What is considered normal garden noise from your neighbours?

[Mistywalnut]

My neighbours constantly have friends around and they entertain outside on their patio which is right next to our patio. Sometimes there is lots of loud music from around lunchtime to 9-10pm at the weekend. There has been mid-week loud music when their kids entertain. I can hear it everywhere in the garden (not small) and in the house with the windows open - unavoidable as it's hot. I am the kind of person who has no issue with normal noise - i.e. friends round, having a nice time etc, the occasional (like once a month) party with loud music. As it is hot, their kitchen doors are all open - I get to "enjoy" their TV mid-afternoon, radio all morning etc. These aren't super loud but it all adds up. We have also had music blasted really loudly while they mow the lawn. I am feeling very overwhelmed with the constant noise from nextdoor. They are not friendly people and I doubt approaching them would do anything. I am also aware it could be much worse! What is "normal" for garden noise from neighbours?

I'd like to know what people constitute as normal kid noise. Neighbours two doors down have 6 year old twins - one screams loudly and a lot. It annoys me when I have to close my windows and can still hear them.

Yes kids should play but surely there's a limit yo how much kids at that age need scream at the top of their lungs?

The family next door have a pre school child who regularly plays in the garden. He talks and laughs, the family seem capable of having fun with no screeching from child or adults! When our DGC were small, we had a paddling pool and an occasional bbq when they visited. Lots of chat, but never loud music, and never late at night. And the children played without screaming. Screeching is a recent phenomenon IMO.

The odd party is fine, but we’ve had a young neighbour who blasted out all sorts of loud music, plus drove a ridiculously loud car. Thankfully the family moved. I don’t mind listening to a mower, people chatting, or even some occasional soft music, but it shouldn’t regularly be loud enough to be heard over tv or speech in someone else’s house. Everyone should be entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their home. How can anyone think that is too much to expect?

Put a note through the door asking them to use headphones for workouts!!

Me either!

Agreed!

I think normal is kids playing (but not screaming), people chatting, lawn mowing and dogs barking are all fine. I’m not keen on music (use earphones ffs), but for an hour or two I’ll put up with it. Noisy gatherings should finish up or move indoors around 9pm so the young and elderly can sleep.

I think music in the garden is quite normal, but only for half an hour here and there. If it's excessively loud or on continuously all day every day that's different.

Nextdoors dog that constantly barks even at it's owner is more annoying because it's all hours of the day and night. Every slight noise it barks at 🙄 but the owners don't try to train it or stop it.

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Yep!

Some people are just utter charvas unfortunately

Watching football fullblast in the garden and the drunkenly talking until gone 3:15 am. (The last time I work up and heard them).

100%

We live in a posh neighbourhood and no one would dream of playing music or the radio or anything outdoors. It would be considered incredibly uncouth. It’s one of the reasons why I enjoy living here. Unfortunately manners and respect for others are in decline OP.

I live in a terraced house next door to a pub and don't hear that much. Weekend days I will hear the generator for the food truck and some quiet conversations. Occasionally late at night a car will drive out of their back yard- that's a bit annoying as their lights shine right in our bedroom window. On the other side, sometimes the dogs are out and we hear them bark to be let back in. Two doors down, the dad and kids are very sporty so are always out kicking balls etc.
Noise not a problem here at all.

My family and I live on a small new build development where the gardens are quite close together. Most of the neighbours have been fine, mainly families with children, so the usual sound of kids playing, an occasional BBQ with music, friends visiting, trampolines, and general garden noise.

Unfortunately, we had a very different experience with a previous next door couple who didn’t have children and seemed to have a totally different mindset. It was party central most weekends, loud music, groups of people out in the garden swearing and laughing into the early hours, and then they added a hot tub. The bubbling was constant, and they’d talk so loudly we could hear every word of their conversations. I found myself living on edge, anticipating the next party. Any silence felt tense, like it could be broken at any moment. I couldn’t enjoy my own garden, and genuinely wanted to move.
Then, a “For Sale” board went up and they moved out a couple of months later. We now have a lovely family next door and barely hear a sound. For the first time in seven years, I can actually enjoy my garden and it’s been bliss.

