AIBU to be tired of living next to other people?

[GrumpyNeighbourAgain]

Is anyone else tired of having neighbours? Has anyone else moved to somewhere more remote as a result?

My neighbours aren’t nearly as bad as some that I’ve had but they’re still grating on me. I don’t like kids and I’m tired of all the noise and accoutrements that come with them. Every week it feels like there’s another giant play item blocking my view and they also put it closest to my fence though there’s one side that has no one next to it.

I’m tired of screaming children. Why do children all seem to scream unnecessarily now and why does no one tell them to stop it?

Neighbour’s teenage kids shouting, laughing and talking at full volume coming home at 3am.

I’m tired of people’s motorbikes, garden parties and just noise in almost every form.

I wouldn’t mind having neighbours who are around, say 100 yards from me but not much closer.

Has anyone else moved more rurally/remote and was it worth it?

TIA

Used his own funds for the purchase I believe

We (my husband, then 9 year old daughter and me) moved from Barnet to the countryside ten years ago.

Our house and (approximately) half acre garden is surrounded by farmland. We have no shared boundaries with other residential properties.

The two neighbouring houses are five and ten minutes walk up the lane, respectively. We are good friends with both households.

As well as not having to put up with other people's noise, we don't have to worry about disturbing the neighbours either. We often sit out late with friends during the summer and can do so without worrying that our music or conversation is upsetting anyone.

We can walk into the local village (with a small shop, pub and church) in 10-15 minutes and the nearest market town (with supermarkets and a mainline railway station with direct trains into central London) is a further five miles away.

There are small disadvantages:

There is no footpath for much of the way between our house and the village, which can make walking to and from the village at night a bit hazardous.

The smell when the farmer sprays the fields around our house is enough to scorch your nostrils, but he only does it once or twice a year.

Occasionally, the cows or sheep break free from their fields and up the lane, or into our garden. They make a bit of a mess of the lawn and we usually lose a few flowers, but we don't mind.

I would definitely recommend rural/edge of village living to anyone who can afford it. The difference in our quality of life since we moved from London is immeasurable.

Perfect for you @GrumpyNeighbourAgain 😆

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/160283210#/?channel=RES_BUY

Do you have any tips on reducing your child’s noise? Mine are crazy loud at home and nothing works long term.

Im struggling to see how parents can control their children’s behaviour when not present. In our village, it’s the kids who are left to go out on their own who cause the most mischievous (read antisocial behaviour and criminal damage).

I live in a semi rural area my estate is full of younger children but I’m really lucky as they don’t seem to be out all the time screaming and when they are in the gardens it’s normal kids play which I love to hear.
where I lived before was on massive long road and the noise was awful , balls kicked up the fence all day every day etc but what can you do really , kids need to play out and it’s safer for parents to put all the toys in the gardens so they worry less about them playing out etc.
i have to say I love hearing the foxes , deer and badgers etc wildlife noise is joyous to me
I hope you find your peace op , it’s not easy not relaxing where you live

Kids are allowed to be loud. It's not loudness that's the issue. It's the high pitched screaming that's the biggest issue for me and most of my neighbours but we daren't say anything. We're not expecting children to play quietly. Mine shouted, laughed loud but they didn't scream. I'm beginning to think that some people have never heard the shrieking I'm talking about. It's not just standard kids playing noise.

I am autistic too, I can't stand neighbours 😂, fingers crossed we can move pretty soon, meanwhile I have maaaany pairs of headphones, my favourite are a pair of noise cancelling sound core that I play lovely soothing bird noise through and pretend I live in rural idyll. Try it, it honestly is sanity saving.

This year seems quiet near me, family with 2 loud children moved last Yr. Next door are quiet never hear them although they are awake during the night to relations back home in Zimbabwe. 80 Yr old man other neighbour is very quiet, no trouble. Bottom flat is empty. The 2 houses that back on to mine are quiet as well, although 1 man smokes weed and the awful smell is wafting over which I'm not happy with.
I have just had all privacy fencing put up because I don't want to see anyone.

Children can live their lives without screaming. Just not necessary and we seem to accept it. I'd have been given short shrift as a child for screaming anywhere in the house or garden (densely populated South London). In this case, my parents would have been correct.

I'd sooner live next to a cockerel farm than next to kids.

I was at a BBQ last year where all the children were making that awful screeching noise and the parents just looked over indulgently every now and again saying ‘Aww aren’t they having fun?!’.
It was driving me round the bend and then all of a sudden the hosts Auntie, a formidable Caribbean lady, bust out of the French doors like a SWAT team and told them all ‘NOBODY wants to hear that noise. You scream you come inside with me and prep some vegetables’. I could’ve kissed her on the mouth. She was glorious. They were angels from that moment on.

My parents have no neighbours that they can see from their farm house. However a dual carriage way was constructed and it's less than a mile from the house. At times it's noisier than my terraced street in London.

If it's not noisy people, then it's traffic. Do your homework before you move.

