Building works for 4 FUCKING YEARS

[IfYouLikePinaColadaaa]

I live on a street of Victorian terraced houses. It’s on street parking and close to the centre of town so pretty busy at the best of times.

One of the houses opposite was a bit of a wreck and purchased by somebody who wanted to renovate it to live in. All fine.. only the building work has been going on for over 4 YEARS now, and I’m starting to get really fed up.

The vans are constantly parking in the middle of the road, we have workmen shouting to each other at any time from 7am even on weekends, they have recently blocked off the pavement as they’re turning the front garden into a driveway and that’s been going on for fucking weeks.

I have a baby who is constantly woken from his naps by the sound of drilling, banging and shouting. To get anything like a proper nap I have to put him in the pram and go for a 1.5 hour walk even in the pissing rain. He’s constantly tired and whiny and I’m sick of being woken up early at weekends.

I messaged the owner of the house who basically said ‘nothing I can do but finish the job’ and said he’s just over halfway!!!!!! These are 2-3 bed houses and not large ones. 7ish years to renovate it?! What the fuck is taking this long?

AIBU to be thoroughly fed up

I would really, really hate that. I used to live on a Victorian street and it seemed like every other week scaffolding was being put up. The drilling and shouting is the worst for me. Sympathies.

Our neighbours moved in 8 years ago, although not constant every year they scaffold the whole house, sometimes twice. They do most jobs twice and look for loads of random projects. The man runs a construction company, his house isn't a great advert at all but when there is a bit of downtime he finds something for them to do it would seem. Gets very annoying.

Dont places usually have a time limit for when the work has to be done by? Check their planning permission in council website.

YABU

The way I look at it is that people doing up their place enhances the street appeal

Can you not go over and tell the workmen to shut the fuck up. Why are they shouting?

I don't think it's acceptable for it to be going on at weekends? I know how awful it must be. They can work from 8am til something like 8pm legally as far as I know, but on weekends I think it's different. Could you contact the council noise department? They will ask you to record it and keep a diary maybe but it could show they are breaching your right to enjoy your home environment.

I was going to be optimistic and say that the driveway is usually one of the last jobs but then I saw the owner says it’s only halfway?

Seems a bizarrely long timeline for a 2-3 bed. I do think though that unfortunately, it’s outside your control.

Hopefully the heavy noisy works are finished?

4 years is pretty normal IME (7 and 4 years respectively)

Christ Alive........ wtf are they doing! Building an entire row of houses wouldn't have taken that long!

He never had the budget to do it properly so has been doing it himself roping in friends, on a painfully slow basis as he isn’t a builder/tradesperson and actually works in a different field altogether. He seems to do a job, mess it up then have to do it all over again. Currently listening to loud drilling with all the windows shut as plumes of thick dust are blowing towards our house. I’m fucking fed up of it. No doubt same again tomorrow.

I would get onto the planning office if I were you.
People have 3 years to complete the work - per the planning permission. If it's not done in that timeframe, they have to re-apply. As a neighbour, you should have been informed if there had been another application, which suggests there hasn't been.
There's a time limit on it, for exactly this type of piss-taker. It does not take 4 years to NOT finish renovating a Victorian semi, even one in bad nick. 1 year? Yes. 18 months, quite likely. 4 and not done? Report it.

I thought they just had to start within the time limits not finish?

I feel your pain, next door spent a year building an extension 3ft from my dining room and bedroom.

now the house at the bottom of us has got planning permission to knock down their garage and build a house about 4ft from my garden office. The guy is going to do it all himself and works full time so says it will all be evenings and weekends. He’s spent the last six months fucking about with a mini digger doing ground works of some sort and hasn’t even started knocking the garage down.

oh and I can’t get a definitive answer as to whether he can work s7 days and evenings. Builders can’t…..but it’s his own property so is it DIY. He is working till 10pm with floodlights some nights. And he said if he found out who complained to the council about that “he’s going to burn the fuckers out”.

FYI - not all building works even extensions within permitted development do NOT require planning consent.

I feel your pain, OP. I can't offer any solutions but I can offer solidarity and confirm that you're not being unreasonable to be pissed off about the disruption and inconvenience. The house next door to me started building an extension about 18 months ago and they're still not finished. Every day it's been builder's vans blocking my driveway and parking on the pavement, which means that people going to the nearby school have to walk on the grass verge. The strip outside my front garden is a mudbath as a result, not a blade of grass left. There's been clouds of dust and crap blowing over, and drilling and banging while I've been trying to wfh. At least with the professional builders the work has (generally) been confined to reasonable hours.

I think they're a few months of finishing... and next door on the other side have just been granted permission for an even bigger fecking extension 😩

I feel your pain.

only another 4 years to go that house enhances the street appeal then! 😂

You've clearly never had to live on a street with constant building work going on have you 🙄

Similar situ to us - the early starts are something else! Ours also has a farty car that starts up early most mornings. Joy!

You can complain to the council about early starts on the weekend though - I think anything before 8am? We are usually up around 7:30 when they start here now anyway but at first it was a rude awakening!

If planning permission is required, you have 3 years to start the work, otherwise it will be reverted.

It can take however long an owner wants it to take.

It is still ridiculous though.

Oh my goodness, you are an actual saint

We have.

Its what EA call "an up and coming area"!😂

We went through this, 3 years with first with one neighbour, then 2 with the other one. Then, when we actually NEEDED to build a downstairs extension when I became disabled, we got it done by professionals, in 6 weeks, but they BOTH had the nerve to complain, and make our lives so miserable that we ended up moving anyway, as it was no longer a nice atmosphere to live in!

Same principle as loud music .... Shit all day, but 7am is uneven more unreasonable.

Officially the council might be able to help, although it would mean a log of anti social/loud behaviour.

Can you message back the owner, specifically to his 'nothing I can do bit', and say 'Well actually there is. Understand you've got to do it, no problem, but can you restrict it to five days a week? Or not before 10am at weekends?'

My neighbour has been doing up the house for nine years, most recently doing their own loft conversion bit by painful bit, do I win? I have sat and cried sometimes with the noise.

What an absolute nob he is! Can you imagine being that person that inconveniences the whole street? 😂He's got some balls is all I can say. Either that or missing brain cells.