Neighbour reported us to the council

[EchothatICreated]

We moved in 18(ish) months ago (semidetached) and we’ve been renovating the whole house. The last weekend we had builders in who worked until 8pm.

They worked that late as this was the last day of completing all the big jobs in the house. Apart from that one day we’ve only had work done between 8am and 4pm. Just one night we didn’t and she reported us. Aibu?

YANBU as you've probably done nothing wrong in terms of breaking building noise legislation.

However, I'm sure we all know that having a neighbour doing long term home improvement / building project is everyone's idea of a living hell and you could just about tip the most chilled out person over the edge.

Perhaps if they'd known it was the final day, they'd have held off complaining? The problem with neighbour noise is you assume it's going to never end.

ETA: Apologies, this was a weekend? Well yes you breached the time restrictions. You've probably driven your neighbours bonkers, give them a break.

The thing is that neighbours, especially next-door neighbours, are a special species to all of us who live within a few yards of them. If you actually share walls then they need to be treated with very soft and gentle kid gloves. The only positive to this situation is that we are also their neighbours, so should hopefully also be treated extra carefully.

Presumably most people who actually own their own homes will want to live there for at least 3 years? If they are anything like me - I found house moving very stressful and exhausting - they will want to make their new home as comfortable as possible, within whatever time limits and cost restraints they need to impose on themselves, and to live there for as long as possible.

We lived in our last house for over 25 years, and my next door neighbours (detached) are still living there now. So the point I am trying to make, is that most of us will put up with behaviour from our close neighbours that we wouldn't put up with from anyone else, as living for years next to people with whom we may have to interact on a daily basis, and/or maybe listen to arguments, love making (hopefully not) and all sorts of things that we usually only ever witness within our own families, and maybe not even then, is a very special set of circumstances.

Therefore, I suspect that most of us do not want to be at loggerheads with people we see, and/or hear, far more often than our own extended families. So we will put up with more than we normally would from nearly anyone else in our daily lives, and because of that we are very shocked if one day our neighbours can't put up with it anymore, and do things like making complaints to the local council because of it. I think that whenever possible we should cherish our relationships with our close neighbours, keep them up to date with any unusual or unfair interuptions we may cause them to suffer through - I think 18 months of building works warrants the verb "to suffer" - and certainly try to lessen any disruption and annoyance we cause them.

I don't believe you @ithinkthatmaybeimdreaming.

I would apologise for calling you a liar as it is a rather rude thing to do, but I mean it, and lying is also rude, probably even more so, therefore I am telling you the truth, which is that I am actually not in the least bit sorry.

Do you know me?? I had a neighbour once who was almost deaf. He had his TV, which was through the wall from my bedroom, so loud one night that my furniture was vibrating, and his DM who lived in the flat next to his, but with two garages in-between, could hear it. The man who lived there before him used to watch rugby in the middle of the night and yell at the TV, once again it didn't bother me.

I am well able to switch off from outside sound, and it really doesn't worry me one bit.

Read my post at 15:49

My last flat had paper thin walls, and I had a series of noisy neighbours - mostly noisy at night. I couldn't have cared less.

I don’t understand what the problem is about being reported, you did do what is alleged so she’s just following the council’s process. My question to you is, are there even ramifications? Just seems like a non issue, maybe a lesson to be learnt for you

@EchothatICreated

I didn’t sag that. The renovations have lasted 18 months during the week. It was one Saturday they lasted from 8am-8pm as a one off as it was the last day and we wanted it done before Christmas. Any housing/plumbing/plastering etc is now over/complete.

When is Christmas in your world?

I don't understand why wanting to finish before Christmas meant they had to work late on 2nd December.
Aren't there another 3 weeks when they could have done the work?

18 months? You're lucky they haven't set fire to your house.

House next door has had renovations for over 2 years.
Thankfully they are finishing next week..its been hell.

