I shouted an insult to my neighbour and I'm worried about repercussions

[DecoupageEverythingInSight]

My neighbour, an absolute arse of a man, has been making my life a misery.

He can't stand any noise from children and bangs heavily whenever they are being anything but completely quiet. I've done everything possible to mitigate noise and then some, but nothing is ever good enough. He bangs daily at various times, 9am, 11am, 1pm etc. My children go to bed at 7.30 so never make any noise at night time. We are not antisocial people just a normal family. I never play loud music or anything like that.

Anyway I was getting the DC ready to go out this morning at 9.30am and he starts thumping again.

I lost my temper and called out "go away you druggy arsehole" and I'm pretty sure he heard me. We can hear each others toilets flushing, tvs playing. The soundproofing is non existent.

Anyway I'm nervous about going home now as he's the sort to pull me up and give me abuse.

Do you think I was unreasonable to do what I did? I think partly yes and partly no. Ugh.

Well you didn't really do anything terrible here did you? I say double down and if he says anything to you repeat it. "Didn't you hear me earlier when I said go away?!" I'm not big on confrontation but 9:30 is not so early to be making a fuss about noise. If he's already an arse then apologizing will probably just make him feel in the right and he will continue with his nastiness.

He’d probably shit himself if he was confronted and someone stood up to him. He can’t be that big tough and ‘ard can he if is target is women and kids.

As someone who has been on both sides of this coin, the best thing you can do is to have a conversation with them.

Be polite, let them know how you feel, and make sure to use "I" statements to avoid directly accusing them. "I heard some banging this morning and it made me feel unsafe, my kids feel unsafe too. We need to go to school and we're sorry if you can hear that but we are trying our best with xyz" or something like that.

People like that don't respond superwell to being accused, though if they have a heart they would still try and better themselves.

Sometimes people don't fully appreciate how their actions impact others, and reminding them nonconfrontatially would certainly help

Take someone with you if you feel unsafe,

If you have made them plainly aware(face to face or in writing, not by shouting through walls), and it continues then I would suggest escalating with a landlord or mediation services

I would start writing down all issues with the dates, times and any witnesses. Don’t retaliate to him but if you genuinely feeling threatened or intimidated by his actions, you can report it.

I mean you’re both disturbing each other really aren’t you? He’s sick of hearing the noise, you’re sick of the banging, I personally wouldn’t start shouting insults through the wall because that just opens that up for him as well. If someone called me a druggy arsehole I’d feel completely justified in pulling them up on it, so yeah, you’re unreasonable.

It’s a situation where you really need to keep things nice & polite because you need him to be understanding really, although I appreciate it’s your kids making noise, it is so incredibly annoying when you can hear banging/running/squealing etc from next door constantly. You say yourself the soundproofing is nonexistent so you know how much the noise must be carrying and although normal kid noise is fine when you’ve chosen to have kids, I don’t think you can act surprised when a grown man who lives alone with no kids doesn’t enjoy hearing other peoples all day everyday. You need to keep him on side to keep things pleasant because it WILL be very annoying for him. We lived in a similar house a few years ago with zero soundproofing, the sound of kids next door playing carried so clearly it was as if they were in my kitchen. The couple were very apologetic and often told all of us how much they appreciated patience etc, so we all just accepted it, but their attitude made a massive difference.

Rented or owned house?

This happens to me, all it does is make me less considerate

He's a bully, my niece is dealing with something similar and as soon as she gave it back to the bullies they didn't know what to do, she said they kind of avoid her but don't let him scare you. If he stares at you, stare back, if he abused you then do it back and tell him you aren't scared of him.