How to approach neighbour about 6am screaming…

[Larrythecatforpm]

My neighbour opposite has young children, I sympathise and understand kids that age are going to make noise, it’s just what they do.

However every single weekend for the past 6 months since then moved in (and I imagine most of the summer hols) the neighbour has been letting them play out in the front garden from 6am or getting them in the car and they just scream full pelt non stop.
It’s right opposite my bedroom window, they wake me up and I can’t get back to sleep.
I am absolutely sick of it. They are council tenants can I put in a noise complaint? I have mentioned it to the mother before and she didn’t seem to see the issue using the excuse they’re little.

This morning it was from 5.45am.

You're going to have to shout at then to be quiet every time. They will listen eventually. Ive had to do it with my next door neighbour and her 6 girls ranging in age from 2 to 15. All they do is scream or fight and then scream some more because theyve hurt each other . On top of the father constantly making noise by drilling ,sawing ,jet washing or hammering something day and night. Im done with it all and told the neighbours so. I dont care if they ever speak to me again.

I feel for you op, noise like that at that time of the morning especially is not on. You cannot enjoy your own house and personal space. People who have never experienced it will never get why its so anger inducing and draining. Its like having a small yapping dog barking day and night which has been proven by some study i read years ago to cause madness

Why is she taking them out in the car at 6am? Is she heading to work and one is a bit narky so having a tantrum? I only ask because that would surely be brief screaming, not ideal but our NDN’s DD does it sometimes and I just think ah we’ve all been there…

As for the playing loudly in the garden at 6am part, they obviously shouldn’t be doing this. Before approaching the council to complain, I would mention it to her. She may honestly just not have thought it through fully.

Is that really necessary?

I am surprised much more aren’t up in arms of it’s unrelenting screaming from 6am every weekend morning for half a year

even in Jan? Feb?

No not necessary to shout for your cat and not care who you are affecting 😜

Can you speak to her again? Lay it on

You know what I meant. It's downright strange to dig around copying and pasting a post from an unrelated thread.

Yes I knew what you meant

I was on the thread and remember the cat user name ( and thinking - wow, are people that thoughtless?!)

How about a parent actually parent properly? The selfish entitled idiot needs to stop letting her little brats in the garden at such a ridiculously early time and tell them to stop the stupid screaming

I would gone it a go in that situation if it were me.

X

Hmm

So according to your first post it's sometimes in the garden, but sometimes she's getting them into the car.

This post adds the information that it's crying sometimes, not always actually screaming.

Also it's 10 minutes not hours.

I can see it's annoying to be woken up, but I don't think you have a ground for complaint when you detail factually what actually happens rather than exaggerating.

There is such a thing as parenting your children and being responsible for their behaviour. The mother could keep them inside until 8am, like other parents do. If my DC shouted, screamed or whined I would make them come indoors.

It's still weird behaviour whether you remember the poster or not

Before having kids myself I would have thought this was completely unreasonable.

Now I have my own young kids and they are early risers, I can empathise with your neighbour for letting them out earlier than others would deem reasonable, especially during these heatwaves when the house is hot. I let mine play in the garden from 6am if they want to be out there, but I don't let them scream constantly! They do of course have moments of getting overexcited though and shout/exclaim, which I feel guilty about and I remind them to play quietly.

Your neighbour lost my empathy when you said she was a smoker though, as I think smoking is abhorrent in itself but doing around children is absolutely inexcusable. If she doesn't have any regard for her own or her children's health, I highly doubt she'd be remotely concerned about disturbing her neighbours.

In terms of a short term fix though, get yourself a noise machine! Even though our kids sleep in their own room now we still have a noise machine in our room to block out the noise of the neighbourhood dog barks, cat screeching, milkman round and the neighbours setting off to work early/returning home after nightshifts. Means you can have your window open in summer to enjoy the breeze but not be disturbed so easily.

It doesn't sound as though they are let outside to play, but rather are following the mother when she goes outside to smoke or she's putting them in the car to take them somewhere (to a childminder maybe?. I'll look for that post.

Children do make noise and there is no harm in that.
OP, is it really screaming?
I really think that you should invest in earplugs.
One of my friends is having a very difficult time with neighbours who are complaining about her noisy children.
Chilldren make noise and that is very different to screaming.
As another poster pointed out, children don't have the capacity for ongoing screaming.

8pm. Not 5.45am though and I doubt the OP is screaming high pitched like children do.
Chalk and cheese.

This is the post where she says the children are following the mother when she goes outside rather than her sending them into the garden for hours.

I dislike smoking too but it's part of the pattern suggesting this disturbance, whilst annoying, is probably not nearly as bad as people who put their dog out at that time and leave it barking for hours, and similar to people who are unnecessarily loud leaving for work at that time (which to be fair is likely to be what she is doing on the days the OP hears her putting the kids in the car).

A lot of kids who are ND scream.
I’m sure the mum doesn’t want her kids screaming in her ear at 6am either!
But she does need to find a way to stop it impacting the neighbours so much.

Before going to the council, I would just pop a note through the door.
Say it as nicely as possible as there’s nothing worse than feeling like someone is slagging off your kids.

The council won’t do anything because noise from children is classed as domestic living

I'd absolutely report them to the council/housing association. I would be driven to murder over this 😆

i can understand your distress but i don't think screaming children is considered actionable noise nuisance by the council because it's considered general household noise.Do you have any welfare concerns about the children?

Did I read that correctly? I would think someone was bat shit if they did this to me on the grounds of wanting to complain about something.

Decent earplugs will work wonders.

It makes no odds whether they're a council tenant or not but yes any noise complaint goes to the council.