How can this be allowed?

[BadAmbassador]

This is my very first AIBU!

I’m afraid I’m turning into THAT neighbour - help 🤣

I live in a quiet residential street, houses with families, houses on my side are quite close to the road ie not far back at the end of a long drive.

11.15 this evening, really loud engine/mechanical noise started up outside my house, across the street. The kind of noise that would wake you up if you were asleep.

Looking outside - there’s a big van with the side door open, engine running, interior bright light on, man inside doing something to a tyre on a very noisy piece of equipment.

Evidently he’s repairing someone’s car tyre in situ (as posed to them taking it to a garage), so an emergency call out service for people who don’t have a spare tyre.

I went outside to see what was happening because it was so loud. Gave man in van a very hard stare which he ignored for quite a while 🤣 He carried on another 10 mins or so, eventually seemed to realise I was still there and turned off the noisy machine - he’d left it going while he was fiddling with the tyre. Engine still running of course. So 15 minutes of very loud, intrusive noise - like having roadworks outside your house at night when you’re in bed.

Is that acceptable? It’s not a busy high street with loads of traffic noise, it’s not a main road or a motorway. I know you can’t help where you break down but surely there are bye laws about loud noise after 11pm and this is just really inconsiderate?

it wasn’t a lone woman driver being helped btw it was a man. He stood and had a loud chat with the mechanic in the middle of the road before driving off - cheers for that, now know exactly where the mechanic is based 🤣

Is it me? Why is it me? 😭

I saw curtains twitching but I was the only one who went out - if he hadn’t finished the job when he did I would have gone over to say something. And I’m small, shy and non confrontational but this was Very Annoying!

However I HAVE reached the age/life stage of not giving a fuck 🤣

I dunno, what’s normal behaviour any more? One person’s convenience for a street full of people having a broken night’s sleep? Woken babies?

Storm in a tea-cup? Shut up and put up? Angry mob with pitch forks?

Help me Mumsnet! 🤣

It was a one off and it didn’t wake you. So yes, YABU. I have hardly any neighbours. One however has a son who has just turned 18. He occasionally (maybe once every 3 months) comes home in the early hours, obviously steaming, judging by the awful singing and noisy falling down. That does wake me but it just makes me smile - oh to be 18 again!

Annoying yes, but you definitely are being unreasonable. Giving him a “hard stare” for 10 minutes! OMG, the curtain twitchers you refer to were watching YOU OP. They were saying “Omg, she’s still there, staring “. That would have been pretty entertaining.

Yip be a case of , come here see the nut from no9 staring at the repair bloke.

Are you Mrs Paddington “”Hard Stare” Brown? 🤣

Hardly any modern cars have a spare tyre, and a large proportion of drivers, including me, wouldn't know how to change it if it did. Of course getting someone out to fix it was necessary so the guy could get home. He probably called for assistance from a breakdown service several hours earlier but a man being broken down on a residential street would be very low priority so he could have been waiting for 6 hours! As pp said this incident was definitely much more annoying for him than for you.

An emergency is an emergency.

Do not move to somewhere like Germany though - machines are on till really late on longer days. Workmen don't stop working at 4pm there, would you believe it.

To me, this is why most neighbours spend the majority of the time being considerate to each other. There might be the odd one off that calls for a bit of understanding in an emergency situation. 11pm isn't all that late, and it's a one off so just move on. It would be a different story if they made a habit of disturbing people in the night.

I don't think it was a neighbour just someone broke down in the street

This, live in a small village with no local taxi. Youngest is not a very well child and in and 13 2/3 night admissions in last year including recent sepsis, was a 2 hr wait last time we had to wait for an ambulance, so I we now won't wait, it's an anxiety thing i know, but I can't relax unless I know my car is absolutely ready to go always. And like pp above, nope, no spare in car.

Also you seem to be suggesting they should have taken the car to a garage instead of fixing it where it was..... a tow truck would cost a hell of a lot more than a guy with an electric pump on a van. Plus garages are closed at night so not sure how you think taking the car to a garage would have helped the poor guy.

Absolutely, and he will totally be convinced that he was ever so quiet! 🥴🥴😆

Yep- obviously they could get a 50 quid taxi to work in the morning and another home in the evening to spare you a noisy 10 minutes.

The AA recovered a large boat to our quiet (very inland) cul de sac at 2am once. It took them two hours with lights flashing, engines on, and all the noise that taking a boat off a recovery vehicle takes. The boat then sat opposite our house for six months until it was removed by the council.

Consider yourself lucky!

Also they could be going anywhere. I’m driving 200 miles for work tomorrow morning 😭 some people think everyone’s life is like theirs

Surely you're not daft enough to not know that a flat tyre is an emergency? In so much as it needs fixing otherwise the driver is going nowhere?🙄

Whats with all the 😂emojis? Own your comments, don't try and make yourself out to be funny, you mean what you say so don't try and down okay your annoyance.

Not to mention... tow trucks are themselves extremely noisy!

This sounds like an emergency tyre repair/change that wasn’t planned and isn’t recurring. And it only took 15 mins. And the vehicle was probably needed for work the next morning.

I have actually had the exact thing done myself - puncture one evening, car needed very urgently the next day. Emergency mobile tyre repair called out and arrived after a couple of hours waiting - around 11pm.

I suppose if you have an emergency, it’s different, is it? Going out and staring was pure Karen.

Annoying, but sounds like a one off.

You would hate to live where I do. Regularly at 2am they work on the train tracks with loud machines. It's not the noise from the machines that annoys me it's the loud talking that's not related to their work.

Most new cars nowadays do not carry a spare wheel as standard. A car cannot drive on 3 wheels. If a tyre is flat, to drive on it would damage the wheel, which would cost hundreds of pounds to replace. Yes, of course it is an emergency situation.

Annoying? Of course!
were you out of order? Also of course. It was a one off emergency for a few mins. You were extremely passive aggressive.

I only hope OP none of your neighbours have reason to call an ambulance in the middle of the night, you will be put out with a siren and flashing lights won't you.

I do hope you can recover from your awful ordeal.

I suggest a lie down in a darkened room in order to recover from your long hard stare at a man trying to help another man out with an emergency.

Some people really struggle to realise that while some situations are, yes, very annoying and even infuriating, they don't warrant any response beyond a bit of cursing in your own head or maybe to your partner. They don't need someone to Do Something about them and they don't need you to See The Manager and they don't need to be banned, because this is life and sometimes unavoidable, annoying things happen.

I know MN hates the term Karen but this is precisely the kind of behaviour it was coined to describe originally. Feel free to suggest an alternative but it's a very specific kind of overreaction.

You’re right! You have become THAT neighbour.

Noise, annoying, but a once off, rare occasion, move on!

If it was an every day deal, that would be different. You definitely should have just stayed inside, twitching your own curtain.

Do you need to drive to understand that a puncture would be an “emergency” for someone needing to get somewhere and that you can’t drive on a flat tyre? The fact it was a man rather than a single woman doesn’t mean he can magically repair tyres 😂