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

don't need tv on a Monday night.. next door always get pissed adn shout at each other for hours on end.. do try not to listen, but unless i turn the telly up REALLY loud can hear everything... very amusing too...

the only terraced hous eive ever been in was my student one.... it was victorian and we could hardly hear our (student) neighbours at all!

we are in a 3 bed c1900 terrace

the noise is not too bad but annoyingly, the woman next door has just put new real oak floors down throughout the house and now I can hear her clip clopping through the walls when it is dead quiet in ours (like early in the morning).

Either side of us are divorced women (who have much more interesting comings and goings than us!) so I'm sure we're the noisiest anyway.

Never heard a thing in our 1905 terrace,but it wasn't a true terrace,it was built into the gap between 2 houses,so had double thick walls & an alley way on one side.The only thing I heard was neighbours daughter yelling at her son,& the family next door but one slamming their doors endlessly.

We live in a 1964 semi now & can hear just about everything our neighbours do.The walls are absolutely terrible-I wouldn't believe they could be so poor.Fortunatley our neighbours are lovely & very quiet,but they are slightly deaf,so have their TV on very loud.The culprit in our case is the inner wall is made of cinderblock,which acts like a big speaker,the sound just travels right around the house.I will never buy another house attached to someone else with this type of wall again.

We have a 1930s terrace. Single retired man on one side, occassionally hear him sneeze (although he claims never to have heard either of our children!).

On the other side live the "Grundys" (Archer's reference). They have what we affectionately call their "philosophy club". This is when they sit down and gently debate the issues of the day (for which read run around the house slamming and stomping yelling the f word at each other). We laugh and laugh at the things they get wound up about and the way the parents say things like "You ain't never going on no fing motorbike, do ya hear me? No son of mine is ever going on no fing motorbike? Well you can only go on it on this road.... When's he come round? Make sure he let's me have a go on it too."

we lived in 1900 terrace, I loved it (asthetically), so much character but walls were like paper. used to hear the next door neighbour and his screamer girlfriend having sex, yuck.

We live in semi detached - 1930s surburbia now. NOt as pleasing to the eye but much quieter.

Live in 1900 terrace and on one side can hear everything like they are in the room with us whilst the other side is quite muffled even when I know they are laughing and making noise. No idea why there is a difference.

I live in a 2 year old 'boxy house' on a new development, and I rarely hear my neighbours. They have 2 little boys and only hear them if they are crying or screaming. (They are 3 and 15m)

Have double glazing so dont really hear the traffic, despite living off a busy main road.

I live in an end terrace.

We live in a terrace and the walls are pretty sturdy (with next door - internal walls are crap). House is a 1930s build though, so not very new!

1900 terrace no probs!

This one's great, but it's been here since 17 something so it would be sdecent. Now, the 10 year old one we had house but last.... could hear EVERYTHING! The neighbours even banged on the walls and the door when we were watching Amelie on subtitles in bed. I mean????? !

Should have done the same for their once a month session.

The old Victorian we last lived in was fine too.

Depends on build - older ones better

Mine is 1950s and I can hear the retired neighbours shagging on a saturday night

it's quite distressing

mixed bag here then, but I think most of you have noise issues whether new or old houses.

How do you find out what the neighbours are like before you buy?

I live in a 1940's end of terrace house.

You can hear quite a lot through our walls but our neighbours are ignorant as hell and couldnt care less about us hearing their steaming rows, their two sons thumping bass-y music or doing diy at all times of day including 11pm at night. And during said diy the radio is switched to a level where he can hear it above his power tools.

Yes, ha ha, how amusing that you think you must be hard of hearing because you come from a family of 8. Not.

I guess the playing the radio v loudly in their garden all through summer doesnt count on this thread does it.......?

Im so glad we only have walls on one side. Unfortunately i wish we shared a wall with the little old lady on the other side of us.

to find out about the neighbours i would imagine you just have to do a stakeout

asking the seller is a waste of time

we live in a 1940's mid-terrace.

single lady on one side, occasionaly hear her tv in the kitchen.

other side however are two lunatics ( both in their early-mid 60's )with dogs that look like rats barking all day. can very clearly hear them, especially in their bedroom. Xmas eve could hear the woman singing 'Last Christmas" at the top of her voice at about 1 am, ( woke me and dp up)

then last night I heard him (who looks remarkably like Gollum) tell her that she was "looking tasty" .
i willed myself to sleep not wanting to hear two OAP's having sex.

1900 mid terrace - rarely hear the neighbours other than, bizarrely, one lightswitch which I can always hear being turned on and off. They assure us that they can only hear dd crying if it's really quiet and the wind is in the right direction. Maybe they're being polite though!

victorian turn of (last) century. Never hear anything.

1930's terrace and yes we hear loads but one set are very deaf so even the thickest walls wouldn't mask the sound of their t.v

The other side has their bathroom next to our bedroom and i swaer they must go to the bathroom at least 10 times a night!!

Yes. Live in an Edwardian terrace and don't hear my neighbours really. Do hear next-door's dogs barking, but that's quite a loud noise. Next-door on the other side has complained about our dogs, but very very oddly we have a fireplace in the hall (just inside front door - strange place to make a fire, I'd have thought) which shares a chimney with her house, so there's really nothing to stop noise from the hall passing through. But don't hear a thing through the walls.

I live in the end of three terraced houses. The adjoining walls are solid and we never hear our neighbours.

The partitioning walls in the house are a different story though. You can hear the tv better in the upstairs bedroom than if you are sitting in front of it downstairs!

old house 1930's semi. hardly ever ehard anything from old gent, but then a group of 20 soemthings moved in and could hear them laughing, shrieking, music, singing etc.

now in end terraced from about 1900 and when in bed I can sometimes hear them cough and sneeze, can also hear there tv quite clearly. they must be thrilled by ds and his 'difficult phase'....

You really can't generalise about terraced houses, can you...ours is c 1890, in a row of 10 which were built in stages - 2, then 2 more, then ours, then the other 5. We have been blessed with almost silent neighbours on both sides (previous chap used to do the gentlest DIY you ever heard!) but then we probably have double-width walls because of the building schedule; some of the neighbours hear everything through their walls though.

The internal walls are something else though - the gentlest tap on one side is amplified so much it sounds like a hammer bashing the other side!