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

What do you do for a living?

And if you live in a built up area do you not think there is any personal responsibility to be considerate and raise considerate children? No one is entitled to be a shit just because it’s a built up area, there is a middle ground, we all have to learn to live together. That means having some tolerance, but not taking the piss.

We’re not talking about playing, we’re talking about screaming, we all know what that screaming sounds like, it is NOT necessary and it absolutely should be managed by the parents.

It’s no bloody wonder schools are struggling so much, people really don’t see the correlation do they.

Homes are homes first. They were never designed to be workplaces. It's 2 hours a day of kids playing out. Children are allowed to play in their gardens and sometimes that involves a bit of shouting and screaming. If it bothers you that much go to the office, tell your manager the screaming interferes with calls and so you need a desk at work.

All day screaming is a PITA and they should not be allowing their children to scream for long periods of time and bring them in if it goes on too long but to moan about a couple of hours play after school is silly when you are choosing to work from home. Go work in your office.

Subjective though. Someone who doesn’t like the sound of children playing might describe a saturation as ‘screaming all the time’. It doesn’t mean they actually were.

It’s not even about just work though, though I appreciate that’s the topic of the thread. I don’t want to hear non stop incessant screaming in my downtime any more than I want to in my work time. Those kids shouldn’t be screaming because it’s not appropriate, end of. Or rather, the parents shouldn’t be letting them.

It doesn’t matter if you’re working or not though, most people don’t want to listen to that kind of screaming when they are minding their own business in their own home. Obviously it’s particularly tricky if you’re trying to concentrate or take calls but equally you might just be listening to the radio or whatever.
There’s a daycare opposite me (don’t get me started, it was NOT there when we bought the house), and they do wraparound care for older children. The noise when they line up outside ready to walk round to the primary school is absolutely off the scale horrific. Not chattering and laughing which generates a bit of volume, but screaming and roaring at the top of their voices from some of them. No one ever shushes them.
I’ve lived next to children like this before and it’s wearing. I had three children in 4 years, two of them boys, and never experienced noise like this and wouldn’t have tolerated it, and certainly wouldn’t have inflicted it on anyone else.
That said there is no level of noise and poor behaviour that won’t be almost universally excused on MN.

I am fully home based and have multiple Teams calls daily. I also have dogs who will always choose the most inopportune moment to start noisily play fighting / chewing on a bone or squeaky toy / barking at the postman delivering the mail.

I use this headset and have been assured by colleagues that they can’t hear a thing at the other end, so disruptions work wise can at least be mitigated: https://amzn.eu/d/0gYFgwUO

I’ve no objections to kids playing and sometimes getting carried away and a little bit too loud, but there’s no reason or excuse for sustained screeching or screaming. I’m someone who’s quite happy to talk to people about issues, so would usually advise to go and have a calm chat with the parents involved, but I do recognise that not all people are reasonable, nor do they recognise the positives that a little bit of mutual respect and compromise can bring. Only you know the kind of neighbours you have and if they are likely to be receptive.

The simple solution is go to the office. Your in a residential area, children are going to play. No one should have to change how they use their own home and garden to accommodate someone who wants to work from home.

The ones by me have gardens but their parents turf them into the street for 10 hours a day because they can't stand the screaming either.

This.

I also work remotely and don't have an office, and that isn't my neighbours problem. OPs concern is clearly about this while she's working and that's why she is BU. If her post had been AIBU to be irritated by kids screaming generally, that would've been a different thread.

It also is worth considering, as others have said, whether opening windows at 31 degrees is wise. There comes a point when it'll make you hotter.

@Fgfgfg Last summer I had a group of young girls outside my house screaming in each other's faces to see who could scream the loudest.

i feel your pain, I had random girls doing it outside my house. I told them to move and do it outside their own house, they said they couldn’t because their mum had told them to go and do it somewhere else

And what about people who aren’t working but who just want to live in a scream free environment? In what situations do children need to scream?

Working from home isn't the same as not working.

Plenty of people have home-based jobs and are entitled to the same ability to concentrate as someone sitting in an office.

Expecting neighbours to be reasonably considerate doesn't strike me as asking for preferential treatment.

The solution isn't always as simple as 'go back to the office' particularly when home working is part of someone's contracted role.

I wfh permanently and get a lot more done than I ever did in the office.

Welcome to the real well.
kids cooped up in school all day should bloody well be able to use their garden as they wish! It’s not the middle of the night.

id laugh you off my drive if you came knocking on my door

Residential areas are not designed to be working places.
If you can’t cope then move where you have no neighbours.
Kids playing out has gone on for - well, centuries.
I agree they shouldn’t be stood screaming for the sake of it but are they doing this or are they just running round yelling at each other? With excitement? That’s what kids do - it’s why school noise carries so far.
Honestly people winge about kids being inside on social media/tablets etc - yet when they play out the work from home brigade now complain!
You chose to work from home .

They'd have learned to swear much sooner if they lived near me! I'd have given them a mouthful of profanity soon after the first couple of polite requests to quiten down were ignored.

There are plenty of kids round my way, and I'm home most of the time now I'm retired, but I rarely hear them screaming or shouting, thankfully.

They're not in their gardens, they're outside my house.

And people wonder why schools are overrun with entitled little shits making teachers’ lives hell.

It's interesting that your solution requires the OP to change where she works rather than the people creating the disturbance to show a bit of consideration.

Your thoughts around work is now rather old fashioned. People work from home now whether you like it or not.

They're not out licking the roads clean with their tongue like you seem to be 👅

Kids screaming is one of my bugbears and mine were not allowed to. But yabu because you could just go to your office. People should not have to adjust the way they live to accommodate your preference for being at home

I could manage treble the caseload wfh compared to what was manageable when working from the office, partly because so much more is done over the phone.

Representing someone at a tribunal used to take several hours sometimes, due to travelling time and the list of hearings over-running, but doing them over the phone generally got them done and dusted in an hour or less.

Oh ffs, READ the OPs posts at least!

Totally agree, the kids near me play out now that the weather is fine and hearing their chat, laughter and their feet running up down is not an issue, in fact I like to hear it, it is happy and life-affirming. However, screaming and screeching is something else, most people find it awful, painful to listen to and impossible to block out. Luckily the parents of the little ones near me do pop out and ask them to calm down.

Annoying, noisy little fuckers. OP you’re well in order, my friend.
I’ve told my neighbours kids to ‘stop screaming!’a few times.

Kids playing means ‘noise’ will be a byproduct, which doesn’t include screaming and shouting.
They can keep the noise down and their parents should be telling them to keep the noise down.

Exactly! And nice chatting, playing noises can be endearing, hearing the wonderfully daft things that children chat about
Work is irrelevant. It's about being able to not feel stressed and distressed in you own home because of your neighbour.

It's not about children making noise. Children are never going to be quiet and indeed, listening to children playing and laughing at normal decibel level is lovely.

It's not even about the high noise level. Indeed, tree cutting, building work can be noisier. It can be stressful but....

Screeching sound is more than stressful, it's distressing. It makes your heart jumps out, your adrenaline rush to the head and your ears hurt. That's the kind of sound we are talking about. It's the same level of unpleasantness than a dog suddenly barking at the top of their lung.

How do their own parents tolerate it, I don't know. Maybe they have their noise cancelling earphone whilst inside with their door and windows closed.