Yes op i agree noise in general and people in general have got worse ! I have a whole block of flats to myself it’s absolute silent biss ! Well for 9 months a year until the airb&b people come then it’s hell on earth ! Screaming shouting slamming doors banging around at all times of night. Never know who is turning up one week to the next ! I am incredibly lucky that my landlord has offered me a long term rental a lot of people who live here can’t find anywhere to live. Everything is being bought by rich foreigners or rich people from the capital to airb&b and then locked up for the other 9 months. There is no massive profit in long term rental. I can’t even get to know my neighbors because they change every week.

Yes I hate it when kids scream in the garden too. I've taught mine you only screech and shout full volume if there's an accident or you're frightened, not when playing. Like the boy who cried wolf. I'm horrified by the behaviour of some i've invited on play dates, full blown screaming as soon as feet touch grass 😬
Mine do make noise playing, but I tell them to keep the volume down and respect the neighbours. Or they come in. Our lovely neighbours do the same if their dog barks, he gets shushed then brought in.

At a friend's bbq recently it was awful, narrow garden with same each side. One side had 4 screeching kids on trampoline, other side was revving up some sort of garden machinery and making everyone jump with the racket. And her dogs barked at guests almost constantly. We left after an hour as it was overwhelming and hard to talk.

OP i think you just have to find a quiet area, where neighbours make an effort to limit noise. Then people tend to copy. Don't assume rural hamlets are quiet. I lived in an idyllic lake district hamlet for a few years, but in summer it was a constant racket of screaming kids, older ones screeching up and down each culdesac on bikes and scooters. Dogs barking, lawnmowers, extensions being built.

It's a bit easier if you can find a house with a big garden that backs onto a field or narrow road, at least then the sounds are further away.

My cat's screeching is on a whole other level. She is extremely territorial and if the cat next door tries to come in our cat flap she starts this high pitched screaming and smacks the poor cat in the face with the cat flap door. The neighbours have actually come over to see what the noise is.

I say we bring in Sunday quiet laws! 🤩

Personally, I think consideration for neighbours is a thing of the past 😢

I said earlier in this thread that I know it’s me who’s the problem…I’ve changed my mind now, the old twat next door, knowing we were in the garden with our 1 and 4 year old, first sunny day of the year, on a Saturday, decides to fire up the power tools. He’s a total prick!

Omg I love her!!! Total hero.

Thanks all for your opinions and experiences and sincere sympathies to those who are also with noisy homes and neighbours.

Agree with a pp who said the layout of modern homes is wrong. When we were viewing, I ruled out all the houses in newbuild developments, even detached 4/5 beds, as they felt so squashed in. Built with hardly any space between houses, small gardens, tiny public playgrounds at the end of each street. Even the roads felt cramped! On paper they looked lovely, these majestic old-styled newbuilds with up to designer kitchens. Standing in the tiny scraps of garden, where the noise of the whole estate seemed audible, I realised I didn't want to live like that. There was something deceptive and sad, as if the estate had been designed to look spacious and eco friendly, yet packed in so many houses everyone was on top of each other, no natural features of a real town or village (like schools, shops, woodland, golf courses) just endless rows of houses. Lots of rooms with high ceilings yet floor space very tight. No attics, no proper storage, no garden privacy, no garages or sheds. They felt 'flimsy' somehow.

One seller had yappy dogs in her garden, that didn't shut up even after we left. We actually cancelled a viewing in the same street because of those dogs, they would've been intolerable.

In the end we bought an older house in an older part of town. Smallish garden but it wraps around house and is carefully designed with mature trees and shrubs that give privacy and block/absorb sound. Birdsong drowns out other people's noise too. I can live with an outdated kitchen and bathrooms and fewer bedrooms (some with wood chip paint) because each room is large with loads of storage space. And we have options further down line to convert attic and/or garage, re-decorate. It has high walls instead of fences, which also shut out noise from street and neighbours. Some of the local trees are ancient ones, under protection orders, so they can't be cut down to squeeze a few more houses in.

Maybe less people grow up in 'quiet' neighbourhoods nowadays, so they don't realise how mutually beneficial it is if everyone respects each other's need for peace and quiet or become immune to barking dogs, music, power tools, screaming kids. Such a shame.

Do be aware sound carries - my friend's next door but one neighbours are a couple of fields away across a valley, the neighbours are 'town' people not country, the kids shriek and scream and it is SO loud you can barely converse in friend's back garden because it just bounces across the void of the valley as though they're right next door.

I understand that- our previous neighbours were lovely people but they wanted to talk as soon as they saw us in the garden. I'd sit outside our French windows, nowhere near the fence, with a cup of tea and a book and they'd be shouting me over to give me the latest boring instalment of the things their grandchildren had said. I started putting headphones on and pretending I couldn't hear them.
It gets you down when someone keeps invading your privacy.

When my b vitamin or iron levels are low I can’t stand any noise at all (or if I’ve had too much caffeine- all noises seem amplified!)

Totally agree. I can't tolerate other people's noise... I go sit in a field to relax because I can. Other people's noise becomes all consuming and an effort to ignore.