AIBU to ask neighbours children & teens to keep noise down in the garden?

[NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting]

Our next door neighbour has 4 children/teens, the youngest is 6ish and the eldest is 15.

When they are in the garden, they play football but play against the youngest and wind him up, so he’s constantly screaming, screeching and crying. When the screeching isn’t going on, it’s football chants are full volume and a lot of shouting between them and constant fights.

They will be in the garden until 9pm and can be out early at the weekends and it can keep our DS1 up and make bedtime so difficult, especially when it’s warmer and we need to have the window open a smidge.

AIBU to ask their parents to get them to keep the noise down? Especially as it’s affecting bedtime with our son and making our garden unbearable as there’s not a moment of silence if they are out as they are constantly fighting.

Just have a polite chat with the parents. It doesn't need to be a big deal at all.

I think that you have to pick your battles. What time does your child go to bed? Ask if they could keep it down in the garden after that time.

It doesn’t stop in the autumn or winter either. It’s constant, which is probably why my tolerance and patience is running out.

Go and have a conversation with the parents.

Start with the fact that it sounds like the older ones are winding up the 6 year old so much that to you it sounds like they are bullying him due to the amount of distress he sounds in.

In regards to making a noise complaint to the council that will go no where as children playing even if they are screaming isn't a noise nuisance. There are other ways to get a complaint listened to but you really don't want to go down there....

Btw always have it in mind that the 6 year old could be looking out for/hanging out with your toddler in future so you need to keep relations good.

The best you can do is to tactfully say "little Johnnie's sleeping so badly now the nights are light, he gets distracted by yiur dc playing and having fun. Hopefully he'll be more grown up next year and it won't bother him so much. Tinkly laugh, "and oh I thought your dc might like some of these buns I just baked, we'll never get through them".

Get them onside op, however machiavellian you need to be. The other way will have consequences and they won't be pleasant or comfy to live with.

They are A'holes, you have to be the bigger A'hole here

Kids being loud in the summer is normal, this is their time of year to be children and have fun! Yours will be making that noise in 5 years when you have 2 or 3 kids, don’t be precious in thinking they won’t!

why did you buy a house with neighbours if you don’t like noise from the neighbours? Maybe you should have picked a house with elderly either side instead of a family of four kids.

Thanks for everyone for answering.

I’ll speak to the parents and ask if they can keep it down, especially after 7.30pm when we put our toddler down.

Our plan wasn’t to complain to the council as we don’t think that will do any good and was always planning on speaking to the parents.

Hopefully, we can come to some kind of agreement so we can all enjoy our gardens and not causing issues with bedtimes etc.

That is the most ridiculous question I’ve ever seen, sorry.

When you go for house viewings, you dont tend to know exactly how many children are living next door. Even if we did, we wouldn’t expect teenagers to be screaming.

We live in London, so always going to be living in close quarters to others and expected some noise, but this is excessive.

We live in London

Unless you have railway line/park/allotments/road behind your gardens then the family are annoying lots of households in gardens that are adjoining theirs.

The fact none of their neighbours have managed to find away of keeping them quiet means it's hardly likely you will be able to either.

Btw myself and a sibling have had issues with noisy neighbours. I've only had to deal with adults thereas my sibling had to deal with children once as well. It took until the children did something criminally wrong before the noise issue with them was resolved. In all cases we required supporting evidence from their other neighbours to resolve the issues.

Oh jeez. That’d tip me over the edge. Thing is, what can you do?

People are so inconsiderate. It would wind me up. With rights vome responsibilities. The screaming is unnecessary

It’s torrential rain here and kids are still kicking a poxy ball

Good, it's bank holiday Monday, why the hell wouldn't they be kicking a ball in the afternoon?

4 kids are going to make noise, you say you can hear it in the garden but also through the walls so I don’t know what you want them to do - sit indoors fingers on lips from 7:30? We live next to a 4-kid household (4-11) they’re kids, they’re just noisy!
As my two have gotten older they’re just as wild and noisy having fun in the garden, it’s what kids do.
Do whatever you like but if you plan on living next to them for a long time I wouldn’t burn any bridges on this. I get it can be annoying but it’s literally just what a gaggle of siblings are like!

Depends on the noise level. You could ask the council to come to record it but unless it reaches a certain level it would not count as noise nuisance at that time of day however much it is a nuisance to you.

If the OP looks on her council website it will say children playing isn't a noise nuisance.

Edited to add - councils also interpret that to mean children shouting at you and throwing items in neighbours gardens isn't noise nuisance or anti-social behaviour.

It may or may not depending on the council or may refer to normal levels of noise from play. It is unlikely that kids playing will reach the level of noise required to constitute a nuisance anyway.

There are a lot of inconsiderate people around unfortunately. A friendly word about bedtime might be okay.

I can imagine it is really annoying in the evening. I am very conscious of our kids' noise as most of our neighbours are retired and v quiet. However I'm not sure what you can realistically do. I'm sure the council would not be interested in household noise at that time. I personally wouldn't wand to fall out over it though they are BU.

Give a shout out to the kids (in a friendly manner) asking them to keep it down a bit as you getting the toddler to sleep. Or call around and nicely speak to the parents. Unless they are a very unfriendly family they should be ok about it

I used to have a constantly shouty, screechy kid a few doors down from me and it really was awful on a warm day. I have a lot more kids living near me, now and of course they're not quiet but the tone of their play isn't that full on constant swaying between sergeant major and hysteria and is so much less stressful to listen to. The big difference is that the parents get out there and reel them in if someone does begin to get over wrought.

There's a reason these kinds of parents send these kinds of children out in the garden all day. Its because its bedlam in the house if they are in, because they've not been taught to behave more quietly etc.

You'll get nowhere complaining. Their parents know full well how noisy their DC are and won't do anything about it.

When I was a kid, if my brother's and I made to much noise in the garden my mum would tell us to keep the noise down as we'd disturb the neighbours. If she had to tell us for a third time we were told to come back inside. We all brought our kids up the same way.

Ours goes in and shuts the door so they don’t have the disturbance but everyone else does. Useless

Same here and exactly how I parented my kids in the 90s and I’m pleased to say that’s how they parent their kids too.

My GC know to enjoy playing in the garden but they know that screaming, shrieking or shouting isnt allowed . That doesn’t mean that they don’t get over excited at times and forget but they have been taught from young that there are neighbours in their garden too who are entitled to enjoy their time out there.

The sense of entitlement from some of the posters is just so depressing, just a total lack of any parenting or teaching young dc how to grow up to be respectful of others.