Thin Party Wall

[Long2016]

I’m after some advice / thoughts as I am a bit confused about my feelings on this.

We moved house 12 months ago to a 1930s semi in a good area of town. It has become apparent quite quickly that the party wall is quite thin and the other family is quite noisy in terms of banging doors, walking on wooden floor boards and loud music. It is possible to hear sneezing, raised voices and TV noise through the wall too. This has bothered me quite a bit as thought we were moving to our forever home.

Over the last few months as the noise from the other side is very clear I have started becoming quite worried about how much noise we make; we have a two year old who talks very loudly and obviously gets excited at times. I am worried about how much they can hear from us (probably quite a bit) and it is really bothering me. It makes me feel like I need to encourage toddler to be quieter and get worried about having friend/family gatherings at ours. I think I am basically worried that if we ask them to turn their music down if we are noisy at times then they will be less inclined to do so. I also don’t like the thought of people hearing us and worrying about it.

So really wondering what people think. Am I being completely oversensitive and over thinking everything? It’s really affecting me at the minute and need to think of a way forward.

I felt this way when we moved to our last house! I know how you feel. Plus point to the neighbours being noisy is that I wouldn’t feel to self conscious about making too much noise (so long as it’s reasonable)

You could look into sound proofing but it is expensive and not always effective or you could look at putting wardrobes and bookcases against the party wall, built in ones would be best.

Honestly though after a year or so you’ll suddenly realise you don’t hear them so much as you will likely get used to it and tune it out. That’s what happened for us anyhow so please try not to feel to upset