To ask whether we are nightmare NB or are they? And what can we do?

[advicepleaseandpfm]

Neighbour is in his early 70s - wife lives with him and they have a grown up son (he is married but wife lives in Asia and has their three children there). We knew they were a bit brusque when we moved in but we always got on with them and rubbed along - we tried to. I do remember one occasion when we had just moved in and someone fell over on the path outside their house and was bleeding, I saw it went out and helped them.
These neighbours sat in their lounge watching me while I called an ambulance - I was actually a bit upset because they are able bodied and have children and grandchildren, but their call if they don't want to help. I thought 'what type of neighbourhood are we in' - during lockdown they broke most of the social distancing rules and had relatives in the house. So I knew then maybe they weren't our cup of tea and in fact one of their grandchildren stayed and he was only 7 and was out in the local park all day and tried to set fire to some of the playground equipment and also wrote in permanent pen on the swing and slides.
Anyway that's the background and he did also say when we moved in 'it's a quiet neighbourhood, we make the noise around here'.
So we got a dog three years ago.
The neighbour started complaining about our dog barking, our dog is vocal but and does bark, but only for a few minutes and she goes to bed when we do. It can be annoying but where we live there are much noisier and more persistent dogs barking! And if she does bark in the night it's because we have foxes that scream in the park near us. I'm woken by them first. We play music to make sure she can't hear in.
Neighbour starts banging on the wall, telling us to shut up our dog. Even when its just a few minutes. On one occasion they set off fireworks in their garden then when our dog barked they banged on the wall. It gets really nasty where he's threatening to kill the dog and us. Swearing in front of our daughter and calling us awful names.

We ended up reporting him to the police. He then reports us to the council for noise nuisance - he sends a diary to the council and the officer calls us to tell us that the noise the dog makes is not unreasonable and because it's not all hours everything is fine. He'd put 2pm barking for a minute on the diary.

These neighbours do play loud music and they do have loud music every afternoon. I don't mind this - but the previous owner of our house was an elderly lady so maybe he's not happy about having a family of five here.

Anyway it gets to the stage where a few weeks we slam a door (actually our teenager slammed it) and we have the neighbour's son screaming at me and my husband out of the back window. I end up writing a letter and posting it through their door - saying we love our neighbours we don't want anything nasty to happen and I also said if we had to move - the neighbour is shouting at us to move - then is no guaranteed it won't be a younger noisier family who might make more noise.

Apparently that was seen a 'threat' and the son threatens to beat up me and my husband! We report to them to the police who are now looking at prosecuting. while this has gone on (for nearly two years) the neighbour has followed me down and up the street and shouted at me behind my back. I'm at least a foot shorter than him and he does it when no-one is around.

He's also done some other weird things I confronted him a few weeks ago he'd been drinking and he admitted that the dogs didn't make that much noise and his wife was ill so she was in pain and that kept him awake most nights. He said his grown up son had to put electrical wires up and needed to go to bed at 8am and get up at 6am. He said he'd been living here 48 years and had bought his house from the council so he should stay and we should move - I pointed out I have a primary and secondary school child.
For the record I start work at 6.30am from home for my job and I also have chatted to neighbours who tell me he's known for shouting 'bitch' out the window at women he doesn't like.
This morning (we are waiting for the police to update us) he tells my husband we are selfish scum and only think of ourselves (he knows both DH do volunteering and he knows what job I do) and that all our neighbours hate us and we need to move. Our dog did bark at 11pm last night - as we were out at a very rare fund raising event. We don't hold parties and now don't any family or friends round as we are scared of making noise. We want to move and rent out our house and live with our family nearby - and then move when my daughters finish school (one will be doing exams next year). How can we resolve this, he wants us to move - but we can't. Should we go round to our neighbours and see what we can do?

He is not going to change and he isn’t going to move either. That’s just the way it is with people like that. He’s lived there 48 years and thinks he owns the right to dictate other people’s lives. I expect your dog is quite annoying which is what has escalated his behaviour but you don’t deserve the abuse and intimidation. Just move, we had to do that, in the end it’s the only solution to deal with awful neighbours, especially when they own their home as it’s so difficult to do anything about them. However if you sell bear in mind you’ll have to declare all the issues and police involvement as you’ve put it on the record.

Talking to them won’t help and with all the complaints the house is likely unsellable . The issue if you rent out your house is that any tenants will likely get the same level of harassment so you will still be dealing with it as a landlord . I’d be very wary of letting the dog in the garden alone in case he throws poisoned meat or something over the fence .

I'll be honest: I love dogs but I wouldn't be impressed if my neighbour's dogs barked during the night, or if they played music as the solution to that.

