Received a written compalint from a neighbour - so I have to reply?

[8amIsnt5am]

I've namechanged as details are 'outing'. Sorry it's long but I've tried to include all relevant details.

My DD2 is collected by our CM at 7.55 Mon- Fri. We live in a block of flats, with stairs to access it, so CM rings our buzzer, we take DD down to her. Short interchange and she is off. This takes between 5-10 minutes maximum. It involves some small discussion with CM, kisses and waves bye bye. It is short and we try to keep our voices down - but it is 8am in the morning.

CM can't come to our flat door as its up several flights of stairs and she has a buggy.

My neighbour works shifts. She has written to me claiming I am interfering with her right to peaceful enjoyment of her property, and the above interchange is excessively loud and long and wakes her around 8am, which is the "equivalent of 5am" for her. The noise is so incredibly loud (allegedly) that ear plugs don't work for her.

She claims that the above handover takes 30 minutes or even longer every morning between 7.30 am and 8.20 am and is very loud. This is completely inaccurate. It is 5 minutes most mornings, sometimes 10 maximum if I have forgotten something and have to run back upstairs, and it is ALWAYS at 7.55/8am. It is talking voices only. There are many children in the neighbourhood and a school a short distance away. It seems she is attributing any noise she hears to me & my DD.

She claims sound echos "as I will know from the days when my DP used to go downstairs and shout at the kids"!! Seriously WTF? This has never happened - There was a family with a garden backing onto our flats (right under her window) who had small children and she must be thinking of them. Nothing to do with us.

She claims a right "to peaceful enjoyment" of her property - HR Act language. The HR is re peaceful enjoyment from govt interference is it not? It is not a right to have complete quiet in your flat at all times. I should also add here, for context, that the flats are on a main road & bus route in central London - well used by emergency services vehicles at all times with sirens etc. Its a noisy place day & night.

Even if my children were excessively loud (which they aren't), according to the CAB it is pretty much unactionable.

Surely I am allowed to converse with another person, in a normal voice, outside a block of flats between 7.55 & 8.05 am? The shift patterns of my neighbour really aren't my concern - what if I had 5 neighbours working different shifts? Would it be unreasonable to talk to another person outside my flat at any time of the day lest it's "5am" in someone else's world?

This neighbour and I have history from many years ago before she lived in this flat. I think she is a nasty person and do not want to have anything to do with her at all.

I will of course further attempt to keep our voices down during the handover, and will tell CM that we must talk about anything we need to on the phone later, rather than at collection time, but I really don't think that we are doing anything wrong at all. However I do not want to engage with her on any level or reply to her ridiculous & wildly inaccurate email.

Apparently she is also complaining to all the other residents in the flats about us - I get on really well with the neighbours I know (several) and no one has ever said anything to me about noise. I apologised to our immediate neighbour re noise one day recently when DD1 was having the mightiest tantrum & he knocked on our door (about another matter) - he hadn't heard a thing!

Clearly I think her complaint is inaccurate and unjustified. She should invest in some of those wax ear plugs if she has an issue with noise and needs to sleep during the day, as shift workers the world over do (my parents were shift workers so I am well aware of the stresses they are re sleep under having grown up with it).

Do you think I have a legal duty to reply to her email?

no doodle

gah tell us!!!

We had a similar complaint from our neighbour who complained that the noise from our car woke him up, classic car, big engine, but it's only started once a day at 8am for commute into work and in the afternoon at weekends. I get that people work shifts but it's unrealistic to expect the world to be as quiet at 8am as it is at 5am because you're sleeping.

I didn't bother to reply as he threatened to call the police in the letter and I thought he'd gone outwith the bounds of being neighbourly. That and I know there is nothing the police would do as the car is taxed/ insured.

Have had v similar problems with a neighbour who became a nightmare and the police ended up intervening as he was basically harrassing us.

At first i engaged as tried to be helpful, but Aater a year of him complaining about any and every little sound he could hear (including us going to the toilet), I got a bit fed up and sent him firm but polite we?ve had enough email. He got furious sent me a really aggressive email and contaced the council about two completely new and fabricated complaints. The council couldn?t find any noise worth commenting on, but that wasn?t enough for him and he started banging on our door in the middle of the night while we were all asleep. The council advised me to contact the community police about it and he has now been told by the police that he is not allowed to contact us at all now.

Hopefully your neighbour is not as nutty as mine. If you engage you might get get more of the same from your neighbour so ignore. Or you could just send a polite but very firm email and try and nip it in the bud so they don?t keep it up. People like this can be just a little bit crazy.

I don't know for sure but from what i've experienced I don't think you have a legal duty to respond. The council or police didn't seem to think i needed to respond to my cuckoo neighbour. You're not doing anything wrong and you are allowed to have a conversation with someone in the morning!

