Do you live in a terraced house? And are your walls rubbish?

[oliveoil]

As in thin so you can hear the neighbours?

We live in a 3 bed terrace at the moment, on a main road and are looking to move.

There is a newish development with boxy houses on it, but with big gardens.

Or another terrace on a quiet road.

BUT in every terrace I have lived in (er, well 2) the walls are rubbish. But I am not overkeen on new houses.

Survey please!

xx

Yes and yes. I can hear my neighbour sneeze.

Likely to be worse in new house too, they seem to have even thinner walls than old-style ones.

New houses are very, very small, well planned so you can really tell from looking how little space you've got, but believe me, you feel it!

The houses are semis though so only one neighbour.

I know what you mean re new though, I like my old pile.

Hmmmmmmm.

i'm on the end of four and our adjoining wall is really thin. I've got a 2 year old dd who loves to have the loudest tantrums ever and I'm so sure my neighbours think I'm killing her the way she screams!! I can hear their telly so god knows what she sounds like to them.

Yes and no, but they are big houses with very thick walls (1860 ish I think).

Lived in a new (1989) terraced house and could hear next door's light switch. Now live in a new detached house. So can only hear outdoor noises.

Didn't hear much from next door in my Mum and Dad's 1920 stone terrace. But the house was the end one and the hall/stairs/landing were against the other house.

So might depend on layout.

mine is only 1900 so a spring chick by comparison

but lots of character

We live in a terrace - built 1900's ish and don't have too much of a problem. I'd be a bit more wary of a modern house, I think. Having said that, though, our neighbour moved bedrooms so he couldn't hear dd crying. She was the colicky baby from hell, however but normal levels of noise don't really travel. It depends which rooms adjoin, doesn't it - on one side we have a shared alleyway, for instance, so no problems there.

I live in a terraced house, the walls are very very good though. It's an 80s conversion of a 1860 (ish?) school, though. And we're in a converted school room. We can hear neighbours cough sometimes, but only when it's quite quiet.

I think new builds tend to be rubbish anyway.

We live in a shitty 1980s ex council house that we rent from a criminal (but that's for another time) The walls are so thin we can hear everything the neighbours say/do, which is worrying, as they can probably hear us too. I think older houses tend to have thicker walls, as they aren't put up by morons with a plentiful supply of plasterboard. We lived in a Victorian terrace when I was a kid, and we only ever heard next door when they were in the garden.

Actually I tell a lie, I used to be able to hear the next door son playing his trumpet, but he seems to have stopped now.

1880s thinish esp round fireplaces (but think currently that we're the noisy ones so not really a problem for us..!)

Older houses were built to last for years and years. New houses are built to last until the warranty runs out (10 years? 20 years?)

We are noisy neighbours too, onsidering DS has a fine old pair of lungs on him, it's beyond DP to talk quietly and I'm a musician!

I think fireplaces are the culprits too.

But one one side we have the cast of Shameless and on the other they like to get up at 5am and walk their pet elephant.

Suppose it depends on the neighbours.

I do worry with ours that if I close a door with too much force it will fall down.

We have a neighbour who likes his music at earbleedingly high volume. Really really really really loud. He used to get complaints from people five doors down. He's gotten better lately, but still, if we didn't have very good walls, I would have killed him years ago.

OO, you might be lucky and the new build might not have the bedrooms through the wall, some new builds are great and have only the stair sides of the houses joining (iyswim)

but they are not better at sound proofing than old houses, sometimes worse

and they tend to have smaller rooms, but with more storage. most have built in wardrobes, so you dont have to use up any of the space in the room for freestanding wardrobes

but a new build comes with teething problems, although they do have builders guarantees, for a couple of years and nhbc guarantees for 10 years.

if there is a large garden there will be room to extend later if you can afford it

and with a new build you get to choose your kitchen and bathrooms

We live in a terrace and dont hear any noise from either side (one side is a single man though) the other side has two families with kids in the same house...they must be quiet kids!

I bet we are noisey neighbours though

My parents live in an old victorian terraced house, and the walls are wafer thin.

I remember staying at my mothers when heavily pg with dd2, only to be woken at 2am by the (quite possibly stoned) teenage neighbour singing 'my heart will go on' at the top of his lungs completely off key.... After finishing the hideous rendition he went on to 'play' the drums (badly) and then he asked himself for an encore....

we were lucky with our house - end of terrace and old deaf couple next door! Lovely!

In our first house we were occasionally woken in the night by rowing neighbours. Although this was less embarassing than the couple who moved in after them...

In our second house we only really heard next door's phone. It was loud enough that babysitters would sometimes try to answer ours before they realised it was coming from next door. And they seemed to get a wake up call every day at 4am! But apart from that we heard very very little.

We used to live in terraced house and you could smell the neighbour's cigarette smoke. Often you could smell fry ups too. It was nerve-wracking when we were trying to sell the place.

We live in an edge townhouse (so like an end terrace). It is new build, finished September 2005. On very odd occasions we can here the neighbours - but not often at all - maybe 2 or 3 times since moving - and it might be the odd thud, maybe as if jumping down a stair or something (they also have a 3yo).

Also lived in an apartment for past 2 years, again new build. We has people above, below and to two sides. Never heard anything at all then.

So, some new builds have relatively decent walls and sound proofing!

end not edge

I live in a terraced cottage - 18th century and the walls are about 2 feet thick - so no, I don't hear the neighbours at all.

they made things to last in those days