Soundproofing party walls in a semi - anyone done it?

[Gemima14]

We live in a lovely semi detached house in a great village but our neighbours 3 boys under 5 are causing stress and angst in this house. Don't get me wrong they are a nice family etc. But the noise volume from these boys is horrendous. We are unable to sit quietly in our living room at the weekend because of screaming, shouting or tantrums.

We have a 9 year old boy and an 11 year old girl and our neighbours say they never hear us!

The other problem is that my sons bedroom is next door to their 2 older boys bedroom who share and he is frequently woken up early in the morning by them. We have our sitting rooms back to back, dining rooms back to back and 2 bedrooms back to back.

My question is has anyone got experience of soundproofing party walls? We have chimney breasts in all rooms albeit my sons room isn't exposed. If you have done soundproofing did it work and reduce the noise? We are getting fed up with it but love our house and village so don't really want to move. Plus there are a distinct lack of affordable detached houses in our area!

Thanks in advance!

Ps they are aware the boys are noisy and are conscious of it but boys are boys ......... We get on well but I feel sooner or later our issue of dealing with it will make us more and more intolerant! Don't want to fall out with them either!

Cousins of mine made a feature of their living room party wall by cladding with tongue and groove pine; (this was in the seventies when it was the fashion to clad everything with pine).
When they finally removed it they couldn't believe how noisy the neighbour was. They'd not heard a thing from next door all the years the cladding was in place.
Pine cladding is not my cup of tea, but it was basically adding a false wall with a space between it and the existing wall, so there must be alternatives which would do the job.

Friends did it, effectively they had a stud wall built against every adjoining wall using special sound minimising MDF (I think) with insulation between old wall and new stud wall. Think it was about £6k but they said it was well worth it.

I have also read that books are brilliant for muffling noise - could you install book shelves and line with books (particularly in bedroom) and move your son's bed to the point furthest away from the adjoining wall?