To think that if you have noisy unnecessary building works done, you lose the right to object to noise made by your neighbours?

[CrispieCake]

Inspired by another thread. AIBU to think that if you subject your neighbours to months of disruption and misery in their own homes so that you can have a bigger kitchen or loft conversion (and particularly if you move elsewhere so you're not disturbed), then it's open season on you as far as noise is concerned from then on? You lose your right to object to your neighbours' babies crying, kids screaming, pool parties, garden raves, essentially any lawful use of their property from then onwards. And if you try to complain to them, they're fully justified in laughing incredulously, shutting the door in your face and inviting 20 5 year olds round to go wild in the paddling pool.

I know I'm not BU on this but interested to know what others think.

Within reason YANBU bit it doesn’t give you a free pass to be inconsiderate of others forever. 20 five year old using a paddling pool for a few hours during the day, completely reasonable, at 7 o clock on a Sunday morning or all day every day all summer, not reasonable. Presumably the extension works and disruption occurred during construction hours and also has an end date.

So nobody should ever be allowed to improve or expand their property to better suit their families needs? Don’t be ridiculous.

YABU.

My neighbours are making a right racket building their extension.

Id fucking hate it if they had a rave or late night garden party with loud music.

And it also doesn’t give me the right to be a noisy cunt either.

No, you don't get the right to be noisy in perpetuity just because your neighbours caused some short term noise and inconvenience.

YABU of course, though I get where you're coming from on an instinctive level.

All noise has the potential to be excessive/inappropriate, etc. It's not a tally sheet. Except in my head. If they move away while works are being done, and the people opposite me have done just this as the whole house is being re-built, there will be a contact for reporting problems so I would use it.
To be fair the development opposite is under the management of a single organisation who abide by the local council rules: start at 7.00. finish by 4.00., no weekend work. Also no music - don't know if it's a rule but they don't do it.

They can expand all they like but if they inflict noise on their neighbours, they don't get to object to the neighbours' noise.

Well yabu. They've done it because they wanted to make home improvements. They can't help that that's noisy. You sound like you're going out of your way to make and allow excess noise to be spiteful.

No one should be complaining about neighbours' reasonable noise including building work, crying babies, kids screaming, occasional parties.

No one should be creating excessive noise either, whether that's building work at unreasonable hours, frequent late parties, hours of basketball practice, whatever.

Having building work done on your house doesn't mean you have to suck up your neighbours' excessive noise, and tolerating your neighbours' building work doesn't give you credit to be rude yourself.

Don't be ridiculous. Building work is noisy and not done on purpose. There will be an end to it.

To purposely antagonise your neighbours with noise is cunty

Yabu.

You are also BU to call extensions or loft conversions ‘unneccessary building work’ - shows your mindset.

Do you only have one neighbour who will be disturbed by pool parties and garden raves?

Their choice. My choice. "Making home improvements" doesn't give you a free pass to subject others to hell on earth and expect no comeback.

Obviously excessive noise would constitute a legal nuisance but, for example, just letting my older DC practice their drums whenever they liked probably wouldn't.

Yabu. Our neighbours had a huge front and back extension the other year... I'm not going to lie, the disruption was a nightmare for us in the noise (I worked nights at the time, wasn't fun trying to sleep in the day!) the dust, the blocking of our drive, It drove us mad.

But, I still dont agree that gives us the right to be noisy unnecessarily. I still think sime consideration is needed. I dont begrudge them their extension

They're not necessary in the same way that, for example, essential roof repairs are.

The neighbours having work done doesn't give you a free pass to subject them to hell on earth either.

You sound unpleasant

You are making yourself sound very petty.

So neighbour 1 has some building works.

Neighbour 2 thinks that gives them permission to have loud parties in the evening.

Neighbour 3 thinks that means they have permission to restore cars which leave them running at the weekend with petrol fumes etc.

Neighbour 4 thinks that means they are fine to invite their teenage rock band to rehearse three times a week.

And how many people are effected by selfish neighbours who all think they're entitled to make noise because one had some building works done?

The least selfish is the building because they're presumably doing it because they want to have a better house. The others are doing it because they feel they have a right to be noisy.

Sounds needlessly antagonistic, honestly. I get that building works can be tedious, but I doubt they're doing it to spite you.

Sometimes it's nice to be petty.

If someone disturbed my family's peace for months on end, then moved back in and came round and asked me to keep my kids' noise down, then yeah I'd be a bit petty.

Wow! So a temporary disruption which causes noise, and presumably has rules around it like not working at certain hours or certain days, means open season for antisocial inconsiderate behaviour forever?

So self entitled!

Obviously excessive noise would constitute a legal nuisance but, for example, just letting my older DC practice their drums whenever they liked probably wouldn't.

So did you take legal action over their alleged excessive noise?

I think you’re completely unreasonable. It wouldn’t be fair to complain about equivalent noise (so other people building an extension) but I don’t see what it has to do with late night parties or drumming.

These situations require some give and take from both sides. And I say that as someone currently living next to a half built house after the previous one was demolished and completely rebuilt, so I’m not unaware of what building work entails. It’s totally normal to build onto and renovate houses and the neighbours will in turn do the same at some point - noise from building work is just how things get built. Did your house get put up out of foam blocks in five minutes by fairies or something?!

Building works 8am- 3pm (maybe 5...) Monday to Friday - during working hours, ends after works complete.

All the noise you've described, basically anytime 24/7

YABU.