New neighbours complaining about our toilet

[Amanda98]

We’ve got a new build where one side of our house completely backs on to a neighbours garden - that’s the back wall/boundary of their garden essentially.

Downstairs, we have a toilet with a window which is on the side of the house where that wall is, and has a small window which opens at the top. Their garden is slightly lowered so it isn’t within reaching distance. It’s a fairly odd design but we’ve lived here for years with no issues.

The neighbours have recently changed. In one of the early weeks in April when it was warm, they put a note through the door which asked we keep the window closed when it’s sunny because of the smell. We don’t really open it much anyway so thought nothing of it.

We’ve since had a further note through this week asking it stays closed on Saturday because they are hosting a BBQ for a family members birthday. We also have family over on Saturday and the downstairs loo is the one they’d naturally use.

Are the neighbours being CF? They surely can’t expect us to introduce a rule where we only crap upstairs whenever they say so!

Sorry about your friend but I absolutely agree with the pp. A strong smell has nothing to do with 'flushing' anything out and usually due to disease, excess bacteria or poor diet.

In the op's case the very smelly toilet users need to use an upstair loo where the fumes will waft upwards and out and not linger in the poor neighbour's garden.

You sound very angry. Have you been asked to spray liberally on more than one occasion after a loo visit perhaps

In my house downstairs loo is for peeing only. I don't want my hallway stinking of poo.

Op going against the grain I think you are being unreasonable yes.
It's a small thing to do and it's obviously really ruining their time in the garden. Smell is something that's hard to get rid of.
I wonder if it's a drain issue also.
I would be understanding and try and accommodate them

I have two neighbours bathroom windows open on to my garden.

I have never smelt or heard toileting, I sometimes hear the flush going, often hear the kids playing in the bath.

I have done a little experiment. Both DS And DH have toxic poos. I stood directly outside the bathroom window and couldn’t smell a thing. There is definitely a higher issue here.

Does the loo smell bad? Is there a plumbing issue?

In the pub down the road, obviously!

How dare you poo in a ground floor loo!

What nonsense. I'm 62 and have lived in all sorts of dwellings and never smelled the neighbours' excrement. Or heard them evacuating their bowels.

No person of couth or decency would say "if they can hear my gas and smell my shit while sitting on their patio, they can just lump it."

Or people who have inflammatory bowel conditions like IBS or colitis, and who have poor mobility, so can’t dash upstairs at a moment’s notice. I poo in my downstairs loo because I have very little choice. I’d far rather not have a form of colitis and such poor mobility that the stairs are a challenge, but this is the hand life has dealt me.

That said, I do think the planning of the layout between the OP’s house and her neighbours’ garden sounds utterly atrocious, and it isn’t fair on her neighbours to expect them to put up with poo smells in their own garden, so in her shoes, I would be looking for ways to sort out the problem that satisfy everyone, as far as possible.

If they are smelling shit smells, are you sure your drains aren’t backed up and the smell isn’t coming from an inspection chamber? It’s pretty unusual for a ds loo window to waft out the smell of shit.

I live with 3 men much of the time and I can honestly say I’ve never once smelt anything from outside, and our ds loo window opens close to our patio.

Or, they might just be nut jobs.

Unless the window opens inwards? The council house I grew up in had new windows installed in the 90s and they all opened inwards.

This is exactly my point. It’s very unlikely that the neighbours can smell anything! People living in neighbouring houses do not smell their neighbours poo. It’s all so unlikely. The previous neighbours never said they could. Have the OPs shits got smellier or are the new neighbours full of shit? I suspect the latter. I don’t believe them. I think they’re being unreasonable because they just don’t like the fact that they know there’s a toilet so close so they are making rubbish up. That’s why I think they’re being unreasonable.

I’m also not sure what your age has to do with it either. I’m only a few years younger than you and have also never smelt my neighbours bowels. Do we get prizes the longer we’ve lived without smelling such things? Are younger posters less likely/more likely to have experienced this. Or are you assuming I’m young and uncouth? Because neither is true.

When the neighbours are deliberately (and unnecessarily) sitting underneath the loo window, I'd open it & squirt Neutradol into the air over their meal.

Funny you should remark on that. We have a similar situation: next door is a newbuild with a house that's too large for its plot, so the house is very close to our garden fence with only a narrow walkway between, and their loo window directly faces the centre of our garden, which is of course the seating area. The loud flushing sounds at regular intervals are really very annoying - although now I'm feeling grateful that at least I've never noticed a smell! Apparently, when the people who lived here at the time objected to the plan and called in someone from the planning committee to have a look, that person said the only thing the committee was obliged to consider was how much light the house could potentially block; nothing else would be taken into account.

Aren't you the classy one.

And how do you know it's "unnecessary" for them to sit at that location in their garden? What exactly is "unnecessary" in this context?

Decent, civilized people care about their impact on others. Anyone who doesn't think toileting sounds and flushing are disruptive in a living area is .... I really don't know what. How were they raised, and by what?