So OP, I completely understand how noise can wear you down. What you’re experiencing doesn’t sound reasonable, and it’s so frustrating that some people have no regard for others, its selfish.

Huge difference between a one off event and whether the neighbours live their life in a noisy way!
Most people will tolerate a one off event, but kids screaming every single day for hours would piss me right off.

I have noticed lately on SM that there's no consideration for people who want peace and quiet and who are struggling, especially if it involves screaming children.
The responses, even when asked politely to tone the noise down is 'No, I won't tell my kids to stop screaming, they're having fun, letting off energy, if you don't like it, move somewhere else!!'
There was a woman on my local SM community page this week who asked for parents of screaming children to be a little more considerate, explained she was in her 80's and I was struck at how aggressive the comments were and how insulting. I posted to say how there was no need for name calling, but was shot down with accusations that I must hate children etc and I was just as 'out of order' as the elderly lady, and there was no resolution for the elderly lady, the parents claimed their kids could scream all day so long as they were having fun and nothing would change, if the elderly lady didnt like it, she should move, so yes, to the poster who said its getting worse, I agree.

We can hear noises from gardens and the street constantly. As the kids are always playing in the street or the gardens or both.

Kids shouting at each other, the parents shouting for the kids from their front doors, or out of the windows, the parents shouting at the kids for misbehaving. Dogs barking, pretty much every house has one or two, they are often shut in the gardens and bark a lot, and people shouting shut up at the dogs. Loud music is regular, one neighbour has a garden bar, lots of shouting and swearing and drunk 2am arguments. Footballs smashing into fences is my particular dislike and we get that endlessly, along with the squeaky bouncy trampoline noises. One neighbour tinkers with motorbikes on the drive so those get revved and make loud bangs regularly. One has a fire pit and sets fires in it most nights so we have smoke and smells too.

I think that sounds a bit much OP and it would drive me mad as well. We are in our garden a fair bit but never play music as I don’t think it’s fair to subject others to your music taste (unless we are having a bbq with guests, which happens once or twice a year).
If I am in the garden and want to listen to a podcast I can use headphones!

But mainly I prefer to listen to the sounds of nature.

One of my neighbours plays music out loud and it does annoy me too. I think it’s selfish.

You say:
Sometimes there is lots of loud music from around lunchtime to 9-10pm at the weekend.

You need to clarify the ‘sometimes’ to get an actual view on this

Our neighbours are similar … but yours are worse. I play Mozart loudly on a blue teeth speaker facing into their garden. Either they get the message and quieten down or the Mozart covers their noise. Either way if reduces the impact they have on me. I utterly despise them and their selfishness though.

I really dislike the need to have constant background music on outdoors where sound travels, if everyone did it it would sound like a hideous jumbled mess. The noise of life is totally understabdable and noisy kids shrieking in play, babble and hubbub from people chatting, raucous laughter etc totally fine but listening to someone else's music and particularly heavy bass just does my nut in.

How do you cope with all that? Sounds horrific!

So extroverts don't mind listening to the antics of other extroverts?

Oh jeez. We weren’t allowed to annoy the neighbours when we were kids (in the 60s/70s) but the world was a different place then. Kids screaming and adults joining in? Omg. Pure and utter selfish entitlement and fuck everyone else. We had a woman with three kids next door to us a few years ago. All we ever heard was her screaming the oldest kid’s name over and over. Then they got a dog so she could shout his name too. Then you had the kids in the garden shouting “Alexa! Play…”. Fucking dismal and so selfish. Used to pull up in the car with music blaring out of the windows and shouting at the kids. Luckily they moved and we now have a quiet couple with a child they don’t shout at. Bliss

I think acceptable means:

Most of the time, talking not shouting, and definitely not screaming. The odd occasion when people have a party - OK, as long as it's not too frequent. If the kids are having a party it's inevitable, but parents shouldn't allow their children to scream as part of normal play if they have close neighbours. But some people need to move far away from others!!!!

Absolutely no music outside, except, as above, for the very odd occasion. Sometimes music from indoors is too loud and can be heard outside, but it's more difficult to complain about that...it's a bit of a grey area. I don't know what planet people are on if they think it's OK to play music (routinely) in their garden.

No swearing in the garden. No-one else wants to hear that.