To be fed up with my neighbour

[tiredbutokay]

Okay so for backstory we moved into a new build semi back in April 2021, our neighbour strangely is someone who lived in my mums street when we were kids.

for context we had a 3 month old on moving in (now 3y) and she recently had a baby who is now around 5 months

she is constantly knocking on our door or messaging me on social media with requests for us to ‘keep it down’ even if we are barely making any noise.

the first time it was long before she was even pregnant, I had some music on midday while I was cleaning my house (that I could barely hear upstairs in my own home) and I had her banging on my door asking me to keep the noise down because she was trying to sleep, again midday, I’d say me and my partner are fairly reasonable people so I simply said I’d turn it down a little and went on with my day.

she’s done similar randomly between then and now also.

the second memorable time was a few weeks ago, we were getting some new flooring fitted (no major works just carpet up and laminate down) and she knocked on the door after maybe 5 minutes of hearing a hammer, we didn’t answer as we weren’t expecting anyone honestly, then I received the message asking us to keep it down as her baby is teething and needs sleep as he isn’t sleeping much at night, because I’d been there and sympathised I said we’d minimise times of the flooring getting fitted to try and compromise but told her honestly it might be a little noisy earlier in the days which she said she accepted.

then today she hasn’t even attempted to knock on the door, just messaged me AGAIN asking me to keep it down, only this time I’d not long finished work, had just got out the bath and apparently had the audacity to have a laugh with my partner in our own home and her baby woke up, which she then seemed to automatically blame on us.

to clarify the 2 last instances have been late afternoon/early evening with the latest being the last one at 8:30pm, I work 12 hour rotation so can’t do a lot much earlier regularly, either way definitely nothing anywhere near the council threshold for noise in our area incase that matters at all.

they do have a for sale sign up and are due to move soon
as mentioned at first I was sympathetic but now I’m honestly just getting fed up.

AIBU here?
should I say something or just bite my tongue until she’s gone?

I'd bite my tongue but silently seethe, your timings don't sound unreasonable at all. She'll be gone soon.

I'd be hoping her home sells quickly and try to bite my tongue. However, if it continues, tell her calmly that you are not being unreasonable with your noise levels and what she's hearing is everyday living. You can't be expected to be completely silent all day just because she has a baby.

Do you hear them much from your side? Maybe the soundproofing is poor between the houses.

Block her on social media. Don't answer the door to her.

I had a neighbour like this. She literally complained that she heard my. "front door close" after we'd received a pizza delivery at 6:30 one evening! It got ridiculous and we ended up having to involve the police as her husband threatened to kill us.

The police came out and basically we could have charged them but, for an easy life, the police warned them if there was ONE more incident that they'd be charged. Not heard a peep from them since!

I am a very reasonable person. However their complaints were ridiculous. The police told us that the neighbours had reported us to environmental health noise department and were furious it was not investigated as everything they were complaining about was deemed "reasonable" i.e. us closing our front door, going up and down our stairs etc.

We are very quiet people - we don't blast music (use ear pods if listening to music). We rarely ever watch tv. We don't have parties. In fact, all of our friends and family thought the entire situation was hilarious as they deemed us perfect neighbours.

All she can do is go down official channels however they won't be taken seriously so just hard rock her and move on with your life.

Firstly you’re getting rid of her and secondly, she’s hardly going to take these matters further as it may affect her selling the house. Unless she’s really as stupid as she sounds.

The bad news is someone else is going to get her.

We don’t hear much at all through the house, we heard some questionable noises upstairs not too long ago if you get me which we really don’t want to get involved in as her husbands car wasn’t home so we don’t know what was going on, but apart from that all we hear is the dog barking when they leave it in the garden for too long but that’s obviously outside, and I really don’t believe they don’t make any noise with a baby!

They need to train the baby to sleep through normal household noise.

We had this with a neighbour years ago, she called around to complain the first time we got in the house (when it was 100% empty) because her child was having a nap. My kids were small and excited but not being obnoxious. I had 2 kids myself, sorry flower there is no way I'm tiptoeing around because your pfb is having a nap.

They moved (hopefully to a detached house) haha.

Why are some people who live in attached housing so flipping entitled and think others should be silent at all times? I used to Iive in a ground floor flat and heard the upstairs neighbour slagging me off because I had the temerity to have a baby, he wasn't even a noisy baby tbh. The next people to move in had a boisterous toddler who stomped and dropped stuff. Oh well that's life. I mean it was a middle flat.

I mean shouting and arguing and loud music I can understand, every day noise, whatever.

for context we had a 3 month old on moving in (now 3y) and she recently had a baby who is now around 5 months

I assume you never demanded that they make no noise. I'd remind her of that - especially if they generally make/made more noise than you.

Block her.

I'm not great at confrontation but this is insane and I'd block her.

OR next time you hear questionable noises ask her to keep the noise down.

Mainly because that would be hilarious.

Block her and ignoreeee!

Block her on social media and don't answer the door. She's being ridiculous, but hopefully will be gone soon so not worth arguing about.

That’s interesting! Perhaps she projecting? Sounds like she’s got some secrets OP.

Send a message back saying "we don't complain about your household noise, even when you're shagging loudly at 2pm on a Thursday" (or when ever it was you heard her). That might put an end to the complaining 😁
I wouldn't actually do it, but I'd definitely be tempted!

Mostly I would ignore but you could give her the 'as a mum who has been through it the best thing you can do is teach your baby to sleep through noise. Then you won't be a martyr to naps for the next 3 years.' spiel.

Bloody hell! How did the death threat come about?!?

I mean you aren’t alone I hate upstairs neighbours

Remind her if she continues then you will have no option to report to council and then she will need to legally declare a dispute when selling the house - that should shut her up

My DH had the audacity to walk past their house! (On the public pavement - not on their land).

The guy ran out and ranted about how we had ruined his new home experience and that he was, “Going to fucking kill you”. He then started punching himself in the face whilst jumping up and down. It was bizarre.

Police said it was triggered by the fact he received a letter from the council’s noise complaint team explaining that they had reviewed his evidence and determined there was no need to open an investigation into us as everything he had described was normal noise associated with having neighbours. His evidence was a log of us using our front door and walking up and down our stairs.

I had a neighbour below us who used to bang on her ceiling/our floor claiming we were making noise - one time her banging woke us up?! So clearly no noise. She accused us of putting the washing machine on at 6am (definitely never did that, we had no children at this point and worked late shifts in restaurants, we were not up then!) and demanded that we change jobs to stop coming home so late (we were as quiet as possible, tiptoed up the stairs and then just sat watching tv on low volume).
She was batshit crazy, we told our rental agency and they just laughed and said she is a nightmare but never takes anything further (because all her niggles were completely ridiculous!). She moved out before us. I hope that her next neighbours she dates to bang on the ceiling for go round and give her a well-deserved earful. She was lucky we were such quiet neighbours!!