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 would always give my neighbours a heads-up on this kind of thing.

Did exactly the same work last month.

Informed neighbours on both sides.

YANBU!

I wouldn't think to do that. You wfh and having young kids isn't my concern at all. I say this as someone who has a baby. It's annoying but it's a short term job done during normal hours so you just have to suck it up I'm afraid.

I don’t think they’re obliged to tell you. It’s very normal to do various jobs of upkeep in the day. I’d tell you if I had a mega party on night etc. But in the day everyone’s free to just get on with life imo..

Hi, I would say an awareness of the extreme unfairness of those WFH and those who don't. In reality, WFH provides opportunities for people to fit in 'work' around childcare, appointments. dog walking, dental appointments, school runs etc etc.
A recent thread on MN was from someone who admitted being on a big salary whilst only working 6-7 hours pw ((at home) whilst employed on a FTC and was asking if they should feel guilty. I have experiences of the above. At the same time, there are employees who have to clock in and out and have wages docked if they are a couple of mins late ( for whatever reason). Epitomises the sheer unfairness of it all. Also WFH with children ??? My experience of taking care of children supports the fact that you rarely get time for a hot cup of tea!
I appreciate that this is slightly diverting from OP's thread

To be honest I think most decent neighbours don't complain, or need to be consulted on, occasional noise. Tolerance goes both ways. I wouldn't be expected to be informed of every bit of noise in any one of the 7 gardens that abut mine.

The WFH aspect is a distraction. I recently arranged for my mums fence to have all new panels. It was a quick, quiet job with like for like replacement as she already had concrete posts and base boards for them to slot into.

i still told her retired neighbour out of courtesy because the neighbour has a dog and a dog flap. While the dog is a lovely soppy thing, there is no guarantee how any dog would react to the workmen, plus the risk that the dog would escape with the fence panels gone. The neighbour was very appreciative of being kept informed, plus having a new fence to look at!

Perhaps we can call it 'uncommon decency'

They didn't have to tell you that it would be noisy.
(Perhaps they didn't even realise it would be so bad.)

However - it would have been much better to have warned you!
(Many neighbours would have I think.)

Not thinking about others at all - or about the impact of what you do- is a fault even if you have the right to go ahead.

@Pouche just a heads up. Neighbour below us ripped out the hedge to put in a fence, very naice expensive properties both sides of the fence. OMG the rats that were evicted. We had to put in traps for two months to dispatch two generations at least of bloody huge homeless rats as did our neighbours alongside.

I agree, its a fact of life if you are lucky enough to have a home office and WFH. Possibly the neighbour hadn't realised how noisy the work could be, possibly they forgot to say anything or possibly as a (typically) one day job during working hours they didn't think it was worth mentioning.

I'm more intrigued about what happens to the WFH job, the napping children and the dog when the OP goes on her planned 8 week honeymoon to Oz and East Asia, partly in a VW camper. Presumably the napping child can adapt to this better than noise.

My next door neighbour had an extension built and didnt tell us. The work man spray painted out garden funiture and the neighbour said these things happen. My DH hit the roof and they quicky cleaned the mess up. Never been very friendly with them and to be honest I wouldnt tell them shit if I had any noisy work done now. Common decency dont cost a thing.

Well, no, but you can make plans to leave the house for a day

Kids are joining us for majority of our honeymoon. Then dh and I will spend last portion of honeymoon alone. Is that okay?

My dog is dead. Arsehole

Our neighbours always tell us, and we always tell them if work is going to be done. It's a courtesy.

So you wfh, look after your children atbthe same time, and your dog and don't have decent noise cancelling headphones for when your neighbour carries out normal household maintenance in the middle of the day ? I think you are making this up, the scenario is so ridiculous.

Downside of working from home.

I have to put up with the neighbour's shit taste in music and their bad singing as they play it at full volume sometimes even before 8am.

I don't actually mind mowers or drills as I can block it out and usually don't start until 9am and finish at 3/4pm, but music and singing is a whole different thing.

@Pouche you've unfortunately posted and gotten some right twisters responding today! 😆😆
It's common courtesy to let your neighbours know about these things yes. You aren't being unreasonable I'm my opinion. Hopefully it's just one day. X

No to so many of your points 😂

I have a childminder, dog is dead and noise cancelling headphones don’t stop the house from shaking.

But thanks for going through my post history. This is why I regularly name change. Last time someone tried to discredit me because I paid £200 for a moisturiser.

It wouldn’t occur to me to tell the neighbours I was having work done but then people seem to have extensions and various other things done all the time around here. If the neighbours are elderly, it probably won’t occur to them that people might be working from home because it didn’t happen much when they were workers. I don’t think it’s fair to consider that they are being deliberately rude or inconsiderate. It’s just one of the risks you take when you choose to wfh.

There are so many noisy works going on at neighbours (all large detached houses) around here I don't think anyone does notify others. eg 2 doors up had two YEARS of works (moved out and left us all to it with noisy builders including Saturday afternoon noise which is not allowed - they could not care less)l; house next to them 12 months of works after they bought it, left empty, massive works. Both those have now finished but in a street some people back on to there is a similar project so every day there are the works of the house being demolished and replaced, on and on. I wish all these people had no works done ever but there we are. Someone opposite had pressure washing today.

It is polite to tell you but some people will do this and some won’t. Those who don’t inform you in advance won’t understand if you complain because they don’t think that way. It’s like using loud devices in public. Lots of people wouldn’t dream of it, those who do it would have no clue they shouldn’t.

@Pouche sorry you are getting a hard time on here, we had building works done last year and informed our neighbours.

Unknown to us, the neighbours wife suffers from a mental health condition and cannot stand any kind of noise, they were grateful and went out when the worst of the noise was going on.

Our other neighbour was having her shed done (minimal noise) but still let us know.

whats with the bitchy comments?! It’s up to OP what she does with her money

I would tell neighbours about prolonged work, or weekend work, but not hedges! We have tractors doing that a lot!