Semi owners, do you have a problem with noise?

[Renovirgin2018]

Morning All. We have recently moved in to a 1930s semi and are having a problem with noise from the neighbour. He works late and so his evening starts just as we are going to bed -10ish. Mostly it's not anti-social noise but a loud tv and laughing (I know, it seems awful to complain about someone enjoying themselves.) However, on 3 occasions (we have only been in 1 month) we have been woken by loud music. Again not anti-social level but loud enough to wake us up at 4am!

So my question is this, do others have similar problems and is there anything we can do in regards to soundproofing? Upstairs we currently have floorboards and I'm guessing carpet will help and we all ready have our wardrobes against the adjoining wall. Any tips anyone?

Yes, and it's one of the reasons I sold up in the end (sorry, not what you wanted to hear!). I could hear conversations, TV, music, and it drove me mad. Their noise even travelled through the cavity walls so I could hear it in the rooms on the other side of the house.

I looked into soundproofing but it needs to be on the side the noise is coming from to be most effective. It also depends on the type of noise - mine was both impact (eg footsteps on stairs) as well as airborne (conversation). Airborne is easier to deal with, whereas impact noise travels through the walls/floors.

If you have a chimney on a shared wall, make sure this is properly pointed/rendered inside as any missing mortar will allow noise through. I think my walls were only one brick thick, so it barely stopped the noise.

It has made me very wary about my next purchase. My neighbours were particularly loud, but it made my life a misery. I got fed up of asking them to turn their music down.

Also: music at 4am is utterly unreasonable and you are well within your rights to ask him not to play music after 11pm.

No, but we live in an old stone-built cottage with two-feet thick walls and hear nothing from the other side.

Yes, modern (20 years) semi. Have just moved after 13 years in it to a detached and the nicest thing is no neighbour noise!
Had some hellish neighbours at one stage, but even when normal ones moved in, constant noise from doors, dog, laughter, cheers when footie was being watched.....
I feel your pain, it can be very, very, annoying.

Music at 4 am is unacceptable however, so you should mention being woken up by it.

No, not in our current home - but it is side on attached to next door so only adjoined by part of one wall, our bedrooms don't touch theirs and the front doors are a long way apart from each other. Equally downstairs, their kitchen touches our sitting room by a few metres only.
It was the reason we decided to have it as it is only just attached to next door.

I lived in a traditional semi before that and the noise was irritating although not antisocial. You can certainly do a lot with soundproofing but it isn't cheap. It is why we moved!

Grew up in one. Next door had 5 kids. The noise was unbearable. I moved out as soon as I was old enough as I hated all the noise, the kids would play football outside every day for hours the thump thump thump of the ball was awful. And they played loud music frequently, practiced instruments etc. My mother never complained as their father was (is) a very well respected doctor and she didn't want to 'cause a fuss'.

There's not much you can do. I don't think complaining to the neighbours will end well.

Yep.
First semi we could watch our tv with the sound off they were so deaf but at least went to bed early. We couldn’t wait to move. The next semi we bought we specifically asked if they could hear their neighbours & they said not. To be fair we couldn’t either they were so quiet but then they moved and the next people were so LOUD. I couldn’t go to bed until they turned their TV off and went to bed at 11-11:30pm (even with earplugs)and I wanted to go to sleep at 10.

I also heard their alarm at 5am (no idea how they functioned on so little sleep)

It made me ill. I was constantly stressed/depressed/exhausted. We finally moved to a detached house, stretched to the max financially and can’t afford to fix the things that need fixing but it is bliss. It took months for me to relax and not be on edge waiting for their noise to start.

We looked into soundproofing in the first house and paid a fortune for extra thick insulated plasterboard and replastered the whole downstairs but it didn’t help at all. Something to do with the joists running across both houses, tried extra thick underlay and carpet in both houses but that didn’t help. The second house the neighbours had laminate throughout so it amplified their noise.

Maybe the first thing to do would be to have a polite word or wear earplugs?

Our semi is 20 years old and we get no noise, lived here from new with two different sets of neighbours.

60s semi.
The only noise we hear is the elderly ladies tv, which she has on super loud but even then it’s not so loud that we hear it all the time.

