Am I unreasonable to be upset by my neighbour's outside toilet noise?

[RockinRobyn98]

I’m wondering if I’m being unreasonable about this because it’s starting to make me feel really uncomfortable in my own home it been a happening for years but last couple weeks got so much worse.

My neighbour has an outside toilet in his garden which is very close to our house as we both had passageway yards he also has a toilet upstairs in his house which I’ll mention again later.
He seems to use the outside toilet constantly throughout the day, sometimes literally every hour. The problem is that the toilet door is often left open while he’s using it, so we can hear everything.

He will be in there from as early as 6:30/7am making very loud noises, burping, farting, spitting/coughing etc anll throughout the day we once counted 27 times in a day of him making what I can only guess is belching noises? It’s like a very loud and deep “OI” we are guessing it’s a type of belch but who knows you hear him doing it all day and he seems to spend a lot of time out there with the door open to 💩 . It’s particularly bad first thing in the morning and has woke me up all this week I’ve had off work.

I’m finding the noise really unpleasant and sometimes they make me feel physically sick especially now I’m pregnant. I know he is obviously entitled to use his own toilet, but surely leaving the door open and making very loud bodily noises when it’s right next to neighbouring houses isn’t particularly considerate? I sat in the bath last night relaxing to his farts.. he does have a toilet upstairs and once in a conversation with him he mentioned how he sleeps in the living room as he can’t make it up the stairs (he’s late 60s) but I’ve often seen his upstairs lights come on so don’t believe this to be fully true.

It’s getting to the point where I dread hearing him go out there because I know what’s coming!
Would this bother you or am I being unreasonable? And is there anything I can actually do about it if it continues?

It does sound awful. I would personally install the loudest water feature I could find and drown it out. tall ones with multiple drops generate the most noise.

He does have indoor plumbing too.

Lots of people have kept the outdoor loo as well. They're useful if you have children or spend a lot of time in the garden/are often doing dirty work in the garden.

It sounds like his health is failing meaning both he needs the loo more frequently and he needs to use one downstairs. Probably he doesn't realise how much you can hear, but I doubt I'd be brave enought to point it out.

Exactly. FIL uses his because it's easier for him than climbing the stairs every time he needs the bathroom. Plus he does a lot of gardening/outdoor work so it means he's not getting mud in the house unnecessarily.

It’s not guaranteed it wouldn’t but it MIGHT not and then he’d have to get rid.

An outdoor toilet doesn’t meet standards if it leaks waste, pollutes soil or water, creates odour, attracts pests, lacks proper drainage, or isn’t built to British Standards. Environmental Health can act when any of these create a statutory nuisance or a public health hazard.

If the toilet produces smells detectable beyond the boundary, it can count as odour pollution under the UK Odour Management Guidance 2025.

Environmental Health also expects toilets to be:
• Clean
• Ventilated
• Waterproof
• Safe
• Able to be properly washed down

HSE requires toilets to have:
• Running water
• Soap
• Hand‑drying
• Adequate ventilation

Environmental Health investigates when an outdoor toilet causes:

• Smells affecting neighbours
• Leakage or runoff
• Health risks
• Pest problems
• Pollution of drains, soil or water

If confirmed, they can issue an abatement notice requiring the toilet to be fixed or removed.

I image its something like these pics in its own, separate little shed building.

They're not always separate - FIL's is attached to the house but it just has its' own separate entrance from the garden - you can't access it from the house.

There's no more reason an outdoor loo would have those issues than an indoor one.

NovemberMorn I am so pleased it's not just me.

I do apologise as I know it's not the point of the serious thread but I am sat here howling with tears streaming down my face. I can think of so many people that phrase could be applied to.🤣🤣🤣

But, if the door is open, can nobody see this man using the toilet? That would also be a concern.

These pictures are giving me flashbacks to when I was a child and had to use my nan’s outside toilet (just like the ones in the pictures). The toilet often had daddy long legs in and I was terrified!

Same here. We had an outside loo complete with horrible daddy longlegs, which I was always (and still am) frightened of.
I also had a horrible older sister who used to draw huge spiders on the white brick wallt o deliberately terrify me, and I never knew which were real and which were not.

I don't speak to her now.

I know at least three people with outside loos in inner London

Surely if you are from Norfolk. You could just simply speak to your Uncle/Brother and ask him to stop.

This is reason enough for the laugh emoji! Even if it is politically incorrect @CovenOfCheeses

Now you know better.

Dereham? 😂

Is there a landlord or someone you could complain to?

I lived in a terraced house with an outside toilet as a kid, ours was at the bottom of the garden, impossible to hear a thing from the house.

God I’d absolutely love an outside toilet, would save me frantically kick off my muddy gardening clogs rushing to make it upstairs before I piss myself 😭

It’s useful if you’re having people working on the outside of your house or garden, because you can lock the house and go out and they’ve still got the toilet facility. Probably only if you’re detached or a semi though, as you can’t really incarcerate people in your garden and go awol.

We had one that had been incorporated into a lean-to, so not totally outside as such. It was damn cold in the winter!
It was a god-send during potty/ toilet training for my son as it was so handy for downstairs rooms. There has been one where I live now, but the toilet removed and changed to a shed. Given the amount of useless crap in the shed, I long for the toilet back sometimes!

Why not just move to somewhere with a bit more space between houses, or be more tolerant?

Because it's so easy to move house!

I have laughed my way through all this.

We all have the sense of humour of 12 yo boys in this family, so would be in the house wetting ourselves shouting ‘oooiiii’ when he went out there. Also record it so you could create some kind of amusing tune out of the various noises which could then be played back near the window.

Swap houses?

Not quite 🤣