Loud DC and unhappy neighbour. Would you move?

[YourMintReader]

I moved in 6 weeks ago. Within a week, the neighbour had complained about noise levels from 4.30am in the morning. First with a note through the door, the second time I got a phone call from Housing Association. Quickly resolved when I explained why.

Understandable, but there’s nothing I can do. This is from loud shouting and vocal stims.

She has now complained to the Housing Association that I am letting my son play out for hours on end, screaming. And has added he screams foul language. Quickly proven otherwise by me by emailing over countless documents that mention he doesn’t speak a word.

He does scream, happy and sad screams and different times. But I am absolutely not allowing him out ‘all day’

He goes to school 8am to 4pm return.

His weekend schedule is 4/4.30am - Awake. Downstairs around 5.30am latest. We might leave the house for about 9am. Possibly 2 hours of respite carers out the house for a couple of hours with them.

He would spend about 2 or 3 hours max a day in the garden. Inside no later than 6pm.

My neighbour has also got 2 children, 12 and 15. I have never heard from them but they’re older.

It’s a really small new build development and I think I and one other house are the only housing association tenants.

Would you look to move? I would be against it but cannot see a solution if it doesn’t stop. I can’t feel so worried in my own home.

Bloody awkward as there just isn’t many houses so you can’t blend in at all

Exactly.

My son has to be awake for a period in the night because he needs medication, changing and likely various other things. He hates to be woken up but there is no way around it, it has to be done and though he does have understanding that no one wants to hear him crying at 3am, sometimes he cries because he's a kid.

If I had a neighbour talk to me about it, I would happily explain what was going on with him and how I really try and keep it down in the night but sometimes he struggles and it doesn't happen and maybe try and think of other things that could possibly help.

If I had a neighbour run straight to the HA on more than one occasion and lie about my disabled child, I wouldn't much feel like communicating with them at all never mind helping them to find a solution.

My DS can make a lot of noise for SEN reasons, but not as complex or I think as loud as your DS @YourMintReader . I'm heartened by the poster who suggested investigating the possibility of a downstairs bedroom, and I came on to say that I have moved rooms around - not just bedrooms, the bathroom as well - so that the room DS mostly uses (he sleeps in another room) has a wall of cupboards on one side (that I keep stuffed full of duvets and towels, they need somewhere to live so they might as well be useful at the same time!) and the bathroom on another.

If the HA is helping you put a better bathroom option in, is there scope to put that somewhere else and thus reconfigure the entire space, as clearly (and I get it) playing musical bedrooms isn't an option.

Best of luck lovely xx

That’s basically what you have been saying. Repeatedly.

Ours goes to sleep with melatonin (usually) and wakes up anywhere between 1am and 3am.

When he first wakes up he greets us. Loudly. Shouts HELLOOOO through the wall. The minute or so it takes to get out of bed and into his room to start resettle him he does that louder, and starts to escalate. I can guarantee it would wake some of the people here up.

If he can’t resettle, he has meltdowns because he wants his grandparents or a playground or his dinner at 2am. Again, that can be managed, but it takes time to calm him.

If anyone here is about to tell me to already be in his bedroom so he doesn’t need to shout - no, because we don’t cosleep. Intentionally.

We’re also not taking him to grandparents at 2am.

We deal with it in the way we deal with it, we know him best, and if his 1am greeting wasn’t for you - he’s still not moving house.

Nope. I said she should take steps to make it easier for the neighbour (and herself) but not move house.

Her moving is the only thing that would be good enough for some of you, and I don’t advocate that.

I did neither. I gave the OP sound advice on who to contact. Now, when posts like yours are read, it seems as though I was giving the wrong advice, and I was not. You might influence the OP enough to put her off seeking the advice she badly needs from those who can give it professionally.

THAT makes me ask myself if those who are supporting the NDN are personally involved and on the side of that NDN, and have good reason to put the OP off obtaining help.

I strongly advise you not to interfere, and allow the OP to do what she wants to do without you and others putting her off. That is a very dangerous thing to do in this thread.

It is not like someone asking a question about what to wear, or how to deal with a BF or DH, or how to bring up DC. It should not be an argument or debate on hypothetical situations.

It is a thread where a vulnerable mother is seeking help in a very serious situation. If you have been on the receiving end of what NDNs and others are capable of doing to vulnerable people they don't want living next door, you would understand what I am saying. If you knew what people are capable of, you would agree with what I said.

I know what people are capable of, and this poor mother needs help ASAP and your turning her against other posters with experience is highly dangerous.

Exactly.

He goes to sleep fine just hates waking up but especially at 3am when he needs to be messed with. Then he has to be up early again for more meds which means waking him again so I completely understand why sometimes he's just had enough and gets very upset in the night.

Like I said, it's easier with my son because he does have full understanding so he isn't going to be asking to see Grandparents in the middle of the night. He's just tired and wants to be left alone which is understandable, me too kid. 😂

You very clearly didn't fully understand what stimming is from your previous comments. You seemed to think OP should talk to her son's school because you assumed that he didn't stim loudly there, you also seemed to assume that he was only stimming at home because something might be physically wrong with him and suggested to put a severely autistic child through a full MRI scan for no real reason other than he stims loudly.