Good luck!

8am is hardly early. Her work pattern is really not your problem.

I'd reply "Sorry out perfectly normal comings and goings at a perfectly normal time of day are disturbing you. Have you tried earplugs?".

I would, however, keep your handovers short, sweet and reasonably quiet.

Sorry I missed the bit where she said "earplugs don't work for me".

So maybe suggest better earplugs!

Here's a helpful site for your neighbour: www.allearplugs.com/ear-plugs/?gclid=COrSibqJ67ICFaTHtAodxE8AzQ

Agree to ignore her as once you engage you just invite more unreasonableness. You have no legal obligation to acknowledge her email. She is ludicrous.

If you ever get challenged at a later date you could claim that you thought it was a joke because surely nobody is that unreasonable... and well, it was untrue. If necessary add that you don't like to mention it, but you think she stole your email address (abusing her position as secretary of the RA) because you have never given it to her and you thought best to say nothing rather then cause upset.

I wouldn't change your routine now by the way. Presumably your already considerate of the neighbours so I wouldn't let this nutter intimidate you.

In my old house my neighbour would be out with his chainsaw at 6am on a Saturday :( He said that most people should be up at that time.....

My new neighbour here leaves for work at 6.30am and has a screaming fanbelt that wakes my up every morning.

my other neighbour has her lawn mowed fortnightly by contractors and they start at 7.30am....

so I think your neighbour is being an unreasonable bitch....

I love how she thinks that a morning handover of children can take in excess of 30 minutes....in the morning?!.......before work!?!
I think, as others say, it is your history that is making her unreasonable. She does sound a bit of a stalker

All I have to say is..... 20 year 'building project' and 'bagpipes'.

We lived where houses were quite far apart. Someone used to saw, hammer and crash about every weekend and summer evening (we joked that he was building an ark) for years and years. Then there was the man who practised his bagpipes every weekend morning at early o'clock.

We lived in a block that was like a sitcom. Crazy cat lady upstairs who would run the bath and forget, se we'd get flooded every so and often, the old gay couple (one said they weren't gay or a couple) with all night radio and a huuuuge trainset that took over the whole living room, the nocternal very loud german lady, the drunk on the top floor who was usually pissed at 4am and knock on the door to ask if you'd fancy going for a drink, the couple who used to have massive rows about very little but be very sweary (you 'effin c**t, not even a card???'. This was a vair posh area too!

Please, please tell us the back story. She sounds entertainingly barking

Wow! So many people having problems with the neighbours on this thread.

Makes me feel not quite so alone Not going to go into it now.

(Basically, she is using her boyfriend to harass me, which scares me as a LP and with an abuse history).

One thing I do know, (and I would recommend this), I would NEVER give my telephone nr. -either land line or mobile - or email address to a nasty neighbour - it just gives them power over harassing you when and where they feel like it.

All our correspondence is done by notes in the letter-box (in an envelope), at least you can build up a file like that should it get out of hand.

Ask her to buy a detached house in the country?

I love how she thinks that a morning handover of children can take in excess of 30 minutes....in the morning?!.......before work!?!

I KNOW - I mean who in their right mind, with 2 working adults and 2 kids to get out the door, has 30 minutes to do ANYTHING? We are on a routine in the mornings most of them anyway that works like clockwork.

I was going to start to note down the times CM arrives & leaves etc, but it occurred to me that this is ridiculous too. With very little exception or variation, she comes at 7.55 and it's all over by 8am. DP, CM and I can all verify this if we need to.

We had a weekend away this last weekend, and though I was quite shocked by her email on Friday I realised on Sunday night I had totally forgotten about it. So whoever said up thread I say "Email what email?" if she ever mentions it - was spot on. I've practically forgotten about it already.

We are making extra effort to be quiet in the morning, to be considerate, however I feel well within both my rights and the realm of normality to continue as is.

She can take her fantasy email full of thinly veiled threats, barely contained behind a maniacal scary 'grin' of neighbourly kindness and place it where the sun don't shine.

Sorry to hear so many people have become the focus/target of nutty neighbours . It seems to be all to common a problem.

suburbophobe I hear you re the phone number and I'm grateful she doesn't have mine. Years ago, before she moved in, this person had been to my place ONCE for 5 minutes with her BF who was a friend of mine. Days later she's ringing my bell and inviting herself in to whinge/moan about her relationship while I sat there with jaw on floor saying things like "It's not a good time" "you need to go now" etc etc!!!!? I was astonished to be ambushed by a stranger like this, who I didn't like and didn't care to get to know and in my own home. I then had to ignore my bell for quite some time as she kept coming back. (I got friends to call first). She has skin like a crocodiles - thick as.