Husband working from home is noisy

[ForRealMember]

My lovely husband works time in a very full on job - full of stress. I work part time and look after the house, kids etc..The only problem is that on the two days I am at home my husband is at home. I am quite noise intolerant and he is in back to back teams calls and whilst he tries to be quiet I can hear him through noise cancelling headphones. It drives me crazy. It is both of our homes but I can't work out if I am being unreasonable.

Does he use a pod type set up? I think that we aren't set up for people to work from home, unless it is completely admin etc. It inpacts on the people who they live with.

Can he swap his days at home?

Mine WFH all the time. I’m only back 1 day per week but can’t get in with noisy jobs like hoovering or even pottering as he’s on bloody hands free wandering round booming.

My day off is not peaceful.

I feel you OP

Is he using headphones for his teams calls? Is he a shouted on the phone?

Does he have the option to go into the office? Does he choose to stay home while you are there? I wouldn’t like that & would prefer to be in the office myself if I needed to work & my partner was home & not working.

Thank you everyone. I think he chooses to work from home on the days I am off as he likes to see me a bit more. I like to see him too but just minus and noise and his workplace stress.

The obvious thing is to move his desk?! Spare room? Conservatory? Shed? Downstairs loo? Would have me nuts up.

ikea sell acoustic panels for soundproofing. It get won’t completely get rid of it but will dampen the sound.

He needs to work in the office when you are off. Tell him.

It's his house too, so he "needs" to do nothing of the sort.

As someone who WFH, I don't expect anyone else in the house to be quiet and tiptoe around me. I wouldn't expect to have to keep my volume down either, though. I can deal with overhearing DP clattering around in the kitchen, he can deal with the sound of a distant Teams meeting.

If either of us is making inordinately loud noise then we can just ask politely if the other can keep it down.

I think that's fair if they live just down the road from the office.

If my DH was to go into the office an extra day per week that would wipe out our holiday pot for the year. Not to mention the fact he would be out the house and extra 4 hours per day so less help with the family

It is so tricky. I know it is his house too and he does try to be quiet but 8 hours of full volume Teams calls are really hard for me to stand. I do put in noise diffusing headphones but I can still hear the calls through these. Not sure what else I can do to manage the noise. As I said I know I am noise intolerant

So he can go in but chooses to be there when you are? That’s really not helpful if he is on Teams the whole time. It sounds like he wants to keep track of what you’re up to. Just ask him to go into the office if you’re home.

Tell him it’s not working and he needs to go into the office.

Which rooms are you both working from. We work in different rooms and can both close our doors.

Speak to him.

If he wanted to “see you more” he wouldn’t be on calls all the time.
Tell him you feel you can’t get on with the jobs in the house when he’s around or carry on as normal or carry on as normal(hoovering,washing)
Ask him to swap the days.

No he doesn’t. It’s his house too. He isn’t doing anything unreasonable.

Does he use a headset? Have you asked him to try and keep the volume down? Could he move rooms? I have my desk set up in our spare room and with the door shut the rest of the family can barely hear me on calls.

It sounds like he wants to keep track of what you’re up to

Bit of a leap.

This.

He doesn’t “need” to do anything, other than his job, which he’s doing.

If OP is “noise intolerant” maybe she could go for a walk or take the kids out during the scheduled Teams calls.

I work from home and have noisy calls A LOT. I use headphones though so it reduces the noise quite a lot (it's only me talking rather than the whole meeting). I also work in a room where I can shut the door if it's going to be a long / loud call. Talk to him and figure out a way to make it work. Having said that, I did ask DH to not WFH on the one day I DON'T work because I wanted a silent day! 😂

IS HE WEARING HEADPHONES FOR HIS CALLS?

It's rather key to the issues here.

This is quite a divisive sticking point in homes. Increasingly so. Personally I couldn’t live like this with a wfh partner. Luckily me and husband both work in office five days a week. I say YANBU because my ex-husband did this and was abusive and never left the house and treated everyone in the house with contempt while he was there, so I will never allow myself to go down that path again. Hence DH2 Works full-time out of home. We learn, slowly, with help from Mumsnet.

He's working FFS if your so sensitive To a teams call go out with the kids

Sounds awful! We can both work from home but take it in turns. Each love having the house to ourselves and being able to crack on without the other being in the way!

YABU. I work from home and would resent DH trying to tell me to work from the office. Its my home, I can work there if I want to. Why would he spend extra hours travelling every week, spending more petrol money etc when he can stay home. Theres things that can obviously be done to reduce the noise. He needs to wear headphones and surely he can talk at a regular volume with the door shut in a separate room. How loud can that really be! You're both entitled to your own space and quiet time but hes working and if youre not, then you can choose to remove yourself until hes finished work.

The home is not an office/work place. Surely OP should expect some peace in her home. I think if he was just getting on with admin with an occasional Teams call it would be OK. But this sounds quite full on.