To not have told neighbours about building work?

[Ginspirational]

We’re having a patio extension done today - 1 days work. The guys dug up and now they are compacting, so drill level noise for about an hour on and off. It is loud.. but the neighbour just came round to say she’s having a bbq and it’s really disturbing them and I should’ve warned them.

I genuinely didn’t even think to do that.. should I have? The workman said it’s only going to go on for 10 more minutes but now I’m cringing. We all moved in recently and I don’t want bad blood already!

Again I think rude fucker is a bit of an over exaggeration 😅 I am a polite neighbour, it was an oversight and now I know!

How far do you need to warn people? I can hear someone doing work three or four doors down right now.

This would be us too as we can hear just about any building work going on in our street as we are in a quiet village. We have never had any warnings from neighbours and we have never warned anyone either especially not for one day.

In general it’s good to tell neighbours in advance but we have piss taker neighbours who actually push back against work we are having. I ended up just not telling them because it was becoming insane how much stuff they expected us to not do or to move to accommodate them.

Woah I think that was terrible manners on your behalf would I really apologise to them .

Yeah, weekday I would not warn. But YABU to have noisy building work on a Saturday, so am not surprised she's cross.

Weekends are when lots of building works gets done though?

Like if you're doing it yourself then you'll almost definitely be doing it at a weekend

The only time we has a complaint was when the telephone company rocked up at 8:10am on a Sunday to start drilling new lines or something because they can "work from 8am". Fair enough but it still felt too early 🤣

We get on extremely well with our neighbours and always let them know of of any work, as they do us.

A few years ago our nearest neighbour scheduled some very noisy work for when we were going to be away.

Yanbu it's one day work it would be different if your having extensive work done. I'd tell them if I see them but I wouldn't go knock on the door of basic strangers for 1 days work

It’s a bank holiday weekend - I’d have warned them. I’d be expecting people to have bbqs, family round etc. a weekday, not so much.

bit you didn’t realise it would be so noisy, easily done

Sorry!!! I was reliving fury from what we have had to deal with before !!

We stopped informing one of our previous neighbours because she saw it as a reason to constantly ask us to move the dates or find another problem, with no good reason. She became a complete pain in the arse for the years that we lived by her. I did wonder shortly after moving in why no one else seemed to bother with her and I found out the hard way.

We don’t have any neighbours now. 🥳 But if we ever did in the future, I’d only inform them of long term work.

Given that so many people work from home these days I probably would warn on a weekdays as well.

I'd say the opposite - we all get on well with our neighbours because we're a tolerant bunch and accept that houses need work and it can be noisy. Fire example, next door's garage wall can only be accessed from our garden and they know they can go ahead with that if we're not in, they don't need to ask.

We wouldn't notify or expect to notify over something that's a one day job. But as I said, noisy garden work on a bank holiday weekend is a little different. Sounds like all is sorted though

How would you feel if it was the other way round?

You had guests for a BBQ on the first decent day of a bank holiday weekend and they were making a racket with building work in their garden.

@Looneytune253
1pm? Why do u say that? That's when most people will be cracking on with their DIY on a bank hol weekend
Because that's the rules about building work/noise in most councils

I think that's ridiculous. That's half the day you can't do DIY on the only day you are available to do DIY. When are you supposed to do your jobs

Yep you should've given them a heads up, it's only polite, esp on a weekend in spring with nice weather

Mind you what's done is done, one days work. If they remain pissy its on them now, and you know better for future

@Looneytune253 I think there's a distinction between DIY jobs and professional building work. I think a bit of private DIY would be ok within reason

Same with our new neighbours, me and DH both WFH for part of the week, and when it was awful when they were having building work done 😩 could have both gone in to the office. They are also inconsiderate twats in other ways

I think my reasoning is - the week is (usually) a working one, therefore work of whatever type (so, including building), is unfortunate but probably fair game.

The weekends (especially a sunny bank holiday) are broadly for leisure, so a heads up is courteous.