noisey neighbours.

[misdee]

i am wit ends. my neighbours moved in about 6 weeks ago, and we have had nothing but problems with them. they have people coming and going at all hours, slamming the front doors and communal doors, let their parties spill into the communal areas, openly smoke puff and leave rizla packets in the communal areas, they keep waking my kids up. i have had to put my eldest daughter into my room (smallest room) and now share the large bedroom with the baby, just so she doesnt get woken up, as the smaller room is further away from the noise. i have asked them time and again to not let the doors slam as they echo through out the whole block of flats. i feel like i'm turning into a moany old woman, but each time the doors slam it grates on my nerves. everyone in the block has young kids, and we all seem to quieten down by around 7pm, but these people (who also have a baby) seem to start getting noisey around this time. my friend lives in the flat above them, and her son also gets woken up almost every night by the noise. we're all feeling the stress, and altho the housing association has spoken to the tenants already, and have also sent numerous letters to them, the noise is getting worse. i am having to keep a noise diary to send the housing association for 6 weeks, and i'm dreading it in case it goes to court. i know several of the other tenants are also keeping diaries, so it wont just be me verus them, but i dont know how i'm gonna cope with this noise. why cant some people have some consideration to others who share the communal areas with them.
has anyone else had this kinda problem?

dee

Hi there, my DP deals with these sorts of cases all the time and he says that you are doing all the right things. Just keep the pressure up on the Housing Association and write to your councillor.(Not the council).

You have my greatest sympathy. Our neighbours from hell have just moved out and I feel that I can live again. We had an issue with them which started when they started to drill into the adjoining wall at 10pm at night. They didn't like our kids making noise. We were early risers, they liked a lie in. They liked loud music, we didn't. He howled at his dog and did odd things to it in his bathroom(?!) and when they were out the dog barked constantly.

Things got so bad last summer that I couldn't eat or sleep and lost a lot of weight. I actually made myself quite ill over the situation.

We haven't met our new neighbours yet but they are apparently just using this house as a base when they are working in this area, so the house should be empty for quite a lot of the time. We're just hoping that they are ok when they are here - the paper thin walls between their house and the kids' bedrooms make life difficult if they are night creatures.

We have the beverly hillbillies living next to us, about 5 kids at my last count, don't speak to each other they SHOUT ALL THE TIME and - apologies in advance to any Oldhamers - have THE most worst accent in t'world, reet. Dowah (door) noorr (no) etc etc.

We have only been in the house since October and don't fancy moving again so soon, but sometimes its v annoying.

Misdee - hope things get better soon, housing associations are usually pretty strict on these things, fingers crossed

We've had problems too. When we first moved in, I was more-or-less giving birth! They knew we had a newborn, yet thought it was fine to play very loud music all day long, her son would do his decks upstairs (next to our bedroom) and she would have her music on downstairs so I could hear it in the lounge and kitchen. You know what it's like with a newborn, when they sleep, you do. So when I asked them one day to turn the music down, it was 2pm and she had a go at me for daring to ask such a thing during the day!

Since then we've had problems with their cigarette smoke penetrating our floorboards in the bedroom, and downstairs in the dining room. Every sunny weekend they play loud music in the garden from 11am to 10pm, with no let-up at all. They are foul-mouthed and you can hear every word they say to each other as our walls are so thin. They shout and scream at their little girl. She is also a nuisance, knocking on our door asking to come in, hassling us when we're in the garden, etc. The other weekend we wanted a BBQ in the garden and asked them to turn the music down. They wouldn't and we ended up having a very ugly scene with them. In front of their little girl, they shouted, screamed and swore at me and dh, telling us to F**k off and move, etc, etc.

We have now decided to move as we can't stand it any longer. They never go on holiday, and they have said that they will not move house until the little girl has left school (she's 10). I am expecting baby no.2 and can really do without the hassle. We put a lot of work into this house, it was our first home together and we had plans about it being a happy home for us and dd. It's in a lovely area, very close to the park, etc. But now it has all been ruined by one family. It has made me miserable and has caused arguments between dh and I. So enough is enough, we plan to have moved by this time next year.

P.S. Oliveoil - I am an Oldhamer by birth, and I know exactly what you mean! Why on earth did you move to Oldham?????

