DH and I have just bought our first house - moved in just before lockdown - we absolutely love it and are slowly making our way through the decorating.
The one catch is the neighbours. They are a couple (haven't really spoken to them, apart from the occasional necessary text, due to lockdown) with two kids (one is 6 and the other around 2).
The couple (especially the husband) yell at the kids and each other A LOT. I don't mind the kids occasionally crying, and if anything, I quite like a bit of six/two-year old laughter coming through the walls. It's just the shouting.
On VE day, they'd been in the street drinking with neighbours (I'm vulnerable so stayed well away), I think that was the worst it had been so far. It was about 11pm and the older one was watching tv in her bedroom and he went into her bedroom really really yelled at her for having her tv on that late at night, it sounded like he was ripping it off the wall, and then his wife went in and shouted at him "she's six years old for fs sake!" (This is the only reason I know she's 6).
But other than that, it's constant. The kids make a bit of noise, the parents shout at them to "shut up" (regularly swear at them) and then they cry, sometimes for a fairly prolonged period of time, which then includes one of them shouting "WHY ARE YOU CRYING?!?". I generally don't like to judge other people's parenting styles but they just seem far too quick to go from 1 to 10. From what I've heard the kids being told off for in the garden where it's clearer (promise I'm not purposefully earwigging - they're just very loud!), they just seem to get shouted at for very minor misbehaviours. The kind of thing that requires a quiet "can we play a bit more nicely" rather than a "SHUT THE F UP!!!".
Last night they were really going at each other, something about texts and bills. As I write this, one of the kids is crying and the dad is shouting at her for crying.
I kind of hope that this is just due to lockdown and the stress it causes some people and when everything is back to normal, they'll relax a little bit more and stop shouting at their kids for absolutely nothing. Either that or they break up because they're clearly not happy and move out, giving us lovely quiet neighbours.
I find it a little bit irritating and would rather not be listening to it (very glad I'm not a shift worker!), but it's really getting to DH. It's partly that being made to listen to something so unpleasant is getting him down, and partly he has a table top gaming group he usually hosts once a week and he's worried about it kicking off next door when all his friends are over. It's funny, my original worry about living in a relatively new semi was his gaming group making noise at night when there's young kids next door - I didn't like the idea of being responsible for waking someone else's kids up.
So, soundproofing...
We've already got as many things on the walls as is possible, so we're thinking about getting some proper soundproofing in. If there's anyone who has had it, how much was it? If we had it, we'd get the lounge, dining room and one bedroom (the other on the adjoining wall has fitted wardrobes so we don't hear too much through that). And how well did it work?
We don't know what is going to happen to our jobs when all this is over, so I'm not a big fan of getting expensive work done - we might need our savings. But if it's not too bad and it does work, it's something to consider.