When you say 'a few minutes' what do you mean, really? Because five solid minutes of barking, multiple times a day, is actually quite a lot and it's very, very grating. You say your dog barked 'because you were out a fundraising event', Does your dog bark for long periods when you go out? Do you actually know what noise it makes when you're not home?

However, your neighbours also sound like absolute horrors. So while I think they're well within their rights to complain about your dog barking, they shouldn't be intimidating you or shouting at you or threatening you. Their grandson sounds appalling and in general, they sound like a bunch of bellends. But at the same time I'd be interested to hear their version of events. (Although obviously there's no excuse for the threats and shouting! As you say - the threats are a police matter and totally unacceptable.

I do remember one occasion when we had just moved in and someone fell over on the path outside their house and was bleeding, I saw it went out and helped them. These neighbours sat in their lounge watching me while I called an ambulance

I'm not really sure what the problem is there. If you'd already gone out and called an ambulance, what was there left for the neighbours to do? If you needed something from them, like a blanket or a bandage or something, I'm sure you could have knocked on the window and asked. If there'd been a four-car pile-up outside your house, then yeah, I'd expect them to come out and help, but it doesn't take three adults to phone an ambulance for someone who's fallen over and cut themselves.

She doesn't bark during the night - it's quite rare - and I'm a light sleeper - so when they do I'll be the first to wake up. with the ambulance thing - I needed help - she needed to be supported and I also had to leave her to get some dressings from our house. I didn't want to leave her on her own - she was an elderly lady.

Sorry, OP, but ime of being intimidated and tortured, frankly, by my drug addled neighbour, the only solution is to move, not easy given you've already raised a dispute (quite rightly) with them. They sound like a family of total arseholes. We declared everything to the estate agent and managed to move after some delays, it was a blessed relief to have normal neighbours, but has definitely left us extremely sensitive to noise/minor annoyances.

Your neighbours sound utterly dreadful, and they probably know it and don't care. There is no way they are going to change, so you need to figure out a way to live with it and stop thinking you can in any way 'fix' this (you can't, they don't want to fix it) or you need to move and hope for better neighbours next time.

You sound like our neighbours -totally oblivious to their dog barking. We get woken at 6 am, by it, it continues on and off throughout the day. If they go out it doesn't stop until they return.

It's awful.

Don't talk to them ,don't engage, don't let them take up space in your head. Just get on with your life and ignore them. You can't change them, all you can do is grey rock them & record any harassment.

What does grey rock mean?

I wouldn’t be impressed by a dog barking in the night or music played to cover it either but I know what you mean about the noises foxes can make so as long as the dog noise is all during the daytime, which you’ve said most of it is, I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.

Your neighbours sound horrendous and I think letters or conversations with them is likely to inflame the situation. I would just ignore them, keep a record of everything, and keep on logging the threats and harassment with the police.

Assuming you own your property, I think you will need to declare the dispute to sell so moving isn’t necessarily even an option.

Lots of people have dogs and they do have a tendency to make some noise which I think reasonable people accept and don’t mind. What’s not reasonable is for neighbours to be threatening.

He’s not going to move. Unless you want years more of this, decades even, you’ll have to move before it destroys you from the inside out.

They sound awful and from what you have said I don't think your ever going to reach an understanding. You have 2 choices available to you. Put up with it and try to reduce hostility as much as possible or move. These are the only things you can control.

Another thing to consider is the couples age. Reality is in all likelihood they aren't going to be here in a decade. That being said I am sure you don't want this marring your kids childhood for the foreseeable if it's as bad as you say. Personally I would move on if you can't bear it. It isn't going to get better. Sorry op 😥

Ps I would also not like a barking dog. I get that you feel it's minimal. I keep cats...a barking dog for several times a day even if truly minimal; I would also hate. It's an unexpected, not enjoyable noise...One of the reasons I don't have a dog myself. I don't think they're unreasonable not liking it and complaining.

We want to move and rent out our house
Your neighbour sounds awful but this is what's unreasonable on your part.

Why should a tenant who no doubt will be paying a hefty rental charge have to put up with their behaviour if you've had enough of it?

@LimeAnkles - surely someone has to live in the house or am I missing something???
The OP likes the house and may in time want to return to live there as their primary residence so why not rent it rather than sell it. If they sell it, someone still has to live there.
At some point the neighbours will pass away (I'm basing this entirely on the fact that they have lived there for over 40 years and they are in their 70's) so at that point the OP may want to return and you can't do that if you've sold the house.

Are you suggesting that they leave the house vacant while they pay a mortgage on it and also pay to live elsewhere with their family?