She does need help. Help from those who actually understand her son's disability.

What stimming means is not the question here. I offered advice to the OP. I asked a question of the OP.

Please think carefully before you post.

Each special needs child is different. So are professionals and parents towards individual children. What stimming means cannot be the same for every child. Nor did I use that word at all. How can you say I have it wrong if I never used it?

You didn't like my question or advice. What does that matter? You are not the OP. I have looked most carefully, and I cannot see a reply to my post from the OP personally, nor has she indicated that anyone is speaking for her.

OP very clearly said that her child stims when he is happy. You used various different words (including 'behaving badly') to describe it but you were clearly meaning when he stims loudly because that is largely what this thread is about.

I'm not the one who has to think carefully before they post.

I think it's very unlikely OP is even reading now anyway.

Well, as I’ve already explained in a situation where a person is perceiving aggression then yes, it is most likely a person will hear some of the sounds as abusive language eg swearing. There’s so many experiments out there showing how the human brain will try and recreate recognisable patterns (ie words) out of indistinguishable noises based on either suggestion or overall tone.

But that would involve nearly everyone, nearly everyone would be driven mad by being woken at 4am shouting and screaming in the garden for several hours a day. So basically that “commune” would house the vast majority of people.

Are you sympathetic to the NDN at all. Given posters experiences on here she is likely very vulnerable to, vulnerable to mental breakdown, possible suicide (as several poster now have said they’ve been left suicidal in such circumstances) the NDN is in her own with two children who are being sleep deprived, whose school work is probably suffering. She is probably unable to move because it costs thousands, prob over £10 k to move. Are you sympathetic to her vulnerability?

Maybe, however we’ve lived in 2 houses with this kid now and had absolutely no issues. So perhaps the level of bothered, or level of response to that bothered, varies.

A quiet place without it would really benefit those who find it so unbearable, right?

I'm not. I would be if she had handled it differently such as attempting to communicate with OP at all. Not even apologising when she was told that actually, the child next door can't talk if it was indeed just misheard as you insist but nothing except for running to the HA. She doesn't even collect her own packages when OP takes them in for her.

I haven't had any issues with my son and neighbours either.

Funnily enough, the only issue I ever had with a neighbour was before he became disabled.

I think some would have us believe that people who aren’t mentioning it are just politely in their houses quivering and avoiding telling us to ostracise our kids.

I choose to believe they’re either genuinely not bothered, or empathetic enough to think “Christ, that sounds difficult,” and then leave it there.

Yep.

They're all for saying they all think like me and if they don't openly say they think like me they're lying to you.

Maybe that's true and they've just learnt that if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all, or maybe there are just people out there that have empathy and understanding.

I think this is certainly true; the human brain does search for patterns and make assumptions. However.. If I was going to make a complaint about a neighbour's disabled child along these lines, I'd want to be very, very certain before claiming something like that. Like, recording it and getting a second opinion level of certainty. There are also the other inconsistencies, like the neighbour getting the hours wrong that he's allowed in the garden by a country mile. If she's not lying, I'd at least be embarrassed by getting things so very badly wrong as this.

How do you know they weren’t bothered?

But this isn’t how a brain works. Many people don’t realise that a large proportion of the memories they carry round are false. People believe their memories, thru don’t understand the issues around gap filling. So to the neighbour there was no chance she was wrong.

Plus, from experience it is likely she is effectively suffering from trauma. This often shuts down the rational
part of the brain at times.

I think it’s all very well and good saying this is what should have happened, how they should have thought, but the brain simply doesn’t work that way.

They say hi to me whenever they see me, we walk to school together on school runs if we bump in to each other on the way, we bring in each others bins....

They are friendly and know my son is disabled but they don't know the ins and outs and have never brought it up, including any noise they might hear at night.

I mean, maybe it does bother them but they've never shown it like I suspect they would. Or you know, talked to me about it which is the obvious solution if something is bothering them.

The neighbour two doors up subscribes to “gentle parenting” cue load shouting and banging in the garden from end of school til 7pm. Neighbour in between has been moaning about them because she works from home and is attached to them
and in her words “ the gentle parenting continues inside too” and is very critical of her neighbours generally She often seen in the neighbours garden having a laugh and glass of wine. She doesn’t like confrontation- just her and her son so doesn’t want to say anything.

I'd like to think that most people know the difference between a disabled child who sometimes struggles in the night due to how shit his life can be at times and children who are simply noisy because their parents don't bother parenting him.

Maybe I shouldn't have that much faith in my neighbours.

Though I haven't had any official complaints either so I think I'm fine.

I work with kids with ASD and I'm really not sure what you expect her to do? Gag him?! It's a massive spectrum. You have the ability to write comments on Mumsnet, you and he are not the same. He will be inside making his noises, or outside in unsocial hours, making his noises. You talk to communicate, he cannot.