Misdee I totally sympathise. It sounds awful but at least your housing association is taking it seriously and you look to me as if you will have relief eventually.
Our noisy neighbours live two doors down and are mad, alcoholic couple (she's under psychiatric care) and they scream at each other day and night, one of them is always locking the other out and the other bangs on the door screaming obscenities in the small hours. It's awful, Our poor neighbour has spend a fortune soundproofing her house but it's not very effective. They own their house so can't think how we'd get them out. They'll never change and I've called the police so many times I don't think we'll ever be able to move. Our only hope (and hope it is) is that one day one will knife the other to death and that will solve all our problems. That or a bottled of doctored vodka on the doorstep....

Rhubarb - it was a choice between moving to our original nice area expensive and would have to pay nursery and work f/t OR move to Oldham, crap cheap, near MIL and can work p/t.

We are in a niceish area to be honest but everyday I have to remind myself why we live here....(sigh)

My neighbours are OK but where I used to live there was a club called the Punjabi Social Club which was hired every weekend for weddings and birthdays - these could be an all day or an all weekend affair not just evenings and also The Plessey Social Club which had grab a granny discos on Sunday nights. On hot days both would leave the fire exit doors open and the music would be blarring till midnight and all mixing together so it was a din. No amount of complaining to anyone stopped the noise.

It's not my neighbour it's one door down. They continually park their cars on the grass verge outside their house. They are the only people that do it and it just irritates the life out of me. About 4 people have come up to me since moving in last Nov and said don't have anything to do with them! Yesterday someone kicked a ball over onto our road and one of the people that live in the house one door down saw it and took it. When the kid whose ball came round looking for it we told him this man had taken it into his house so the boy knocked but they wouldn't give him his ball back! How rude! I think I might complain about their car being there. Some of the houses on the road are owned and some are councul, there's in council owned so perhaps I could complain to the council??? They also smashed a car into the bench & lampost right outside my house when one of them was drunk! horrid selfish people.

Sorry to hear you're getting so much stress missdee, your situation sounds awful nad I'm just being a moaner!

Thomcat, it's illegal to keep someone's ball - even if it's kicked into your garden, so the lad could actually call the police!

Is it really! Honest I'd love to do something but just don't want to start a war with my neighbours until I have to, especially when it's a football belonging to people I've never seen before! They just make me so angry, i hate selfish people like that. I'm having a party in 2 weeks and my friend said to invite the people who'll be disturbed by the noise but there's no way I'd have those pikeys in my house! He hee, sorry but they are horrid rough as you like pikeys! God it feels god to say that - thanks for giving me the opportunity to do that with this thread MissDee.

well last night was more of the same. neighbour upstairs had just got her wee boy off to bed, he was fast asleep, and the people opposite me put their music on full wack, the nouse was vibrating thro the floor of the girl upstiars flat and it woke her wee lad up. i thought my daughter had turned the volume up on her tv and went to have a go at her, when it suddenly went off. my neighbour banged on the noisey girls door, she didnt answer but did turn the music down. too late really, as she had already woken up the lad. i have been doing the diary sheet since thursday last week, and have already filled up the 1st page with the problems they are causing.
oh to have a night with no disturbances.

dee

Oh Dee, poor you that's awful.

Oh I understand where you are coming from. We moved out of a housing associaton house in May to private rental. It has doubled our rent and we are in overdraft terrritory every month, all because of the selfish and ignorant people that lived on my old estate. Our next door neighbours were lovely but it was the car racing, skateboarding, shouting, banging on the house walls, stones, glass, hoovers and lawn mowers being thrown into our garden which made life unbearable. To the point last summer i was drinking 3 litres of gin a week, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The estate did not go quiet until 1am, (under 10's still being out at midnight over the summer hols). I never knew that keeping a football was illegal, mind you when they used to be hitting my daughters bedroom window until gone midnight most nights, I don't think keeping them would seem excessive behaviour!! Our housing associaton didn't want to know, neither did the local police. In the end I decided to stop ruining my liver and get on with life, started trying for another baby (am due on the 9th August) and get the hell out!! Hopefully your HA respect you and the other tenants needs, and will do something positive.