I'd ignore them and stop talking to them. They're never going to move, it sounds like they can't afford to. Sounds like put up or sell up on your part. However when you sell, you have to disclose any issues with neighbours. Otherwise they can sue you. They will find.out because of police and council records.

Your neighbour sounds awful but this is what's unreasonable on your part.

Why should a tenant who no doubt will be paying a hefty rental charge have to put up with their behaviour if you've had enough of it?

A new tenant might be a quiet older couple without any dogs, so might not provoke this reaction from the neighbour.

Ignore them as much as you can. Stop responding to their shit because the more attention you give this, the more you feed it and the bigger it will grow.

Involve the police where you must (when threatened or harassed ) and the local council (for noise abatement) if needed.

Why are you OK with loud music at any time of day? Stop putting up with that. Write it down and get in contact with your local council.

Stop trying to fix something that clearly isn't fixable. Grey rock can be googled. It is pretty effective.

Was everything OK until you got a dog?

You are both unreasonable and I have found some of your comments to be judgemental and deeply unpleasant. You have a barking dog that you continue to make excuses for, whilst acknowledging that you, too, find your dog's barking annoying. Have you sought further training for your dog? Or do you think playing music at night, at a volume loud enough to mask the sound of foxes outside, is still the best approach??

Irrespective of personality clashes and annoyance with your dog, your neighbour obviously shouldn't be threatening you and you have rightly involved the police.

I would stop engaging with your neighbour - don't "confront" them about anything, don't put letters through their postbox. Get training for your dog and try to live your lives as best you can. Alternatively, as already suggested, you can rent the property out or sell it.

They sound like a nightmare but honestly the dog barking is also unreasonable.

We have neighbours like this - haven't trained their dog so it barks every time in its in the garden - 7am, 11.30pm you name it. Also, barks every time someone walks past - which given the number of deliveries in the street is regular.

Why get a dog if you are not going to train it not to bark?

We used to live in a terraced house and our neighbour moaned at every noise we made. He claimed he could hear me using the chopping board, cooking dinner, walking around, plugging sockets in, hoovering, everything. He would bang on the wall at every single noise. It became so unbearable that we just moved.

A bit of give and take:

1. Train the dog to stop barking
2. Hold out and live your life as normal - you're allowed to make reasonable noise in your own home. Even the council have told them it's not unreasonable. You've said they're in their 70s - hopefully late 70s - they won't be around forever!

We have an unpleasant neighbour - threats, abuse. minor criminal damage, and even on one occasion assault on DH. It gets worse when he drinks, which he does often. It started over 4 years ago, police have been involved in the past. We have installed cctv on police advice. He is an unpleasant, racist misogynist and this is widely known in our community.

He isn't going to move unfortunately. Nor could we easily while our DS was going through GCSEs then A levels. However for the last 2 years we have largely been able to ignore him, and ignoring him has made our quality of life much better, to the extent that now that our DS is coming to the end of school we no longer feel the need to move so urgently.

His behaviour hasn't stopped entirely. He still mutters stuff at us or coughs at us if we pass him (but not if anyone else is nearby). I expect he continues to report us to various authorities, but without any substance, those complaints go nowhere. I expect he still slags us off to people who will listen, but there aren't many of those, as he has made many enemies over the years.

We have a lot of nice neighbours, and they more than balance out this nasty one. Based on our experience, my advice would be to stop engaging directly with your nightmare neighbour. Make sure your DC know to stay clear and say nothing. If you have visitors or people working on your house, make them aware that your neighbour can be difficult and to avoid contact. Get to know your other neighbours. Though don't get involved in slagging nightmare neighbour off - avoid discussing him at all if you can. other than to say you don't have anything to do with him if you can help it.

You've scuppered yourself by making so many formal complaints. How will you sell now?

If you're prepared to rent and potentially put tenants through what you've been through, I'm afraid that doesn't say anything good about you

Your dog sounds annoying

Your neighbours sound awful

TBH OP you all sound like a bunch of chavs, screaming at each other through windows and forever banging around.

O can’t begin to express how horrific it is to live next to a dog that never stops barking. Even a minute can be unbearable. It’s even worse when the owners shrug and go ‘meh’. I have played music loudly before to drown out barking. It’s a nicer noise then constant taps or deep loud barks.

Who cares that they had people round in lockdown. The rules were ridiculous and I wish I had broken them rather than being a fraidy cat.

Also I think it’s fine they didn’t come out when someone fell. I wouldn’t either of someone was competently helping them. It would be FAR worse to stand uselessly gawping which is what a lot of people ‘trying to help’ end up doing.

Get your dogs barking sorted out.