with inconsiderate neighbours but most of the racket (except traffic noise) ceases by 10pm. I'm fine with this.

It's the heat. I think it's unreasonable to expect a toddler to sleep well at this time. The man has unrealistic expectations.

Even if you’d been having a raving party at 7 pm that is life and if people don’t want neighbourly noise then they shouldn’t live on a housing estate.

Interesting how so many parents of young children seem to think the world should cease turning at bedtime yet neighbours need to put up with their babies screaming potentially all night every night for the first two years. Something which obviously isn’t necessarily avoidable but irritating as fuck if it’s not your baby.

Getting into slanging matches on fb is rather unedifying though. I suspect the post was removed by the group admins as most of these local fb groups, as toxic as they all seem to be, don’t tolerate personal arguments.

You must have been louder than you think. If you were just chatting with normal volumes, surely no one would complain. Listening to loud chatter and laughing can be annoying. And why have radio on when you were chatting with friends? That also must have been relatively loud of it disturbed people in their apartments! Or you were right below their window, in which case you should be extra careful about making noise!

It does not sound like you were doing anything wrong

He was frazzled but should not have ranted on FB.

But you should have ignored the FB post. I would not have engaged in a million years and taken the higher ground. That would have annoyed him more and made you seem more dignified.

I said I suggest you fuck off before I turn the music back on If you hadn't been a dog with a bone on Fakebook, you wouldn't have been sworn at. This is embarrassing.

I suspect you were louder than you thought, although of course you've a right to have a BBQ. He was on a hiding to nothing with his timing as 7pm is still early.

I lived near someone who was loud in their garden, it wasn't complaint-level noise just tinny/annoying/slightly too loud to zone out and made it hard for neighbours to enjoy their own gardens.

If it was me, I'd be quieter than you were. I don't take music into the garden full stop because it carries.

Good grief - where I live (not UK) people have barbeques whatever time of day (or night) they want to. Doesn't seem to be an issue 😕

It’s a bit of a cheek to ask people to turn music off at 7pm to get your baby to bed. It’s a summers day, tough luck if people are making noise in their own garden. They are perfectly entitled to do so.

The heat makes every one on edge amd unreasonable.

Also, everyone thinks their parties are quiet, they never are.

Why didn’t you invite them? If you were right next to their house. Maybe they felt left out if it was a neighbours event.

You should not have been so insulting on FB either.

You did nothing wrong and the fact the NDN took the post down suggests they realise they overreacted. The hot weather is making everyone tetchy. In fact, I was FUMING yesterday when a neighbour whose garden backed onto ours decided to start burning rubbish at 7pm. Whole house filled with bloody smoke before we could rush round and close all the windows and doors. I did go round to complain!

Yanbu. I think it’s a combination of the heat and tbh the fact that you DON’T have frequent parties - so the neighbours aren’t used to having you assert that particular right, even though you could legitimately have a bbq every weekend/send the kids out with a football at 8am etc. That’s how it goes living in a built-up area. You can expect reasonable courtesy from neighbours but not absolute silence.

YANBU at all about the BBQ. But why on earth did you think it was a good thing to get involved with a Facebook argy-bargy? You completely lost the moral high ground.

I think it was fair enough for him to ask you to turn speakers off at 7pm, but as you did, the fb post was then unessacary.
I hate the noise of other people's music coming through on tinney speakers.

Gosh your neighbour sounds miserable. Of course it’s absolutely fine to have a bbq in your own garden with a little chatting and music! I mean, you have to enjoy this weather while it lasts.

And having a baby doesn’t mean everyone in the area then needs to be silent by baby’s bedtime! I say that living on a street where children are frequently outside playing VERY LOUDLY until around 9:30pm, my 17mo still sleeps fine, and even if he didn’t, I’d never go and announce to the street “it’s my baby’s bedtime so therefore everyone must be shut up”. How entitled. Has his baby never cried during the night disturbing neighbours?

You should have been the bigger person though with the fb post. Stuck with the first reply and not engaged further. Starting to swear and get angry may have made it seem to others that you lack control and actually did have something to defend?

I think it's quite annoying to have to listen to other people's music. My neighbour plays her music in her garden and it really irritates me! I don't mind gatherings of people though (which my other neighbour does frequently).

We had a BBQ on Saturday, I think most people did! YANBU, it sounds like you did nothing wrong. The winter is nearly upon us and it is long. Our BBQ has been packed up and won't see the light again until about May.