This is really long.. so I apologise in advance. I live on a newbuild housing estate in social housing. I live in a middle two bedroom terrace with a neighbour either side. We all have one child each.
We have lived here relatively happily for the last 3 years, and get on really well with our neighbours as our children, all girls, play together outside. My neighbour to the left has two dogs who when left alone, will bark and howl until she comes home. I have two dogs myself and I understand they can be a nuisance, and one of mine barks when she goes outside to do her business so I never complain about it. But I do not leave my dogs barking. The moment they start, I bring them in. My neighbours dogs do bark until the early hours on weekends, last night it was just after 1am but I have never complained because I like being friendly and don't want to cause problems.
Now this same neighbour started a new job and as such leaves for work at 6am during the week and has complained about me coming home at 9pm-9.15pm, mainly on Thursdays due to my DD having cub scouts, and being noisy. At the time our front door was misaligned due to bad workmanship and I accepted that my closing the front door was probably waking her up so I always apologised and endeavoured to be as quiet as physically possible.
My front door has since been fixed and we no longer have that issue. Yet her complaints about 'banging doors' persist. She says my car doors closing wake her up. Then it's my front door closing. Then it's my french doors closing. Then it's 'vibrations' coming from my house. Essentially what she wants is for me to be in my home by 8pm every night, regardless of our lives and stay home because she goes to sleep at 9pm every night.
One night she came banging on my front door claiming I was being noisy.. I had literally just walked into my home and the time duration from me closing my front door to her being there was seconds, all most like she was waiting for me to get in, just to complain. I was tired and I stupidly told her that if she had such an issue that she needed to complain to our housing association, which she did. And I got a noise complaint letter.
I have asked my neighbour to the right if she can hear me and she says absolutely not. In fact, I never hear her either. All that neighbour ever hears is the dogs barking till stupid o'clock nearly every weekend from the neighbour to my left.
Our housing association investigated and decided our 'noise' wasn't anti-social and just normal daily noise, and suggested our neighbour purchase earplugs and dropped the complaint.
One night, me and my husband were sat downstairs with our french doors open and clearly heard someone thumping, banging and slamming doors. We heard a front door open and slam loudly and then french doors open and slam loudly and when we went outside into the garden, it sounded like it was coming from our neighbour who complained about us.
We shrugged it off and carried on with our evening, then I got a message on my FB messenger from the same neighbour asking me to stop banging and slamming doors. I explained that it wasn't us, my DD was asleep upstairs and were in our living room watching tv.
She sent loads of messages, going on and on even though I repeatedly explained it wasn't us. She then posted on our estate Facebook page for everyone to see, asking what she should do about daily noise from her neighbours?
I'd had enough at this point and called my housing association the next day about it. They said they will add what I'd said to the file if a complaint came in, which surprisingly it never did.
Instead our housing association wrote to us informing us an anonymous complaint has been put in about driveway having an 'uninsured vehicle on it' and they needed proof it was insured and taxed.
When I asked if the anonymous complaint was my neighbour to the left, they didn't confirm nor deny it but asked me why I suspected it to be her. I explained because a stranger wouldn't complain to my housing association unless they knew 100% that I was renting and hadn't bought the home myself. And the complaint would have had to have come from someone in possession of a tenancy agreement to know that us having an untaxed/uninsured vehicle on our driveway would be a breech of tenancy. I also explained our history with this neighbour and the housing association informed me that they were going to 'keep an eye on the situation that was clearly developing' and would no longer pursue the anonymous complaint.
So it's obviously her again. She can't get me kicked out because of percieved noise, so now she is trying other ways.
My husband has decided he wants to fight fire with fire, gather evidence on her barking dogs and make a complaint ourselves but I don't want that. I don't want to escalate it. I just want to live in peace. Our previous landlord sold the home we had lived in for 14 years during covid and we were homeless for months until we got this house, I don't want to be homeless again.
What annoys me is she adamant that we bang around in our home until midnight. My husband is a HGV driver and leaves for work at 5.30am every morning. My daughter is at primary school. We are in bed most nights between 9pm-10pm so the banging she is hearing absolutely isn't us. My neighbour to my right is adamant she can't hear us.
I just don't know what to do.