Suns out, neighbours out!

[extremea]

Can anyone commiserate with me re neighbour noise?

I live in a detached house and really appreciate the months Of November to March. The rest of the year my neighbours seem to have every window and door open, radio on in the garden and shout-talk to each other. TBH I have become a little obsessed with it and am almost waiting for their noise every day, it’s a bit sad.

Luckily we don’t have neighbours like we did in our previous house although they’re not much better..old house was a semi, the lady and her daughter would a bang up and down the stairs, slam doors, smoke right by our back door and watch us out the back with the blinds angled down.

So yeah, if anyone wants a moan..this is your place!

You're not alone. I mean all night parties and loud music that keep me awake at night do my head in, and I'm sure I'd hate it if next door suddenly installed a hot tub along the fence line, but kids playing out in the garden or people having BBQs, etc, just means it's summer to me!

We have regular BBQs and have a TV facing our patio, so on a hot day will watch Saturday evening TV from the garden. I've checked, though, that the TV is only loud enough to be heard on our patio and no further. Not that it matters too much re next door - the jammy buggers have air conditioning, so on a really hot day they have their windows closed!

Next door have 3 kids and it can get a bit raucous when the paddling pool's out and a water fight ensues, but I think it's great that the kids are off their screens and having some fun.

Heck, when my nephews come to visit on a hot summer's day, their mum gets instructions to bring spare clothing as I am ensuring a water fight happens!

I suspect that you’re noisier than you think, with children of those ages and out in the garden for what sounds like a decent amount of time every week: you’re just inured to it because you live with your children and like them. Even well-behaved children cry, laugh, shout and generally use their outdoor voices, particularly when excited. Which is great, children should be free to play in their gardens, but it very possibly sometimes irritates your childfree neighbours as much as their talking does you.

Exactly

although the Op does say they mainly chill out inside which I can’t fathom in the summer with young children. Or indeed without children!

I don’t mind general garden use but I have the world’s most horrific neighbours.

• 5x small yapping dogs that are brought into the garden 3 days a day like clockwork and encouraged to bark as much as they can
• loud (crap music), won’t be turned down, is audible above other people playing music, eg I might have something on quiet as background noise but it is totally drowned out by the neighbours 4 doors away
• we all have long gardens and they seem to sit at opposite ends from each other and talk loudly, I know far too much about their lives
• loud weekend parties, that go on until the early mornings, any request to turn the music down or ask them to be quiet (at 2am) met with screaming and threats of violence
• they argue all the time, both as bad as each other, including getting physical
• They drink daily which fuels the fighting, and we assume are taking cocaine or something similar due to their extreme reactions
• regularly doing garden work until post 10pm

They are hopefully moving soon and I can’t wait, I dread 4pm each day as they seem to finish work (we all WFH) and then it starts. Both seemingly to be professionals, no children and in their 50s but absolutely have zero respect for anyone else or each other!

How do you cope in summer with everything closed?
Dont you want some air coming through the house?

I love the warmer weather because it’s allowing me to open windows etc… and have fresh air in the house.

I love these posts as I have a tiny terraced house (the horror) in a city, not even a field for miles. I love it

also my garden is v quiet and hardly anyone else uses theirs.

makes me LOL !

Well that’s a bit weird

We don’t have everything closed, we have windows open etc. We don’t have out front door open and different visitors everyday shout talking. Yes they are just living their normal lives, what’s annoying is we’re very very different people at very different stages of life. I am often a bit stressed getting the kids in and out the car and caring a million bags whilst they are there laughing and joking with another old boy who lives down the road. I am sure you can hear us, but I feel I have the intention of not pissing off the neighbours whereas to me they come across a bit inconsiderate. But yes, it’s a me problem, and I am just looking for a bit of solidarity on mumsnet :-)

I moved into my new detached house 2 months ago and despite a lovely big garden I have not been able to sit out..the house my garden backs onto has a shed where the guy that lives there smokes his weed with the door open..the smell is horrific, he doesn't work so this is all he does all day, my other neighbours have screaming kids and yappy dogs..I dream of living in the middle of nowhere with zero neighbours.

You have to be wishing for a large seagull to crap on him right now 😂😂

Only noise that passes me off is the repetitive football.
Thankfully the neighbours kid is getting older & allowed further than the shared garden so the ball kicking is less

It's a relief, too, like things are coming back to life.
I mean, when my neighbours have a party until 3am, or someone is drilling on a Sunday evening, or there's a wedding that starts up again every night for a week until past midnight, that's annoying... but they are rare. Generally it's people chatting, light DIY, snatches of music... It's lovely.

