AIBU to want to move after neighbour noise and threats?

[User48236]

I’ve had about an hours sleep as I’m still feeling so wired and upset, our lovely forever home has turned into a nightmare after less than a year and I just want to move 😢

Relocated several hours away to where I’m from as all my family plus grown up children are here due to an inheritance we were able to buy a house outright and become mortgage free..my teen dd still lives at home .

it’s a semi detached bungalow on what seemed a quiet estate with wonderful views . The vendor informed us neighbours were lovely both sides and that she had a great relationship with the couple who lived to the left , they walked her dog and generally treated her like family (she was an older lady )

On moving in they seemed initially quite friendly , one husband seemed quieter and we didn’t see him much the other seemed chattier but not falling over himself to be friendly, more just being nosey and wanted to find out a few things., neighbour the other side is rarely there.

Our bungalows are staggered on a slope and each has an integral garage meaning one neighbours garage is quite close to the wall of each house we were rudely woken up one Saturday at nine am by what sounded like hard house music pumping through our walls and the sound of weightlifting weights being slapped back into their holder or dropped on the floor which literally make the house shake .

it transpired that next doors garage was the guy we saw more of’s gym and he was working out , to make matters worse he opens his garage doors so it’s full volume too , we can hear it everywhere on the house and worse if we open the front door as that faces the garage wall of next door (door is at the side of the house )

Its been a regular thing for eight months every other day we have up to an hour a day of this and always first thing Saturday and I noticed that despite having only lived there a couple of years the neighbour on the other side of them has put her house on the market, it could be co-incidental but who knows .

on top of that we’ve now discovered that they like to socialise a lot (they hadn’t owned their house long when we moved In Last autumn and had been still doing it up ) obviously I have no
pfoblem with that it just seems to be very loud 😕
They are regularly in their garden at all hours playing very basey music. Not particularly loud but very basey .. which comes through poor dds bedroom wall and also they are very noisy in general , until late at night .. they are mid forties I’d say but appear to work from home .
they also have two large dogs which are in the garden all the time and bark at their own Shadow

for context we moved from a house with awful noise nuisance and I was looking forward to leaving that behind (rented)

last night I’d had enough . I’d casually mentioned the gym workouts once in conversation previously (once) thinking he might be considerate and instead he’d doubled down straight away saying “I’m not In There long” and has.actually not spoken to us since
last night We headed to bed at 10.30 and just as we are drifting off .. suddenly thump thump thump ! My daughter knocked on my door and said it sounded awful in her bedroom. You could hear several people chatting loudly (ok fair enough everyone’s entitled to use their garden )
but the music was so basey …. We could hear it in our room too .
as it got to 11 we decided it might be an idea to politely let them know it was audible In our house so we popped round . Once near the back garden you could hear it was loud .. The usual guy came to the door and I asked if they were having a party . He said no quite defensively.. So we explained the base was a little loud and asked him to maybe turn it down a bit . He went beserk , effing and jeffing and said “sorry you saddos don’t want to live but normal people like to sit in their gardens and listen to music , you’ve already complained about my music once “
we didn’t want a confrontation and explained it was just the music was a bit too loud and could they be considerate .. nope . He had no intention of it . “Fuck off and get a life” was the response , then told me if we came round again he’d set “the dogs on us “ As we walked away I heard him say “stupid bitch, I’m not fucking having that “

when we got home I just cried my eyes out as I realised we can’t stay here , because now I can probably expect them to be worse. I love this house, we poured so much money into doing it up as it needed modernising and dd is in the middle of her GCSE’s but I suddenly feel like I want to just pack up and leave . Am I being unreasonable?

Some people are knowingly noisy. Some are noisy but don’t realise it. He is in the first category.
I wonder if he wanted to buy your property but didn’t have the chance to ? Was it sold quickly? He is trying to make it so that you will leave.
His behaviour is antisocial.
He can put headphones on if he wants to work out to particular music. He is a bully. And very disagreeable.

