Disturbing neighbours

[Sunn2022]

Not sure if I’m supposed to be posting this on here but In need of help or advice from anyone possible.

im having problems with my neighbours for years now and it’s affecting my mental health every single day and I really don’t know what to do anymore

they’re causing us so many disturbances and no one wants to help.
they have an autistic son around 12-13 years old and he’s always running around loudly and kicking a football which we can clearly hear and on top of that Every time they use their water we can hear it & it’s not just normal water noise it’s loud and disturbing and we can hear it over the tv and this is every single day from early morning till late night basically. We had a word with them but they don’t want to know and either call us liars or say it was a tap which they’ve had fixed but makes no sense as they always change their story. I’ve had the environmental health involved and my housing officer and both have been no help and strangely every time they’ve visited mine and their house I can’t hear anything so they also think there’s no problem which makes no sense because we can hear this noise every single day otherwise and it’s definitely from their house as whenever it happens I’ve gone out to check and can either see water running down their drain or we can hear them in the bathroom, they can also control the noise by the water flow as this depends how loud it can be. I’ve tried recording the noise so many times but it’s not picking it up and sounds nowhere near as loud as it is in real, It’s worse as their son with autism is always in the kitchen at the sink and lets the water run for ages. I’ve even rang Yorkshire water because of the amount of water they’re using/wasting but they can’t help either. Please anyone with any advice or who to contact as I’ve tried everywhere possible and just can’t deal with this noise anymore in our home it’s driving us mad And the neighbours have no interest in how it’s affecting and disturbing us. They’ve made other stories up that have nothing to do with these issues and told our housing officer and she’s stopped responding. Any time we have anyone over they make sure not to make any noise so I’ve not been able to get anyone to hear it

It's a tough one as I'm guessing soon as they told the officer he has autism they struck it off right away. The only way you'll solve this is by moving. I don't mean that in a harsh way but they won't help you. And to be honest they are useless anyway, they palm you off with diaries etc So there's only two options stay or go. Are you renting/ bought? If you have bought your home you will have to declare the noise when selling as you've reported them..

You can try white noise machines etc or get some soundproofing to try and block the noise are you in a flat or house?

I've had awful neighbours which wrecked my mental health so I do understand. But ours was drug related and they had raves We moved area so we could afford a detached as we had enough.

If you can move - do. Council are largely ineffective - even in council properties. You haven't stated homeowner/renting status which would help. I have bitter experience of nuisance neighbours and sympathise enormously - if you can move just do it. I let it go on for three years and it has permanently affected me and sadly my daughter too. I had complete faith in the council/authorities - don't hold your breath that they will sort anything. Protect your mental health and that of any children - it's hard for those who haven't experienced it to comprehend how it feeds into every area of your life. Good luck.

@shellshocks
thank you for your reply

we’re renting from the council and also had complete faith they would help, after trying and trying the only other solution the housing officer has suggested is mediation and the only time she ever seems interested to help is when we email her manager telling her she’s not doing enough to sort the issue, other than that she doesn’t seem interested and has even said she has more serious issues to deal with even though I’ve sent her recordings of how loud the neighbours son runs and stamps around and when we complain about the water noise she says it’s normal to hear some noise from semi detached houses even though I’ve told her plenty of times any sort of water noise from next door isn’t normal. I’ve not since heard from her and anything about mediation and she promised we’d receive information or an appointment on the mediation issue but nothing so far. I’m fed up of running after her now and it seems it’s getting nowhere. We’ve lived here for more than 30 years and it breaks my heart that we’re having so much trouble :-( and just want to live In peace as we’ve never been any bother to anyone.

@Taurusenergy
thanks for the reply

i was thinking it may be something to do with that that’s why the environmental health officers and housing officer don’t seem to be interested in helping us in anyway but this isn’t fair as it’s affecting our mental health and my mum isn’t well herself and with all the noise going on she hasn’t been sleeping well at all and has slept downstairs for months now as the water noise is really loud in her bedroom and she used also get woken up by them banging their back door really loudly early morning 🙄 they really haven’t been easy to deal with.

we really don’t want to move as we’ve lived here for 30+ years
it’s a house and we have thought about soundproofing but really don’t know how to go about this as it’s a council property and someone I spoke to said they had a similar issue and soundproofing didn’t help.
I think (a guess) the neighbours have water hammer but I’ve no idea why they don’t want to sort the problem
weve tried with their landlord as well who at first tried helping but then started believing his tenants that we’re lying and god knows what else and he started talking really nasty after that so we havent since bothered with him

Is it a pump sound or just the water? We have a huge issue with our water pump making the most god awful noise and we have tried to fix it but it still does it.
When we first moved here though, we had an issue with the water suddenly making an awful noise which had to have something fitted to the pipes to stop the pressure build up. Basically it would knock and then do quite a loud almost screaming noise. Thankfully that has stopped, but the pump noise is still ongoing and sadly, short of putting in a new tank in the loft with a different system, we are going to have to put up with it.
I know that's of no help to you, but I wondered if that was the issue your neighbours are having