You're not an outlier. Well, you might be, but I am too! Love hearing people enjoying their gardens.

That’s lovely noise, I agree.

It’s the shouting and banging stuff that I struggle with. I’m semi detached and my neighbour has been doing DIY every weekend and after work since he moved in over 3 years ago. It’s hell.

I am often a bit stressed getting the kids in and out the car and caring a million bags whilst they are there laughing and joking with another old boy who lives down the road.

what the heck does that have to do with anything?

you are pissed off that he doesn’t have young children and you do, so he can have a chat with his neighbour??

I hate my neighbours so wear clogs round our uncarpeted house.

Back when I was a student the people upstairs asked if we would let them in the shared garden (it was for the bottom floor flats, so they would have had to come through my flat). I said no - to be honest I said no because he didn’t say please and he was really presumptuous. The next day they had thrown food out the window so it was right outside our door. I was fuming, like absolutely flew off the handle and posted loads of crickets from the pet shop through their post box. In my defence I was 18, and at the time I was pretty proud of myself for not just going round and bartering him. I thought I’d done well 😂.

I don't mind mowers, children playing, garden work, people enjoying each other's company, but radios......I don't know what it is about them, but it reduces me to tears. I don't know...it just seems so selfish. I don't mind so much if it's just creeping out from an open window, but people blaring the radio while using their garden - fuckers. I'm the same with phones/ipads playing sound on public transport.

Fortunately, despite living in a terrace with houses all round, it's pretty quiet (village). My immediate neighbours are lovely.

I feel you. My neighbours aren’t as bad as I’m some places I’ve lived but they are annoying. Just no consideration at all. Loud music, smoky bbqs, screaming kids, cutting the grass at 6am. Drunken arguments. Tbf these neighbours don’t do this every weekend and all generally okay. But I’ve had neighbours who much worse than this and always moved in the end. Unless you’ve had really shut it neighbours you can’t really imagine the effect it can have in your life.

@Ontothenextac ive hearted your comment, but really I’m the complete opposite to this 😂. I would just love to feel the same way you do!

We live in a rural cul de sac of 8 houses. 5 lovely sets of neighbours who are quiet. 2 households who are BIG noisemakers. It got so bad 2 years ago we put our home of 30 years (and the home we imagined ending our days in) on the market but even the estate agent said it would be a tough sell given noisy neighbour opposite has a bar outside their front door. Built in lockdown and planning deemed not necessary to enforce. This bonfire night I'm taking aim at the fecking thing with a firework. Both households have middle aged men having mid life crises with noisy cars and motorbikes and like to stand on their phones shouting like Dom Joly. We can't have a window open all summer. And I hate them for it.

You live in a detached house and you also didn't like the noise in your previous semi detached one? It could be possible it's just you being over sensitive to noise rather than the people around you doing anything wrong.

I’m the same! Next door it’s europop and laughing, other side it’s kids playing, behind have BBQs - mowers going, happy sounds.

plus I’m often next door but one in the ‘pub’ drinking cocktails and playing darts! Be rude to object to my neighbours having fun.

We're lucky, we have great neighbours. The people across the road are twats, but they've sorted their dog out now after a few complaints.

I did have to laugh the other day though. Our garden backs onto another garden and a bloke there, I think he must have been a family member as I didn't recognise him, obviously thought going to the very end of their garden was a great place to have a private conversation as he started having an extremely explicit convo with his friend about what he got up to with his date the night before. Don't think he knew there was just a thin wire fence and a bit of vegetation between the gardens and that my DD was playing just a few feet away. He was mortied when I went up to the fence to say we could hear everything he was saying and could he please take it elsewhere.

I can commiserate. My neighbours are retired but he has a loud booming voice (which he loves the sound of), she is loud but high pitched. They’re obviously a very loud family who shout from one end of the house/garden to the other as their adult children are the same. They have small grandchildren who they mind part time and the performative grandparenting is horrible, whooping and bellowing whenever they’re outside, the kids playing is fine.

Acceptable noise: Children playing normally, BBQ once a month or so, special events, e.g. FA cup, etc., normal car/vehicle noise, snatched bits of overheard conversation but no details.

Unacceptable noise: Children screaming (when did this become normal?😡), BBQ plus amplified music twice a week, cars left idling for deliveries, shouted conversations where you hear every word.

Basically, everything is becoming louder, and respect for neighbours has gone when it comes to noise.

But it's not just at home. It's impossible to walk through my local town centre now without someone busking using a bloody amplifier, shops playing loud music with doors open, etc. etc.

It never used to be like this, and it's not "just me", I know this.