You sound like an awful, selfish and entitled person. Your long suffering neighbours have had 18 months (which is a ridiculously long time btw) of noise and lack of peace and enjoyment of their home, then selfish you decides to break the rules on the hours of work and have work going for 12 hours on Saturday, so YOU can have the work done before Christmas…….I hope you get fined and I hope your neighbours treat you with the contempt you deserve

@ithinkthatmaybeimdreaming just because you're happy to be a pushover doesn't mean everyone else should be 🙄

18 months is too long. I can’t believe you don’t have the insight to see that you’re the unreasonable one here 🙄

YABU. Have a thought for your poor neighbours. You shouldn't have done it even as a one off

The problem is OP is righteous in her indignation about being reported and can’t seem the understand she’s a massive plonker.

This is because OP is the most important person in her own world and can’t imagine why other people don’t think her right to have work done on her house for TWELVE hours on a Saturday trumps the rules that councils have set.

OP isn’t going to learn her lesson. OP will always be right (in her view - no one else’s ).

18 months of renovations? I'm not surprised she's lost her shit.

If they worked outside of permitted hours then you're absolutely being unreasonable, whatever the excuse.

Almost al councils have regulations that stipulate no work on Sundays and work only until 1 on Saturdays as previous posters have said. If you’ve been doing work every weekend from 8- 4 then you’ve been very unreasonable and inconsiderate.

Funnily enough that exact same thing happened to us. Neighbours renovating their property for over a year, near the end of the build, whilst neighbours were on holiday, on a Saturday, builders turn up at 7am and work until 8pm.
It was really bloody annoying. I didn't report to the council as generally had been good throughout the build. Didn't stop me from being disturbed and pissed off. Maybe your neighbours had just had enough.

It sounds like you’ve lost sight of the context that this “just one day” of breaching noise regulations happened in.

Your neighbours will have been disturbed and had to grit their teeth for well over a year. To then be hit by 12 hours of noise on a weekend, presumably without warning or apology beforehand, is going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Try to see it from their perspective and the wider context of months of disturbance rather than focusing on the fact that it was just one day of breaching the noise rules.

You were wrong. Did you even explain it was the last day to them so a one off? Probably not. They had to report you, incase it was going to happen every day. They are not mind readers! I'd take over some flowers, wine and chocolates to say sorry and that it's all done now. You're going to have these neighbours for a very long time.

No one wants to listen to builders for 12 hours. It sounds like they have been very tolerate putting up with 18 months of renovation. I'd take over a bottle of win and apologise. After all you will be living next door to each other.

So your neighbour has been putting up with renovations for 18 months? And you’re complaining that they’ve complained because your builders worked waaaaay over sociable hours? Most builders work daylight hours. 8am to 4pm. 8 pm is anti-social after 18 months of disruption.

Well, we recenty had an extension done, and were expected that work would be Mon to Fri between 8.00 am and 6.00 pm; Saturday morning, and no bank holidays. I can't remember whether this was under the planning permission or party wall rules, but I take this as a guide line of when work should be carried out

Can councils fine people who breach their noise guidelines? (Not in UK so don’t know about these things.)

But you have no idea what your 'one day of works til 8pm' had an effect on for the neighbours op. Maybe they had people round and their evening was hugely disturbed? Maybe they are poorly and needed to sleep and couldn't due to the noise? Or maybe they are just sick of 18 months constant banging from
Next door. Of course YABU. Did you even tell them this would be happening?

For context our next door but one neighbour has constant work done on his house. It's loud even from one door down, and he has workman's trucks parked all down the road often making it very hard to get out of our driveway. We are constantly having to ask them to move. Not once has he given us a heads up or apologised. Yesterday I couldn't out of my drive when I needed to get somewhere in a hurry, and I finally snapped and lost my temper with his plumber who is a repeat offender-and I'm pretty close to reporting the neighbour to the council too, so I can see how your neighbour has done the same. It's nothing to him and he would see it, as you have done, as the neighbours being fussy. But from our point of view, it's been bothering and inconveniencing us daily for months!