To speak to my neighbour's about her disabled child?

[RootsBeforeTheFruits]

OK I've named changed....

I've recently moved house and have been at the new house about 9 months, for the first few months next door was empty and being renovated. Once it finished it was quickly rented out to my current neighbour's. She's a nice enough woman we have a gab in passing, she had a son with additional needs.

Here's the problem ....it's a terraced style house and he frequently bangs shit out of the walls, in the day I don't mind as much it's the day, but he bangs well into the night i don't mean the odd tapping it's actually shaking our walls. It frequently wakes my children up in the night and they've been extra tired in school.

Do I speak to her about it, i explain to the children that he has additional needs and more than likely can't help this behavior, I really don't know what to do

Not all therapies are covered by the NHS, no. Especially not enough to make a big difference to the child. Sometimes 20 minutes once a week just isn't enough.

and again, carers allowance is taken straight off of a family if they also claim UC.

Anyway I think I'll bow out now, it'll just be a flurry of people jumping up and down to shout that they're spending £1,000,000 a month on adaptations and I don't have the time nor inclination to debate with disingenuous people.

Get to know her and have a proper conversation about this. Be sympathetic to the very difficult time she must be having herself before saying how it affects you. You might say 'we all have a problem; what can we do about it?' One solution might be to rearrange the boy's room so that the walls he is most likely to hit are outside walls. Maybe there could be a thin mattress attached as well to absorb sound and so that the boy doesn't hurt himself - it can't be good for him either to be doing this.

Personally I think k it is reasonable to speak to your neighbour at a time when it is quiet so that you can have a calm conversation. If she doesn’t know the impact I would be surprised but it’s also important that you advocate for your children. I wonder whether getting a punchbag would be a good alternative so the child has something to focus on rather than the wall? Just a suggestion.

I’m not - I work FT. So yes, it’s all I get.

Yeah. Sensory friendly food and clothing are more expensive + the cost of replacement clothes, massive amounts of laundry and items that break

Yes but nobody with any real experience is suggesting that. They are giving advice and just telling the people who only offer suggestions of "well that isn't fair on the OP" that you can't just stop a SEN child from doing certain behaviours sometimes. It is just frustrating as a parent actually dealing with the behaviour that someone thinks this is decent advice. It is just opinion and whataboutery based on no direct experience. Useless to the OP. Surely you wod have to be pretty thick not to recognise that?

Amazed at those posters claiming 'nothing can be done'. There's plenty that can be done. Our neighbors had to deal with a near identical situation last year; an autistic child banging and scraping on the walls at all hours of the night and day.

The sound was absolutely horrendous - it sounded like someone was trying to break through the wall. It woke them, their children and set their dogs off, which disturbed their neighbors on the other side too. Parents refused to pay for any padding/insulation.

Repeated noise complaints to the council (which were upheld/actioned, whatever the correct term is) and neighbor's landlord. Landlord threatened to start eviction proceedings due to breach of tenancy, which prompted the family to move out to a more suitable property.

I completely sympathise with any parent having to deal with those circumstances - but that does not mean that it has to be inflicted on everyone around them.

To be fair I think the feeling is mutual.

And I don't think anyone was asking for a debate anyway.

These posts are making me think I should set up a pro bono service advising autistic and other disabled tenants of their rights under the EA. That would annoy all the right people. 😊👍🏻

Do speak to her, she may be unaware of how much you can hear

Smirking about annoying people is one reason sympathy vanishes.

That’s very encouraging - good to hear at least one case of this has been resolved

It’s irrelevant anyway

The next door neighbours landlord will have to pull his finger out and make the property suitable if the neighbour doesn’t
If he can’t then the property isn’t suitable.

The inner workings of the neighbours finance have nothing to do with OP or her issue.

Agree.
Hopefully OP will feel encouraged to not ‘suck it up’ .

You are celebrating that a disabled child and their family was threatened with eviction. Bloody hell, mumsnet has a problem with ableism!

You are completely missing the point here.
We are thankful that a person was moved out of an unsuitable property.
Thankful for the neighbours sanity ( which others seem to think is irrelevant ) and thankful that the unsuitable household don’t have to go through endless complaints from neighbours.
Because with the best will in the world people need to sleep irrespective of who the neighbours are.

So yes
Celebrating that sanity has prevailed.

I haven't read all the replies.

Could you approach the Mum by asking if she is OK first? Must be hard on her. And go from there.

I too have a child with autism who doesn't sleep but luckily we live in a detached house. Many times I've been in tears with lack of sleep.

"It's not hard"?!!!

Think of Katie Price's son Harvey and see if you think a single mum could stop a young, fit teenager when he gets disregulated.

I adopted 2 girls from the care system and thought my excellent parenting skills would be enough, that they would learn etc etc. 24 years later they have no doors on the wardrobes in their rooms because they wrecked them and I had no strategies left.

Unless you have experience of turning round a case of severely challenging behaviour, you cannot glibly tell struggling parents what to do.

Other people also have rights. You can’t make noise all night that stops others from sleeping.

Exactly Butter !
The entitlement on this thread is astonishing.

I haven’t read every page, but OP have you spoken to the neighbour on the other side?

I haven't seen anything you could actually call entitlement. People are saying you can't stop a child like that, so you need to speak to LA about suitable adaptions to minimise the noise. Very strange to call people suggesting these things and actually offering a solution entitled. What do YOU suggest?

Im a single parent with a non verbal child with a severe learning disability & autism. I work full time because I have to in order to keep a roof over our heads. I get £460 a month in DLA for my son. No carers allowance or supplements as I work. I'm £100 a week for 2csessions of speech therapy, £50 a week for sensory integration therapy to try to ward off meltdowns, £50 a month in dietary supplements because of his poor diet due to ARFID and £650 a WEEK for 1:1 care during school holidays as he can't access any play schemes. Not to mention the extra costs for nappies for an 8 year old day and night. So yes, all his DLA is more than taken up with the essentials of what he needs. The NHS discharged us after diagnosis with nothing.
Some of the comments on this thread have been frankly disgusting. There but for the grace of god and all that.