To want to leave our dream house because of neighbours tv on party wall

[sapphicy]

Bit of a rant. We’ve issues with our neighbours - semi detached house, we’ve been here 5 years and started off well (Christmas cards etc) but then a year or so ago they put a tv on the shared wall (right below where our headboard is) and refused to move it when we explained we can hear it over our own tv and we can’t sleep when its on as we can hear every single word reverberating in the wall. We’ve tried talking to them several times and also written a letter asking them to move this tv off the wall, their answer is always no.

Long story short we’ve resorted to playing white noise full blast through the smart speaker every night, right against the wall behind our bed, as it’s the only way we can sleep over their tv. They’re retired and seem to be night owls, so the tv noise continues to 1-2am even on weeknights. I have to get up at 6.30 for work and I was so tired for a while it was making me ill.

Their tv is annoying during the evenings too as we have to turn our tv up ridiculously loud to not be able to also hear theirs, and if we have guests over people will comment about how loud their tv is, it’s not nice trying to have a nice chilled dinner and all we can hear is them watching the news.

DP lost her temper one night and banged on their door until they opened - they basically told her to pee off and that we were not going to tell them where they put their tv or what they do in their own home. It’s like they think we’re a pair of hysterical women exaggerating about how loud it is on our side.

Theyve now also had their bathroom ripped out and the old suite and all the bags of rubble have been in their front garden for about a month, it’s a real eyesore.

I am at my wits end. I knocked on the door last week after another neighbour messaged me moaning about the dumped bathroom, and they were clearly at home and ignoring me.

This house was a dream come true for us and we’ve spent our savings making it nice, and we’ve now been reduced to relying on the bloody Alexa in order to be able to sleep. Luckily DD room is on the other side of the house but if we were to have another baby they’d also have a room on the party wall and would be kept awake by the noise.

I am reluctant to go to the council as we’d then have to declare the problems if we decide to sell the house.

Would add that we haven’t done anything to wind them up - we go to bed early and don’t party! The worst we’ve ever had was a few drunk guests vaping in the garden on a Saturday night, and DD crying all night was over long before they put the tv on the wall.

AIBU to want to cut our losses and move into something detached, even if we make a loss? DP wants to stand our ground, but they own their house so unless they sell, this is probably just going to continue forever.

Any other ideas? :(

Not read the thread but soundproofing. Probably cost 1.5k and much cheaper than moving.

we had all our shared walls done. Game changer.

If you really like the house, soundproof the wall. Otherwise I’d move. Life is too short for this shit op!

Have you tried inviting them into your house to show them how loud it is on your side of the wall??

have you been inside their house to see how loud it is there?

Sometimes it's louder elsewhere than it is directly in front of the television, unless they're prepared to watch it on a lower volume with maybe subtitles, I'm not really sure what the solution is though.

My TV in my lounge is way louder outside on the patio and inside my bathroom, then it is in the lounge! It's very odd

Move

I would guess that they dislike you. That in itself is difficult. I wouldn’t escalate the situation with further noise, unless you want toxicity in your life and home.

I think it impolite to place a loud thing on a party wall. Placing a bed on a party wall in the master bedroom in a semi, is kind of daft in the first place in terms of noise. If they have the TV on the party wall it indicates there is a better position for the bed. How gouache having a TV in the bedroom in the first place! Swap rooms with the youngest, I doubt they would care about the TV.

You can flip it and think of some of the positives of having a couple of oldies living next door. Consider building a garden room, where you can make some noise and be left alone.

I'm very noise sensitive, the pair of us are, and both hate being woken by noise, even if that's from each other. I had a neighbour that used to set his alarm for 4.30 in the terrace next door. Then he snoozed it three times. That was it, I was awake for the day. One positive is that he did tend to go to bed early. In the end I just swapped bedrooms. Now I get the neighbours dog barking at midnight and first thing in the morning. That's in part just the downside of 'communal' living.

I've had two elderly relatives that have had the TV on soo loud I could not hear myself think when in the same room, and every time I would remark the neighbours must love you. But to be fair when your life is reduced to staring at the TV and you can't do much else there is some tolerance from others. My Mum is getting deafer in her old age, has no idea how loud she is. Failed to even notice the grandfather clock chiming all night long.

as others have said - soundproof the wall, move your fitted wardrobes on that wall, change your bedroom around.

you’re really at risk of struggling to sell if you escalate the complaint as you’ll have to disclose it.

as for then moving their building debris out of their front garden - don’t conflate the issues, and don’t confront on behalf of other neighbours. It’s very annoying but nothing you can do about it.

It’s not that easy, the boiler is in the fitted wardrobe so it needs to stay on that side really or we’d have to re site the boiler, there’s nowhere else the bed can go and all our bedroom furniture won’t fit in DD’s bedroom (the only bedroom not on the party wall).

We’re going to look into soundproofing panels although the number of replies here who say they don’t work or only reduced the noise by 10-20% aren’t encouraging

Thanks everyone

Could you reconfigure your bedroom, so the headboard isn’t against the party wall, and possible put soundproofing boards and a built in wardrobe where the bed is now?

Honestly it sounds like you both made poor & relatively permanent decisions (fitted wardrobes-boiler in bedroom/wall hung television presumably specific furniture across from it)

So if they're not able to keep the volume down as opposed to moving the TV. You'll have to rip out the cabinetry & relocate the boiler

I did a LOT of research on this. Basically the amount of sound reduction you get will depend on what solution you put in place. They vary from a couple of cm to about 10cm iirc. The bigger the system the better the result because you are able to put in more layers of insulation between you and the source of noise. You also have to determine what sort of noise it is, ie reverberating or just travelling through hollow wall cavity.
Many people just throw up a soundproofed plasterboard and hope this does the trick but it won't help that much. And if you don't treat the floor/ceiling then all you've done is stop the transmission of noise through the wall. So if it's volume issue then it will just travel through the floor and ceiling cavity anyway.
I soundproofed different rooms to different levels ie most in bedroom and least in living room as it does reduce the floor area.
It did make a substantial difference and brought noise down to tolerable but hasn't resolved certain noise types (certain reverberating still come through) but these are tolerable for me.