You have to stand up to a bully.

If you register a complaint it will be I think recorded and when you come to sell, you have to declare it. I wonder if your neighbours ever complained and lied that they had never had done so ? If you find a way to check you could seek some sort of redress there possibly?

More needs to be done to protect people from this sort of behaviour. It is a form of harassment in my eyes. And should be treated far more seriously. The wider impact on society I believe is considerable. From days lost at work, people going onto sickness benefits due to stress.

You can call the police if noise goes on after 11pm. You can call your local authority and keep a noise diary. Tape recordings can help.
What I would also urge you to do is to ‘own’ your garden. Own your home. Show that you are not intimidated.
You can consider doing what he doesn and make some noise yourself.
Consider soundproofing.

He will never be a nice neighbour. The issue with moving is that you never know what you will get as one next ? Or if the seemingly nice one will move and you get a horror story moving in.

@User48236 Perhaps your daughter would like a violin once she has finished her GCSEs? Or to learn the bagpipes?

That sounds like an awful situation. Unfortunately some people are just selfish.

If you report the threat to the police then you'll have to disclose the awful neighbours when selling.

@Monty36 they are a married couple , both guys .. the other one I barely see , he has a motorbike and spends a lot of time going off on that .
They only bought their house in 23 I think and they’ve spent a lot on it and it looks gorgeous so suspect they love their home .
I think the real issue is they knew they were lucky with a lenient neighbour, apparently they had a leaving party for her and also held a spare key .. she spoke highly of them so think as people they clearly got on, suspect she just tolerated the noise then Decided to move .
we were first through the door to view and offer .. houses in this cul de sac are quite desirable - I definitely think they don’t like us and are hoping to bully us into selling up
sound proofing options are limited really although the upvc french doors in dds room could do with replacing as they are over 20 years old (we replaced all the other windows does and doors)
We considered triple glazing to block out noise but we’d have to insulate the external wall too

How awful! I’d put the house on the market. Zero point complaining to anyone and that would make it harder to sell your house too. There’s no reasoning with people like this.

@SunnyRedSnail actually she’s a drummer! (Has drum lessons and a small electric kit with headphones ) She just can’t afford her own proper drum kit right now .. I’m thinking gcse results pressie !

@Monty36 also 100 agree , he could wear headphones when working out but instead chooses to put his music on full blast and open the garage doors!
it didn’t used to sound too bad u til just after Christmas . We think he got a beefy sound system for Christmas

The vendor was 78 .. we did wonder if she was a bit deaf !

This is hideous for you.
Is it worth talking to the husband or to them both together?
If not, then sadly I think moving may be your only option.

@Wordsmithery tbh I think it would be best to avoid any further communication with them

I'd get a security camera from Amazon and put it up facing your front garden (about £100 and easy to set up) to give you peace of mind about any physical comeback and deter them. I wouldn't complain officially as that would need to be declared when you sell. I'd then consider selling, although I do like the drum kit idea in the meantime or maybe cut your grass at 8. I don't think an hour at 9am is hugely unreasonable though.

I think I’d be out in my garden today with some rather beautiful classical
music playing loudly.

and have breakfast in the garden.

and organise a summer garden party.

and start doing Jane Fonda aerobics every morning at 7 on the lawn.

😬

Inform the police about this incident online OP, as the nieghbour is not suposed to cause unecessary alarm or distress.

He sounds pretty obnoxious to be honest

That sounds like a wonderful present!

@itsmeafterall Great idea ! We don’t have a lawn it’s a terraced back garden and gravel /succulents at the front but husband said he thinks he’ll head out and pressure wash the drive and the path running alongside their house

We would have to declare this in a sale - our other worry is we feel that ceasing any further communication and just ignoring now is probably the way forward while making sure we are also “enjoying our home and garden “ . I’m not convinced that contacting the police would do anything other than escalate the situation sadly

Yes I saw they were a gay couple. Get ready for Pride soon. They may have a party for that. Being gay is not the cause of their behaviour. It might cause a certain amount of nervousness as to who the new neighbours are and how they might be towards them. But I think they might have liked to buy your property. Or hoped to even if not possible.

