Noisy Neighbours - Where do we Stand Legally?

[CDMforever]

We have students living over the back of our garden and have to put up with noise during the early evening and long into the night quite regularly. A work colleague of my husband said that we should get a solicitor involved to nip it in the bud.
We don't know where the landlord lives or how to go about getting his address.
We are at the end of our tethers, DH gets very stressed and down about it. Its just so unpredictable and we don't want to live like this - wondering what sort of night we are going to get, especially with 2 DCs under 4.

Do you own the house? If you escalate it to an official dispute you will have to declare it if you ever sell. However, since they are students it may be a temporary problem? I'm sure teh council could find out who teh owner is for you.

Yes we do own our house. I know what you mean about it being a temporary thing but with every batch of new students we get the same problems. I have contacted the council and someone will be phoning me back. Also the point about it "escalating to an official dispute" is very true though unfair IMO. I love living here but the noise issue is really getting us down.
I actually went round to ask them to turn the volume down last week, when they had band practice - 3 bass guitars and a lot of groaning - and it did stop tho started again at about 11pm through till 3am.
Wish I could wave a magic wand..

I'd be knocking on the door every morning at 6am and gettinng them up.

When my parents had this problem my dad used to mow the lawn, whilst my mum hoovered at 6am! Not a real solution I know

I like your parents' style Connor! Yes, not a real solution but bloody liberating! But then I suppose we'd pee off our other much nicer neighbours!
We do know that the landlord origianlly had the house on the market but as thats not doing so well at the mo is renting it out so hopefully in the long term we won't have this problem.

Are they abusive? The "groaning" bit doesn't make them sound too bad. Maybe call when it's quiet and have a longer chat about?

Why don't you contact their university. I know my uni hated anything that gave them a bad rep and would discipline students living off-campus if they were causing a nuisance.

I live near students, I find a stern mum voice really helps!

I ask nicely once, but after that I go round and say they have to turn it off now because I have to go to work in the morning. No nonsense voice and I never ask them to turn it down, just say it is too loud and they will have to turn it OFF. They prob think I am a cow but they know not to mess with me.

We had one difficult set who woke me up at 5am a lot when I had to be up at 6 for a 7 start at work, one day I went round at 3 after my shift finished and pointed out that since they woke me up I had done a full days work - and they had done f-all.

They were realllly shocked and brought a bottle of wine round later to say sorry.

Contact your local authority Envirinmental health - the process is - report problem they'll write to both sides and then ask you to keep a noise diary for a few weeks, then they'll review it and if its bad they'll consider installing noise monitoring equipment. there is often a queue for this. If the recordings show a nuisance then they'll serve a noise abatement notice, and can then go on to seize their equipment, get them fined etc. Will the other neighbours join forces? A good environmental health officer will try and witness the noise them selves. You local authority website should have more info.

What 10pounds said. At the same time, perhaps try the Land Registry online to find the landlord's name and address to write to her/him about the problem.

I would agree with Maize approach.

If that does not work, then make you sure you keep a diary, or mark on you calendar when you have disturbed nights, when you have been round to ask them nicely and what their response was.

Start nice, move up to threatening ASBOs if they are not helpful.

Your local authority should have a noise abatement officer as 10pounds says

Thanks all. After having contacted the council they sent out a letter to us and a letter to the students saying a complaint had been made, obviously not divulging who it was. Since then, touch wood, we have had no noise at night, only heavy guitars during the day sometimes, which is fine as we're all out alot of the time.
Going to look on the Land Registry site now just in case......