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.

With a toddler you might think you understand child noise. In five years time you'll laugh at that thought especially if you have another child. You can't compare a 1 year old to 4 children. An exhausted you might get it one day.

It doesn't sound like the noise is really anti social and fine up to 9pm. If your toddler goes to bed later it's no big deal is it?

Yes screaming, shouting, playing football, winding up a sibling is all very normal for children aged between 6-15. This is your first summer there, don’t make things awkward for yourself by complaining. The person who said report to your local authority for antisocial behaviour is ridiculous - it’s the opposite of antisocial, it’s normal behaviour from a young family who have been cooped up indoors after one of the worst winters in history.

When your children get older I’m sure they will reciprocate the noise.

On our council website it says they will not take on complaints over child noise , ie playing , crying, shouting. Or one off party's.

You can ask but they might ignore the request. I remember our mum always telling us to play quietly in the evening in case there was a baby nearby trying to sleep. I don’t know if people were more considerate back then.

I would just ask them tbh. My neighbours dislike me already but I've literally just been round to ask them to stop their boys kicking the ball repeatedly against our shared fence because it's driving me insane!

I have no issue with playing and they are a bit loud but not screaming and not repeated kicking most of the time! I still say what I feel. Why wouldn't you?

You shouldn't report to LA if you've never even asked them to be quiet though. That would be weird!

Children constantly screaming is not acceptable. Normal playing noise yes but not screaming just for the sake of it, trying to outdo each other's screams etc.

I would never allow my kids to do this. Parents need to parent. Too many shove them out the door then pretend they don't exist.

@oOiluvfriendsOo Yep for the rest of us to put up with

some muppet always pipes up with this 'why did you buy a house with neighbours' idiocy on MN on every thread with neighbour disputes, as if we all have the finances for Downton Abbey-esque remote country estates but choose to live in terraces as some hilarious social experiment to see how the proletariat live.

Most people don't choose to live close to others but have no other option. UK houses are largely built very close together. You are of course completely right, OP, that most people don't know who their neighbours are until they move in - and even if you DID know and made a choice on that basis, your neighbours could - shock, horror- MOVE at any time.

I think a polite, 'any chance your kids could keep it down/play out the front between x-x.30 while I put the baby to bed' is fair enough. The worst they can say is no, really.

Difficult one. I would teach my DC to be considerate of the neighbours but I don't see how you can enforce it with someone else's kids.
I don't really mind the noise of kids, barking dogs really annoy me though.

Sounds hard work but I think if you live in a housing estate it is live and let live I'm afraid. Kids are noisy, but might be extra noisy if you complain about it (you know what people are like). There are many neighbours in my street I would happily never see again!

I'm in a terrace , my DC are adults so I have survived a lot of noise ! Though mine weren't screamers .

At the moment we have a mix of:
football going thwack thwack against a wooden fence (not my fence)
Yapping dog ( endless )
Occasional noise from small child at night ( expected and I remember going through this with my own DC)

Thankfully don't have to put up with noisy music till 3am mid 20s but I got my own back with a vacuum cleaner against his wall at 7am .

Another yappy dog .
Just hope they don't get a trampoline !

I know in the summer it all ramps up a gear .

Or - they could keep it down to reasonable levels and bear in mind their surroundings?

I feel your pain. I live next to four loud kids and 4 dogs. I think some parents can be unaware how loud their kids are because they just get used to it with 4, especially if the adults have quite loud voices themselves. I wear noise cancelling headphones in the garden, it’s not ideal but they’re a loud family. Just be glad they’re not having outdoor sleepovers like my neighbours. The other night the kids started (started!) playing music at 1.30am. I assume the parents were out

As above, somehow try to make sure your neighbours don’t get a trampoline! The squabbles were unreal

It's the screaming that's the issue not the fact kids are playing out

This is absolutely not true. In our road we have 1 family with screeching kids (thankfully seem to be growing out of it)that have no boundaries for volume or time of night, and one family nearer to us with 2 incredibly polite well behaved boys, who play far far quieter than the other two screechers who are 1/4 mile away We just don't hear them, bit of ball noise, and the odd time they need a ball throwing back they ask politely. Near neighbours are always apologising for the boys 'noise'. Far neighbours never mention it - I do say to them sometimes, 'oh I heard those noisy kids last night till about 10pm, I think they're somewhere beyond you, the kids screech so loud we hear it our end, must be very annoying for you' but they've not taken the hint.

Op you have 1 toddler who is obviously not comparable to 4 older children . If you live beside others there’s always the chance of noise , they might be woken up early by your dc or if you have other dcs and get unlucky and have a non sleeper in the future or really noisy older children . It’s a good thing that they are enjoying their lives while they are young and good that teenagers are outdoors.

Is the noise really waking up your son ?

Agree that 9 pm is reasonable and so is the sound of children playing in a garden

It sounds like normal noise of having a family next door. They are slow to play and make noise in their own garden.

I feel for you.

At our last place the kids next door were noisy little sods bashing our fence with a football from 7am every weekend. I suggested to the parents that the local playing field would be more suited to football, as I threw their ball back for the zillionth time. Parents didn’t give a shit. I bloody loved it when they moved.

We are in a quieter spot now, but there is a family nearby whose kid literally yells at the top of his voice non stop, charging around the garden and jumping on the trampoline. Starts at 3pm every day until dark. At weekends they are thank god often out, but if home it’s all day. I have zero sympathy as to why this might be, I would just like him to shut the hell up occasionally.

I know there’s very little people like us can do, and here on MN the consensus tends to be let the little darlings play, but when you live with it every day it’s bloody awful. We will be moving at some point and vicinity of neighbours will be huge on the check list.

I don't think 9pm is ridiculous for teenagers. You're just at different life stages. Not everyone lives in silence after 7pm.

I have new neighbours who let their young kids, 2 & 4, out to play early in the morning and it wakes us all up as we have teens who sleep later now. But what can we do, it just normal neighbour noise, as annoying as it can be.

As long as it's not music blasting at midnight I don't think there's a lot you can do. Speaking to them might make it worse.

Let us know how it goes OP. I’d love to have the balls to ask them to keep it down but I’d probably silently seethe until it became like white noise and hope the teenager gets a girlfriend soon.

They are I the garden until 9pm, it's hardly antisocial. You will just have to shut your window.

We live in a terrace house, not an estate.

@Nosleepforthismum the shrieking crying could never become white noise, I dont think. It’s very high pitched, so maybe I’ll just have to hold out until his voice drops in 10 years time 🥴

@Isthisit2 yep, the noise wakes him up and can be heard over white noise and also our tv when we’re watching it. In fact, I could hear them at the front of the house this morning on my way back from the shop, it’s that loud.