Keep trying to talk to them. Ask him to put headphones on when he is in his gym. Show how it would be preferable to get along.
It is all very well them saying oh we just want to enjoy ourselves, people have to live amongst each other. That means some consideration for others. Old fashioned manners. Having none is very poor.
Failing that play some dreadful music.

I wish you good luck.

Sell up before you raise a stink and have to declare a problem with the neighbours when you sell. l am very sorry to say this l am not normally devious. My BF has put up with this nonsense for 7 years , she stupidly , in hind sight, went to court with police backing , the police actually charged them , the ndn won their case and have been terrible to them made their lives a misery . I know it's not fair on whoever buys it but hopefully they will be elderly and deaf . I am so sorry it's soul destroying my poor friend is beside herself, her mental health is wrecked.

Yes we do actually have some cameras already to go up

we are going to get valuations next week. The house is basically turn key ready now so hopefully that goes in our favour and has brand new double glazing etc just eight months old

Terrible advice because OP would have to declare this when she tries to sell, which would cause more problems. How do people not know this?

OP - try to have a good summer if you can and put your house up for sale in the autumn when it's colder and your dickhead neighbours are less likely to be a problem when it comes to viewers. Do they both work? You could limit the viewings to when they're out. But then you'll have to deal with people wanting to view your house at several times of the day doing their due diligence.

This would stress me out and make me so miserable, especially after the recent altercation. It is so frustrating to hear background music and talking at night. The man sounds very unreasonable and like he is not going to change. Yes we would all like to sit in our gardens with music but we have neighbours, we don’t live in giant houses with huge gardens like the people on SM! I wouldn’t report him to anyone, as a PP said you might have to declare it when selling. I would just move ☹️

When you get the valuations I would ask the estate agent about the process for selling and buying when you own a house outright. I googled this the other day and it’s a bit different to selling with a mortgage. You can get a mortgage in principle or move your mortgage, but with owned outright you can’t prove you have the “funds available” until you get an offer on your house

Sadly, in my experience, trying to reason with people who simply do not give a shiny shit as to how their antisocial behaviour impacts others is a total waste of time. We’ve had years and years of it. Thankfully the sub-humans we had the misfortune to live next door to in a semi detached house have now gone - but our lives were made an utter misery every single day. Dogs barking and howling, doors slamming at all hours of the day and night, feral children running riot until three in the morning, parties that sometimes went on for three entire days without a break. Beer cans and wine bottles thrown into our garden, burning rubbish, drug taking. We had one blissful week a year when they all pissed iff on a camping holiday and that was it.

We tried to talk to them. Got us nowhere. Got told to fuck off and actually after we complained, the noise got worse. It was as if they delighted in knowing they were making our lives hell and revelled in it. We thought about moving, but we’ve been here for 40 plus years and done a lot to the house. It’s also true that you can move and suffer the same problem later down the line, you can’t control who moves in next door. My mental health was totally shot for a while, but eventually they moved out. Probably because they had 5 kids and the house grew too small. I wept with relief the day they left.

You have my total sympathy OP.

I don’t think some music at 9am for an hour once a week and some people in their garden on a rare sunny bank holiday constitutes a nuisance neighbour.

He sounds an absolute arsehole for talking to you like that but if you want silence then you need to move somewhere remote and detached.

Did you stop reading the OP halfway through?

Don’t involve the police, you’ll have to disclose it when you do come to sell. I’d just sell up and buy somewhere else. You need to be able to relax in your own home.

I agree with this to be honest. Unfortunately neighbourly relations are likely ruined, so I probably would move. He sounds deeply unpleasant, but I really don’t think the noise levels are nuisance neighbour territory.