30s semi here. Yes, we do if they've got their TV or music on particularly loud. But it's usually only on a Saturday and rarely goes on beyond 10pm so we accept it as it's the only niggle we have about living in our lovely house.

My last house was a 250 year old stone terrace with 3 foot thick walls. Never heard a thing.
Current house is a 1975 built semi with staircases adjoining and no bedrooms on the party wall and can't really hear anything (except when they had a shelving collapse, that was a thump.) Perhaps we have just been lucky. We've never had neighbours with young children, loud music tendencies or barky dogs though.

Our stairwell, bathroom, utility room and downstairs loo join on to our next door neighbour. Their living room, dining room, bedroom and bathroom meet our house. We hear nothing, even though we know they're really noisy (when we're outside we can hear them). Our house is about 15 years old.

Yes - next door bellow at each other and we can hear every word.

Get as old a house as you can, as it's worse with newer builds (ours is mid-1950s) and where possible join on to next door with the doors / stairs next to each other, not with rooms joining onto next door. That's where we get our noise from. And then the neighbours mount their bloody TVs on the party wall to add to the fun.

We live in an 1890s house so thick walls but can still hear the neighbours, can't wait to move. Our bed is against the wall attached and child's bed is against their side - I hear it all. Can't move our bed as fireplace and 3 windows and radiator on other walls.

Yep we can! But we get on with our neighbours and both us and them are happy to tell each other we are being too loud. It's just to be expected!

My walls are 18inch thick and I can hear my neighbours. The thickness of the wall doesn’t mean soundproof by any means.

Wall mounted TV’s on party walls should be banned. I don’t think people who do this know how loud they’re and they transfer sound so much further than equally loud tv not on the wall. It also makes the tv quieter for the viewer so makes them turn it up more ugh!

We can hear tv, the noise of talking but couldn’t make out the conversation, laughing, coughing etc.

I know we must be 10000000% times worse as we have kids (neighbours are an elderly couple) who have no concept of walking quietly no matter how much I fell them, plus doors closing carelessly etc. It drives me mad. My kids making noise the neighbours could hear upsets me much more than hearing next door. We have no underlay under carpets so I imagine that doesn’t help a bit! Looking forward to extending so the mainsleeping parts of the house will be on the opposite side now.

We are end terrace. Don’t know if I fancy an extra £500 per month mortgage and £250 council tax for an upgrade to a detached

100% they must hear me on the loo especially because they changed the layout so my bathroom will be in line with their living room

1990s semi here and yeah we can hear our neighbours. For us it's usually not an issue. Personally I like hearing them go about their day to day tasks but obviously this doesn't affect our sleep as our lives are thankfully on a similar pattern.

On occasion there is DIY or rather loud movie watching going on late at night.

Tbh I am more worried about how they will handle our newborn's arrival! Worried we will disturb them as we really can hear what's going on in each others bedrooms

Be aware that you can report someone for causing a noise nuisance at anytime of day. There is no rules about volume levels and times etc etc.

Music at 4am is ridiculous though. They may not be aware of their volum levels.

1980s mid terrace - and we hear nothing! I guess it's down to construction.

Yes, and I feel sorry for our neighbour as we are naturally louder being a family, we don't scream and shout but still, we can hear him so he can hear us. I'd love a detached but it's out of my price range here. At least he's not a serial shagger like our ex neighbour, 3am noisy nookie is not nice to hear!

We could hear a lot from our neighbours when we lived in a semi - we rarely watch television so our house is very quiet in the evenings; we could hear them talking but not quite enough to hear what they were saying which made it more irritating; not that we wanted to know what they were saying but it was just more irritating some how - a low level drone all the time, he had a very harsh, irritating voice and she was very shrill.

I'm lucky because our semi is one where the front doors are in the middle. So downstairs the adjoining rooms are the hall and kitchen, upstairs it's the bathroom and box room.

Very rarely hear anything. It's an early Edwardian/late Victorian house but I think the soundproofing is mainly down to the design rather than the construction.

Ours is 1950s and the walls are super thick so we never hear anything, luckily. However I do remember when we lived in a terraced 1930s house in London and the noise was absolutely awful! I used to have a friend who lived next door and we used to be able to chat to each other at bedtime through the air vents!