AIBU to struggle with neighbours' children screaming while working from home?

[fld]

One of the few things I am not looking forward to the next few days are screaming kids.

Two families that moved late last year and earlier this year have 5-6 kids between them and all they do is scream! They run outside and scream. As the properties are in an odd shaped quadrangle, their screams bounce off the walls. Making the screaming even more intense. The kids’ ages, c3-9 years old.

My job is hybrid, so didn’t get this issue last summer as properties the kids live in - one didn’t have kids and the other had kids and behaved.

I had to close a window to keep the screaming down. There is no way I would close a window when it’s 31c.

I do wish parents would tell their kids that screaming is not acceptable. My work is two thirds on calls ti various customers, other staff in other departments and my team’s colleagues. I can hear the screaming from wearing the call headset.

Any tips will be appreciated

I can't believe how parents don't discipline their kids these days. An attitude of entitlement. I've got new neighbours moving in with three boys under six -dreading it. No more peaceful times in the garden.

Closed windows and drawn curtains help to keep your rooms cool.

Go to the office

Have you cancelled the cheque yet?

Very loud Bhangra also works 😂. And two young adult daughters who have no singing talent singing along with it

Surely you can book a desk. The point of hot desking is that you can organise your time and office days. If you choose to work from home then you should appreciate that people live in their homes.
My children don’t scream but enjoy being outside, I’m not going to bring them in when it’s nice weather. We are surrounded by families and not once has my husband had to leave a work call because of noise. Maybe working from home isn’t for you.

Depending on volume, duration and consistency you might get some help from the noise abatement people at your council. Have you spoken to your neighbour and told them how it impacts you ?(Sorry if you've already addressed this). Council will be asking what you've done to communicate the problem, and what response you got.

Council will absolutely not enforce on children screaming. Unless it's a matter for social services which is vanishingly unlikely here.

I get where your coming from but on the other foot my neighbour works from home and in the summer when he has the windows open all u can hear is his loud voice work calls all day

Your office is designed as a work environment - where there are no children.

Homes are designed as environments where families and children are to be expected. They are not designed as work environments.

The fact that you’ve moved your office to your home environment is your problem, not theirs.

Thing is OP something has to give, just because the options aren’t great doesn’t mean they aren’t options worth exploring.

Your house doesn’t suit your lifestyle.

Your job doesn’t suit your home situation.

WFH doesn’t work if you can only do it if you control who lives in your road.

definitely worth speaking to your boss /HR to see if you can get priority on working in the office every day if there’s more desks available when colleagues are away on holiday. Also worth asking if you can flex your hours and start earlier, take a 3-5 break and then work again in the evening to make up your hours.

I think people are intelligent enough to know the difference between normal chit-chat and screaming.

And based on this, it appears your sense of entitlement is right up there…..

Let us all respond and behave as you decree.

The work thing is a red herring. I don't want screaming outside whether I am working or not. I want to enjoy my garden, or sit inside and read. Or just have a nap (especially when it's hot).

Parents should tell their children to be quiet and make them stay inside if they won't.

I do feel for my neighbours' neighbours, as they live in a row of terraces. So if the kids are as loud inside as they are outside, it no doubt is audible through the walls as well.

On the screaming note. I do not allow my DC to squeal and screech inside or outside and hammered down on it very sharply when it started. However lots of DDs friends do and she started doing it too.

I noticed that the squealing/ screeching is particularly bad if DD watches certain YouTube creators and channels (DDs friends watch them and she asked me to watch them, when I watched them with her I said no and banned them - therefore becoming the world's most unfair and horrid parent according to DD because Jane, Sue and Dorris watch them. I found lots of the videos DD wanted to watch were just "creators" "reacting" to things with screaming/ shouting/ screeching as their content. Same with the "play along with me" style content, the creator "reacts" to things in the game with shouting/ screaming/ screeching. Of course, impressionable young minds then think appropriate reactions and things to do in games is screech/ scream/ shout and/ squeal.

@fld - I’d suggest a portable air conditioning unit, so you can keep the window shut, and maybe noise cancelling headphones if you can use them while working.

The council won't do anything and neither should they. Children playing in daylight hours, even noisily is not a statutory nuisance.

No kids can be told off anymore. Screaming is their right. You’ll have to suck it up.

It isn’t just what children do, excessive screaming is what the children of lazy inconsiderate parents do. If you can’t stop them screaming excessively take them inside or to the park.

Whenever I take my kid to the park there is rarely excessive screaming - I very much imagine that this is due to the parents of excessive screamers being too lazy to take their kids to the park as it requires actively parenting.

I agree with you. There is no need for kids to be screaming. If my daughter is out playing with her pals and screaming, I tell them to rap
it or she is coming in.

One instant solution can be done.

If you're worried about the heat and closing the window, argos and b&m do plug in ac units. Worth buying and then it's quieter for you.

We have no way of knowing, and its always worth reporting if a real issue

Thing is though youre at home, a domestic area, if you choose to work from anywhere other than an office you take what you get.

However, if children scream constantly day after day I think a parent should reign it in a bit as there are other people around / retired / young babies trying to sleep etc sometimes it’s good to be considerate to all sometimes.

I have wfh and encountered 2 neighbours having extensions, all manner of power tools, cutting rsj’s, cars being fixed, kids screaming so I do feel your pain.

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I live in a flat, my kids are past playing outside age and I don’t have a job, so not applicable le to me.

I don’t think “actually” parenting involves stopping children from “unnecessary screaming”. What even is that 😂. I’d love to hear you explain to a young child playing outside to only scream “when necessary”. Just stop it with this bollocks. Entitled brats are the pits, and there’s no shortage of them around. We all suffer them from time to time. But you need to fix your ideas around “unnecessary screaming” simply because it’s a ridiculous notion.

Screaming is not ok. I never allowed it. Screaming means you are in danager.,Laughing, playing is all ok. But screaming is just not.