We've just done our research and because we are tied into our mortgage for another 2 years, it could cost around 5 grand to get us out of it. We could take it with us, but we can't afford anywhere else in this area, plus as the house prices around us are still rising, we have been advised to sit tight or risk losing money.
Don't know what to do now!

we used to have neighbours similar to yours Rhubarb and after 'alot' of trouble they did evetually move out! yippee!!!They were total scrubbers, the family from hell. The last straw was one evening when their music had been on full blast late at night and they kept banging on the walls, I went round to ask him to turn in down and got a mouth full of abuse. He slammed the door in my face and as I walking back to my house he ran after me and grabbed me from behind. I managed to get him off me (well he only had 1 arm!) and his wife and 2 sons came out and his bull terrier to have a massive slanging match with me in the street. They were calling my dd 'backwards' (she has development probs) and I started crying (must have been the hormones I had only just had ds) Dh must have got wind of this and came out and they are pooed their pants, the bloke hid behind his wife and the wife started hitting my dh. We then phoned the police and they sent 2 panda cars and about 5 police officers (seemed a bit excessive!). Well god knows what the police said to them (but there was alot of shouting going on) but there house went up for sale about a week later and now theyre gone.

I havent really got much advice, we didnt seem to get anywhere with the police, council, solicitors, environmental health and when you have someone who is so uncivilised they dont realise what they are doing is wrong it just makes your life a misery. The only thing is if you try to deal with it yourself it can just make matters alot more strained.

fio2 - hormones or not, thats horrid , what a load of t**ts, make my lot look nice in comparison!

Would love to have been a fly on the wall - a one armed maniac, scrubber wife, devil dog and inbred kids....beats Eastenders.

Well rid, lets hope we all get lucky.

Oliveoil - every time I see your name come up on a post I have oodles of sympathy wash over me as I think back to my days of being an Oldhamer! Hope you don't mind!

Fio2, that sounds pretty damn awful! I detest people who can only talk in raised voices and every other word has to be a swear word, that's what our neighbours are like. And you are dead right, if you try to sort it out yourself, you get more trouble than you asked for. What I hate now is the awkwardness I have to live with. They flash me dirty looks in the street, and if I go into the back garden they stop talking until I go back into the house. I should be happy that at least I don't have to listen to them - but it's made me feel uncomfortable. If I met them anywhere else, I really wouldn't have anything to do with them, in fact I would probably avoid them at all costs, but you can't do much when you live next door to them can you?

Have you met my friend Custardo yet? She recently moved from a council house estate in Oldham to Hove in Sussex. We grew up together in that pretty, peaceful little town called Oldham!

Rhubarb thats exactly what ours used to do, they even used to watch me hanging the washing out-Im sure they thought I couldnt see them! It gets to the point though that you dont want the kids playing out because you think they are being watched too and I just didnt trust them.

OMG Fio2, that's awful. I'm openmouthed at your story. They've moved now thought yeah. Jesus, what an awful thing to go through. That's why I don't want to say anything to the pikey tramps that live one door down. I'd hate a full on feud. I don't have to go through half on what you girls have had to . are having to but the smallest things they do wind me up, I hate selfish tramps likethem! Sorry can't disguise my contempt for them!

Misdee, have you heard from yourHousing Association yet?

have heard nothing. today we (me, and two gor;s in the flats above) foned the police, enviromental health and the housing assication and got nowhere.they had their music blaring, waking up the 2 kiddies in the flats above who were having afternoon naps (one is 6months one is 16months. i'm the only one with a home line atm so they were using my fone, but everyone kept saying it was someone elses dept to deal with it. one of the girls took refuge in my flat as the bass from their music was vibrating thro the floor again. i dont hear much of the music in my living room as its the furtherest from their flat, but i cant put my little one down for a nap during the day because of the noise that comes thro the bedroom wall. i wish i could just shut them up somehow, my blood was boiling over today, i really found it hard not to go round and punch someone. but i know that wont achieve anything. i have requesting more log sheets, as the ones they sent me last week are almost full, my housing officer was meant to call me back today but didnt, seems like its a losing battle. none of us wants to confront the problem neighbours, mainly cos there is always about 10blokes in there at one time. feel like hitting my head against a wall (maybe their wall)!!!!

You say that there are usually about 10 blokes there at any one time. DP has suggested that there isd possibly drug dealing going on. If so the polce ould be in there like a shot.