Is it common decency to inform neighbours who wfh about loud noises?

[Pouche]

Neighbours have literally removed their entire hedge and whilst that is being wood chipped down on their drive there is also a drill being used for the construction of a new fence. The noise is unbelievable. Detached houses with wide-ish plots.

Am I being unreasonable in thinking the nice thing to do would be to inform next door neighbours?

Especially when you know they wfh and have young kids.

I don't think it's selfish when my neighbours get work done without warning me 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe they didn’t expect the noise to be as loud or disruptive as it is. I’d inform neighbours of big work but I don’t think I’d have thought of this in the same way.

Could the childminder not take your child to your parent's house now? That's the map disturbance sorted.

As for WFH, I would just move to the quietest part of the house and offer my apologies on calls. It would have been nice to have a heads up, but not everyone will do you need a contingency plan.

I don't have the choice to move to the office when it's noisy at home, as they closed both London offices. Being London every scrap of land is being built on, including 2 corner plots on my road (I am one house away from one and over the road from the other). I have just had to learn to adapt and move around the house depending on noise. I have also invested in a really good headset that drowns out the noise and has great non speech noise suppression for the microphone.

@Pouche my then not even 1 year old napped for over 3 hours the day we had three trees taken down in our garden, with chainsaw and wood chipper noise as background. I was amazed! Good luck for today's nap.

I think it's courteous to let neighbours know of any potential disruption regardless of whether or not you WFH. Surely just good manners and shows consideration for others.

Can't they just go for a nap in the pushchair or something?
You're making a mountain out of a molehill. It's only been a couple of hours of noise.

YANBU. My neighbour started demolishing outbuildings yesterday, warmest day of the year and my windows are open in my office overlooking the garden. No notice whatsoever. thank heavens for noise cancelling headphones.

I am also of the opinion that it is common courtesy to inform your neighbours before starting loud and/or dusty activity that will impact them. It allows them to plan accordingly (eg work elsewhere, not hang washing out etc). Plus you can’t underestimate the impact mentally - it makes a huge difference to know in advance and know how long it’s going to last, versus hearing the equipment roll up at 7am and the crashes and bangs and thinking WTF is going on?!

Our neighbour has no interest in having good neighbourly relations so we just have to suck it up. Wanker.

Yanbu. It's just manners to do so.

I have no idea what my neighbours do for work, where they work or what hours they keep. I don’t even know the names of most of them, it’s a keep yourself to yourself kind of street. I would notify them of anything really major (house extension for example) but typical garden maintenance noise for a few hours in the middle of a weekday I wouldn’t notify or expect to be notified of. Nothing to do with decency, I just don’t think it’s a big deal.

I once left the house for a few hours and on my return discovered a broadband company had dug a large trench outside my house, preventing me from accessing my house. There were then several days of digging, machinery noise and vibration. They certainly didn’t notify me in advance! (And it turned out it was long planned work.)

Stuff happens, it’s not that hard to cope with a bit of noise.

My immediate neighbours and even one that backs onto my property (and very near to my garden office) are always courteous and inform me if they are doing noisy work. With immediate neighbours I can then offer to move my car if their work people need better access.

I also inform them as a matter of courtesy. We like each other, have to live along each other and know that advance warning allows people to make alternative plans.

For me, just knowing the duration of the noise helps me not lose my mind.

If you have a child at home with you young enough to nap, I would not assume that you were working from home. That is far more unreasonable to me!

But no, my neighbours have all sorts going on during the day and nobody mentions anything. Jet washers, car mechanics, building works, hedge trimmers, lawn mowers etc. It's just part of living near other people.

Childminder does not have a car. She went to the park earlier. I’m sat in a couple of meetings where I may be called upon - hoping for a gap to open up so I can run them round.

There is no quiet part of the house there is a drill in their back garden and a wood chipper on the driveway. If it was just one or the other I would not be so pissed off.

I think so, to me it's just being polite and considerate, nothing to do with WFH or whether you have children. We used to always let ours know when we were doing anything that could be loud or annoying, but they don't seem to think it should work the other way! It's not so anyone can object more so people can plan around it if they want e.g. the last time they had a loud garden party that went on really late, we'd prob have gone away for the night if we'd known in advance. Same when they were having their garden dug up, no notice of diggers arriving etc and then I was stuck WFH trying unsuccessfully to do Teams calls over the noise when I'd have gone to the office if I'd known.

Large project that will go on for several days or more - yes inform neighbours
Small project that will last a day or less - no, no need

These are the rules
<gavel>

You are right. It is reasonable to expect it. My near neighbours came to do just that a couple of weeks ago. They reassured that they wouldn't start early morning or continue late at night, and have been true to their word.

It's considerate behaviour, and I'm grateful they took the trouble to speak to me.

• as a one-off, or minor noisy repairs, wouldn't expect them to warn me. The noise from my neighbours is expected to last several weeks.

It is REALLY ANNOYING. But they probably didn't realise or think about how noisy it would be to chop a hedge down and put a fence up. Plus you will probably find yourself doing something equally annoying one day so it's better just to put up with it for a short time.

I'd be more annoyed about the hedge/ fence exchange for wildlife reasons!

I agree and don’t know why you’re getting all the responses saying they’re entitled to have the work done. Nobody’s disputing that. And, no, going into the office once the working day has started isn’t an answer as it is generally disruptive unless you live close by.

Next door neighbours had three weeks of loud refurbishment last year. I did think it would have been nice to have been told in advance.

but who would look after the napping child?

I agree with you OP but the reality is noone warns you of anything and people just make noise and don't give a f*.

When we moved in we learnt of our neighbours extension plans by the official letter sent by surveyor. No decency to knock on the door and tell us. We didn't also know when the work will take place. Same with other neighbours. They redoing their kitchen and other works in the house now. No note, no nothing.

They don't even say hi properly to us let alone tell us what works they planning. 🤣🤣🤣

I accept all those thing - neighbours are retired and always finding some new thing to jet wash. This level of noise is a step above - we are talking ground drill, wood chipper and the occasional chainsaw. Down the entire length of my house.

YABU - garden work for a morning, no need to tell neighbours, particularly midweek. Long project like building works, obviously polite to tell them about disruption.

The other half of our semi had 7 months of building work. I asked that they let me know when drilling into the shared wall was happening so I could arrange to go out that day where possible. However, when it was one-offs, I accepted it as part of WFH in a built up area.

I did wonder about this as I didn’t think you were even allowed to trim hedges due to birds in Summer.

How do you know how long it will go on for if they don’t tell you? My neighbour has started landscaping work now with a digger after finishing off the demolition this morning.

we could go and ask him but we’d just get told to fuck off and it being none of our business.

We always let our neighbours know if we'll be doing any work, bbq, etc, as do they for us. It's just useful to have a heads up in case we want to rejig plans as a result. I agree OP, it's a nice courtesy to extend to each other.

Of course it would have been possible with a heads up. If the OP had known before the day she could have done her usual commute into the office (e.g. leaving home at 7.30am to get in work for 9am). Because she wasn't told she couldn't plan for it. If the noise started at, say, 9.30am, to then commute in wouldn't get her there until 11am. That's 2 hours of the working day she has lost and meetings missed.