Moving the boiler and the cabinetry is still going to be cheaper than moving. If you put cabinets on the party wall, you could even back them with something like 50 - 100 mm of cork or similar.

Whilst I completely sympathise about the horrendous noise, having experienced similar, I disagree with all the suggestions to take ‘revenge’ with loud music etc. That is not going to help the situation and is only likely to cause further conflict.

In general, I think most people are unaware of how much noise they make or how audible it is to neighbours. I don’t think your neighbours were being deliberately nasty putting the TV on that wall, just unaware that you would hear it so much. Also, being elderly, it’s very likely they have to turn it up high to hear it but to them it won’t sound loud!

The only way to handle this is to be calm, polite and offer a solution to
their benefit. Do you know the configuration of their living room? Is there another wall suitable for a large TV? If there is, I would offer to pay for the TV to be moved and installed on the alternative wall. I would even say - “we’ll send Pete the handyman round to move the TV for you and he’ll also then move your furniture whatever way you want it.” They will have paid someone to install it on a bracket, etc and may just not want the inconvenience and expense of moving it and then having to shift heavy furniture at their age. Calm, friendly negotiations will always trump tit-for-tat reactions.

Just play them at their own game. Bass high music. Go out for the day.

You need it properly, professionally soundproofed. It’s costly but that’s the only thing that will give you genuine peace and quiet unless you can afford to move to a detached house

Sound proof your walls it’s relatively easy to do my husband did it with polystyrene sheets & plaster board
then painted over it you can’t tell it’s been done x

You could ask them to come in and listen to it so they can hear how loud it is. If its anything like my dad he has his TV up at 100 says he can't hear it and 'forgets' every time I say anything quite quickly. The way he will complain about my TV being TOO LOUD on at 35 though!
You could also go super petty. Borrow friends mega sound system. Someone will have one. Turn speakers to bedroom wall. Put a gangsta rap or happy hard-core album on repeat. Go and stay in a hotel for night. Conveniently. Come back and look astonished about this strange electrical malfunction.

Thank you, this is more on my wavelength - we’ve discussed ‘revenge’/playing the Alexa loud in the morning to wake them up but what kind of message is that sending to DD! It’s also just my luck they’ll have the council round or something while we’re out and we’ll end up getting fined lol

Even though they’re still not answering the door I’m going to write them a letter offering to buy them a sound bar for the tv that they can put in front of it and see if that helps (someone suggested this) and if not we’ll probably just move to a detached, don’t need this stress

I have an elderly neighbour in her 90s and I must say her TV which is against the party wall is really becoming and issue.

I feel bad because of her age but she basically has the TV on all day and must have some hearing problems because I can hear it clearly and it is becoming really distracting.

I think I will drop her a note to ask her to either turn the volume down or move it to the opposite wall.

Go to the council and complain about the bathroom in the front garden. Councils charge to remove items like that. Our council removes 3 items for £100.

Could you share that cost with the other neighbour if yours's next door won't? If you love your house, why move? You might get someone worse next door. Every time you complain it adds to their entertainment value.

You could take them to court for Human Rights Abuse, because you have a right to the enjoyment of your property. The downside is that any legal action with neighbours goes down on the property deeds and has to be investigated by a search when you sell. There are cheaper ways.

Do you both have central heating radiators? Are they in the same places in both houses? Noises carry through pipes and radiators. Warm air central heating can be even worse.

If you can re-arrange your furniture so that your headboard is not on the wall where their TV is, it might cut down the noise.

Also, is it worth having sound proofing to the room where they are clearly trying too send you round the bend? If you can sound proof everything and stop complaining, they won't get any amusement out of it.

Some people delight in making everyone else's lives a misery and the more you complain, the more satisfaction they will get out of it, but why would elderly people do that?.

If after making your rooms soundproof and there are still problems, then you will have to have a talk with them. Perhaps they are deaf and have the TV loud? They may not realise they are deaf. If they keep late hours, because the TV and news are more interesting after midnight, you may find even noisier people living next door if you move- young adults who are even worse, having parties.

I really feel for you. We moved 2 years ago for a similar issue. We now have a detached house and i love it as there is absolutely no neighbour noise through the walls but it was an easier decision as we definitely wasn't in our forever home

Perhaps your daughter would like to do 6am violin practice?

I wouldn't worry about the message to your daughter. You've tried being nice to them and that didn't work. They clearly don't mind noise so it wouldn't hurt to have some early morning music.

I’d prefer to reconfigure the bedroom as awkward than it is than move. I’d also start making really a lot of noise at 6am.

It will be cheaper (although still expensive) to have the house soundproofed. A friend did it for the same reason and was glad she did. At least get a quote and remember you could get terrible neighbours if you move so I’d stay put.

I live in a detached house but weirdly I hear these unexplained noises, like a distant thudding hammer. I’ve no idea where its coming from or what it is. It’s been going on for years. My son hears it as well so it’s not my imagination. I used to wonder if it was seagulls on the roof but they'd have to be the size of an elephant. It drives me mad. It’s not critters as it’s a deep thudding sound that sounds like it’s outside but on the house. Very odd.