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! 🤣

Fair play to OP totally pissed off with situation asked advice told she was being unreasonable held her hands up and said she was

Once in a blue moon is fine. We had a fleet of fire engines here one night going for a few hours from about 2-4, using the hydrants, resonating the water pipes. Did I moan? No. We live close to a main road and are frequently a dumping ground for broken down vehicles. That doesn't really bother me. I even helped hacksaw off someone's exhaust. What does bother me is neighbours doing their van conversions 3 metres from the house at 11pm. People pumping their tunes as they pull up. Slamming car doors. Revving their engines in the cold at 4am. Banging their front and back doors. Letting their dogs bark away at 1am... As for some sap trying to get home last thing at night who has broken down, I'll have a little empathy.

What reason did she have to be pissed off?

Nothing affected her. She wasnt asleep or in bed or woken up. She was awake already and then standing outside like a lunatic staring at what was happening.

Her complaints are a complete fuckingnothingburger - especially considering the OP says shes not a driver too.

So WTF gives her the right to complain?

OP has rightly been called out on this thread as is fucking deserved.

One time my toilet was completely blocked, I called a man to come and jet the drain outside, he turned up at 10pm and put the motor/generator/whatever it was on. I was embarrassed as it was really loud but I was so grateful he could come that day and I would be able to stop pooping in a bucket. If you need something done urgently and that’s the time someone can come, it’s not ideal but it’s amazing people work that late to help others.

As a one-off I wouldn’t get annoyed about this - fixing a tyre/car so someone can get to work is more important than my drain. For all I know my neighbours get up at 4am and have to drive hours to work to do something important. But if it’s happening all the time then yes I would be annoyed

Local noise laws are generally for repeated out-of-hours noise, not for one-off emergency works.

Yep, storm in a teacup. Chalk it up and move on.

Then there would have been complaints about random
cars parked on the road. Perhaps the person needs the car for work in the morning? If I had a flat late at night I’d have to get it done immediately as I no longer have a spare (as most cars don’t nowadays) and I need my car for work.

Some things are unavoidable, and when a tyres goes, it goes, and has to be changed where it is. However, I would have been really annoyed at the gratuitous use of the loud noisy engine when it wasn’t being used, as you describe OP.

I feel like if its one time then YABU but if its a regular thing then yes very annoying.

YABU - it was a one off

Have you had a flat tyre? Many cars either don't have a spare at all or have a space saving wheel which will just get you to a garage at a really slow speed. Not much use if the neighbour has to be somewhere in the morning.

Yes OP YABU.

Rather than annoying the neighbours with the noise of an emergency tyre change/repair, this poor motorist passing through should instead have parked up in the street overnight, until it was a reasonable, respectable hour to call out the tyre man... and then annoyed the neighbours when they woke to discover somebody who isn't a resident was parked in (or "had abandoned their car", as the drama usually goes) in 'THEIR SPACE'

I lived in Austria for a while, where they seemed to have a similar efficient ethic.

They would do essential road repairs overnight, rather than close off the roads in the daytime when everybody is trying to get to work and school and go about their business. They'd send in a load of workmen with all the equipment and floodlights and they'd get right on with it and get the job done properly and then re-open the road ready for the morning.

Very unlike the UK, where we cone off the area and put up loads of signs for weeks or months on end, and if Bill Oddie comes along and sits there for long enough with his binoculars, he might actually be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a Lesser Spotted Workman.

Nah. Paddington isn't a complete twat.

he'd be making a round of marmalade sandwiches & a pot of tea!!

Are you usually so snarky and unreasonable? Hardly any cars have spare tyres these days and it's been that way for at least the last two years. It wasn't as if they were having a full MOT done in their driveway, it was a brief emergency call out service. It takes about 30 minutes and it's not 30 minutes of continual noise. Why do I get the sense that you're one of these people who leaves notes on ambulances that are double parked when responding to an emergency?

Annoying but most likely a one off, move on. If it happens again then go and say something.

Annoying but a one off for understandable reasons. YABU.

It would annoy me but it's tough luck. Someone needed a tyre repair so had to get it done. He can't help that he broke down at night. Cars don't come with spares anymore so he can't do it himself

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

I would suggest that maybe, you have not.

I assume that as the time he managed to get his tyre fixed was unsuitable to you then you offered him a lift to work the next day and helped rearrange the fix for a time that was better for you...?

YABVU, fair enough if he was a dickhead of a neighbour always revving his car but the bloke has a flat tyre and someone has come to fix it at the only time they could.

How do you know that it didn't need to be fixed right away. There are many reasons that someone needs their car to be working and a taxi is not an option.
Sounds like it was a one off , live and let live, we're all inconvenienced at some point.

I dunno, what’s normal behaviour any more?

I think your tolerance level is what the issue is.

As regards the complaints about the repairman leaving the noisy machinery going throughout... as well as it taking longer to keep starting and stopping it when needed, it's often actually more annoying to others that way.

There's a horrible noise, then thankfully it stops. Then it's noisy again, then it goes away. Then it's back again. Many people would find it infuriating and feel on edge, and wonder 'just how long are they going to keep doing this for?'.

A single constant annoying noise for 10-15 minutes that is then stopped and doesn't return is probably much easier for most others to rationalise and cope with - especially as they don't know the full story about what is going on outside and how long it will take before it's fully dealt with unless they're standing there intently, twitching the net curtains and staring and giving the professional the evils.

Maybe they had an early start so it needed to be done in the evening?
Maybe they had a motorway journey to do in the morning so the spare wouldn't be sufficient (most are only OK up to 50mph)
It sounds like it's a one off - really no need for OP to be so cross.
Heaven forbid someone would need emergency services in the evening, she'd have to stare at them for their noisy sirens!