Annoying neighbours - how can I annoy them back?’

[Switchnow]

Semi-lighthearted.

I have smelly and annoying neighbours. Not horrible people, just gross. Four litters of puppies ‘by accident’ dog shit all over the garden, home overcrowded with adult and near adult kids plus their kid, only one adult goes out to work so it’s noisy all day and currently blaring out awful music and drunkenly and loudly blathering in the garden. Can’t even sit out there, it smells and it’s just not nice.

AIBU to think of ways to give them a taste of their own medicine, lawnmower at 7am, get loads of parcels delivered to their address, barbecue fish at all times of the day?

Extremely hard as I have a similar issue but I can’t stand mine. But the best revenge is getting on with your life and not rising to their bait. Life’s too short to be unhappy and resentful. (I need to try and take my own advice)

Play classical music.

edit: in all seriousness though could you report them to environmental health?

my nightmare neighbour threw pistachio shells (literally hundreds of them) all over my garden and pretended it was the birds… that was extremely annoying having to tidy all that up. But she literally is poison and I never wish to be like her

Get wind chimes

Yes, we should all be the bigger and better person.

...But I semi-lightheartedly love @TheGrimSqueakersFlea's idea.

Downside is that windchimes also could annoy you, so maybe only hang them up when you are leaving for the day. Then put them back in when you get home. Don't be subtle about it either.

OP has made me worried that we’re the awful neighbours that other people want to annoy - our next door neighbour was mowing his front garden at 6.45 yesterday morning. Perhaps he’s punishing us!

You can buy a device that sets of a sound to animals when they come near your garden - the sound is inaudible to humans so you could buy one of those

and yes to the wind chimes

buy some of those incense sticks to light in your garden too

Real talk I'm having a similar issue with a neighbor 2 doors down. The only thing you can really do is constantly report them to environmental health.

A bird scarer but that will probably rock the neighbourhood- would be funny though to see their reaction when you first set it off. Wind chimes and classical music sound good

I have a few in my temu basket…

Start having bagpipes lessons.

Haha, loving these suggestions! I have a dog so anything that could scare her is out, and we live near fields so there is a bird scarer. Wind chimes is a nice idea though, they irritate me immensely but I sleep at the front of the house. Incense too, I’ll need a lot!

On a serious note I have contacted RSPCA and environmental health before. Things did improve but have got worse again. No chance of them moving as they own the house. I do try to ignore but it’s frustrating sometimes to not be able to sit outside in a hot night because of the smell and the sound of them drinking and swearing.

Put the Barney 'I love you' song on repeat and fuck off out for a few hours.

Or do it while you're home but put noise cancelling headphones on and listen to radio so you don't have to listen to it.

Trust me, it's a fucking annoying song! Or play some other annoying kiddie songs...

Let your kids learn the recorder and practice in the garden. The noise is so annoying ......

My gran ordered some bags of manure one summer and left them by the fence but that wouldn’t help here because there’s already a bad smell.

I mean you could do all sorts of things - but will it actually make you feel better in your home and make it a nicer environment to live in?

Get the Hoover out at 6am and don’t forget a few accidental bangs on the wall! Put the washing machine on in the middle of the night.

Next time you go on holiday put a timer on the tv in the bedroom that adjoins their master bedroom and make it come on at night (our neighbours did this once, and I’m sure it was done on purpose because it was around the same time our children were particularly noisy).

Have you ever spoken to them about it OP? They might be completely oblivious to the impact it’s having on their neighbours.

On another note, do they have children? Not a good environment for them to be in - especially if there’s lots of late night drinking and swearing.

Haydn string quartets. Bonus points if you can play them with some friends, and practise all the entries a lot of times. And if you run out, get onto the string quartet editions of Haydn symphonies as well.

My husband bought a very loud speaker purely to annoy the neighbour, who likes to play loud dance music. He puts the speaker against the adjoining wall and plays death metal at full volume while he goes out and walks the dog for a good hour.

I did mention the smell before, and they said they clean the dog poo every day. Which might be true, but there are sometimes more than 10 dogs including puppies, so a lot of poo to clear up and once a day isn’t enough. Their house also smells, and if the door is open I can smell it even over a 6 foot fence.

Unfortunately there are primary age children and a toddler. They seem like a fairly loving family, but it’s not a nice environment for children, dirty, very drunk dad and weed smoking every day.

That’s not a good environment for them at all. Even if they are in a loving family. And if there’s that much dog poo, to the extent you can smell it over the fence, then you can bet anything that the kids will have come into contact with it. There’s a pathogen in dog poo called Toxocara that’s been known to cause blindness in children. I’d be tempted to give SS a call to do a welfare check on the kids. Especially as the dad also sounds like he’s got addiction issues.

10 dogs !
The stench and the noise .

I don't think classical music and windchimes would touch the sides here .
But they really need to pick up their dogs' mess , imagine how grim that is for the children living there .

"Bloody Hell ,Barry - has something climbed into your garden and died ? There's a rotting corpse in there "

Vacuum cleaner against the wall . I put mine with hard floor setting against the skirting boards of the NDN sons bedroom. He was up till 3am with his loud annoying music. He was up again at 6am with the noise from my vacuum.
Shifty lazy git he was .

Hehe then move onto Shostakovich, Beethoven, Britten then Bartok quartets for good measure. Extra points for bad intonation and wrong notes

Report them to the council as dog breeders. And keep at the environmental health..
If you haven't got a paddling pool /trampoline then get one

Wr have always been very considerate ndns until this year...
Ours are fucking hideous so now so are we.