Neighbour complained about dryer

[alisonelli]

I have just had a text from my next door neighbour saying my tumble dryer is too loud and its "having a significant adverse impact on their quality of life".
For context, we live in detached houses, its on carpet in the utility room, I'd say there is at least 6ft gap between the houses, with cavity wall and a fence. I don't run it early in the morning or late at night. I'd say it runs between 10 and 3 if that. Its an eco one, so it does go on for about 3 hours, but uses little electricity. I have 2 kids, who play lots of sports and I have clothes I need to get dry.
What do I do?

I'd ask to knock when they next hear it so you can go round and listen. It's probably something else. My neighbour complained about TV noise until one day he was on my doorstep banging when I got home from work and was gobsmacked when I let him in and he saw there was nothing on. Turned out it was the guy upstairs. Noise is deceptive, you can't always tell where its coming from.

Our neighbours dryer really irritated me. It hummed and drove me crazy. It was at night though. But an intermittent hum can be awful.

Besides would someone who can't even cope with the noise of a dryer in another building be the first person you'd ask for help from?

Op ask him to record the noise. In a detached I think it's nonsense. I'm in a semi and my neighbour had his upstairs for a while on the joining wall and you could hear the rumble but only if you listened carefully it didn't impact us really could be annoying at times butwasnt a massive issue. We have put ours upstairs temporarily away from joining wall and my neighbour hasn't said anything so the fact he can have yours so loudly suggests a fib to me or he's actually listening for the noise to make a problem. Do nothing op. You don't run it early so what's his problem. He can't do anything about it.

If I were in your shoes, DH would go round when the dryer was on and ask to listen. As, if it was terribly noisy, we’d want to fix it. However, from what you’ve said, it seems highly unlikely it is.

Your neighbour sounds like a bit of an idiot.

Has he recently retired? Sounds like he’s looking for things to do/complain about.

Surely you go round, while your dryer is running, to see what noise they are hearing. Or ask them to let you know the next time the noise is bothering them and go round then. Their initial message has been rather unfriendly but noise nuisance is really aggravating and maybe frustration has been building for some time. Of course you can continue to use your dryer reasonably, if they are just being pernickety, but I like to stay on good terms with neighbours if possible.

I would worry about this as I wouldnt want to be responsible for an adverse effect on anyone's life. It is amazing how many people are telling you to 'just ignore it'. The kindest situation to do would be to go over when it is on and listen for yourself then go from there.

You can see from this thread why some peoples lives are full of drama, aggression, angst and neighbour disputes, all this ridiculousness of getting the council involved, phoning the police and reporting the neighbour for harassment, playing mind games of going round when the tumble dryer is off and pretending it’s on, blocking their number, do people really go about their lives like this when an “Ok Derek, I will pop round and have a listen” would sort it out one way or another.

I’d tell him that if it upsetting him that much he can report it to the council and they can do volume tests, but you’ll continue with normal daily living until and unless they advise you otherwise.

It sounds as though he has MH issues, so I’d possibly explore taking your fence to the highest height allowed and just ignore him. And his underwear.

I'm.on Team Ask to listen to the noise.

I thought our neighbour's washing machine was audible when I was in our house. She does a load at night to hang out in the morning.

After weeks I realised it was our Sky box making peculiar noises.

She's already been nice about using her garden to clean solar panels. Neighbour has decided this niceness is weakness and the tumble dryer thing is an escalation. She's lived there 2yrs, funny how it's only now he's complaining! He's decided since he pushed on one thing and got his own way (because she genuinely didn't mind) that he can push on other things and rule her life now. Nipping that attitude in the bud is exactly the right thing to do.

I agree 100% with this. some of these people will take a mile if you give them an inch. This - weve lived here since the dinosaurs - cuts no ice with me. They have no more rights than someone who just moved in. I would never give a NDN a phone number and have refused outright when asked. "My phone number is for close friends and family and not just for randoms" "But Im your neighbour" "Your a random who just happens to live next door. You are no one and nothing to me and if you died tomorrow I wouldnt cross the road to spit upon your coffin."

It’s fine to hang underwear on the washing line.

I hate when men treat women as the easy target for taking out their issues though. I’d be telling him to send all correspondence through your husband and deal exclusively with him and see him adjust his level of bolshiness!

A tumble dryer in a completely detached house that is at least (judging by the photo) 10 feet away from OP's external brick wall is not having an "adverse effect" on anyone's life.

I mean,that passageway is more than twice as wide as the width of a standard door, which one can plainly see in the photo. Plus it's obvious from the size of the wheelie bins relative to the space that the passage has to be six feet. Add another few feet between the fence and the neighbour's brick dwelling.

I doubt the houses and passages are all on a single unified slab, which might possibly in some farfetched scenario transmit vibrations. Though I doubt it. We've just last week had tradesmen run a vibrating, noisy generator on our driveway and I couldn't feel any vibration despite standing a few feet away on the same slab. It's difficult to see how a standard tumble dryer could be worse than a generator running a concrete saw.

The neighbour is looking for something to make an issue of.

Before doing the rubber feet ask him to let you know when he hears the noise next so you or DH can go around and listen.

If they didn’t complain last year and nothing has changed in your house it’s likely that it’s another noise entirely.

You might not even have to go round if he texts you that he’s hearing the noise when you don’t even have the drier on.

He sounds creepy with the other comments about seeing you working. I would refer him to your H.
Can he see the steam coming out of the vent so he knows when the dryer is on? Dryers aren't very noisy at all, usually. It would be odd to hear it inside another separate house. It wouldn't be on for hours on end anyway would it?

Its a condenser one, so nothing is venting outside.

I’d reply and say you don’t have one so don’t know what he’s talking about 👀 seems like he has a malicious motive if he’s watching you and not bothering your husband.

Could one of the parts be broken or worn out and causing some weird vibration through the slabs? No idea how acoustics work, but sound can travel in very odd ways.

Exactly

People who work nights can't expect the diurnal world to accommodate them.

Surely a hard floor would be easier to keep clean than a carpet? All sorts gets trodden into a carpet which hoovering alone doesn't remove. Mopping a hard floor is much more effective!

In response to the actual issue, you do nothing, you have to dry your clothes!

Fucking hell. You could probably hear our washing machine on a spin cycle from outer space, and we are semi detached and the utlity room backs onto the neighbours, yet we've had no neighbour complaints.

well said. The voice of reason

Aren’t you kind