Long garden - too many neighbours?

[OUB1974]

Just wondering what everyone's thinks about this? We're moving due to noisy neighbours and I'm incredibly anxious about ending up in the same position.

There's a house we really like the look of. It has a long (35m) garden, which is really our dream in terms of finding a property. It has a neighbour to one side and one to the end. However as it is the first house on the road it's perpendicular to the main road and there are 4 houses whose gardens border width ways onto the garden.

This seems a lot of potential for disruption and neighbour issues. But I'm not sure if I'm over sensitive about it due to our current situation. We staked out another house yesterday and it was constant dog barking (which is what we're trying to escape from) and so ruled it out. I'm worried we set our bar too high though as we're so sensitive to noise now due to our current neighbours and we need to get used to normal neighbourhood noise again. Is this too many neighbours?

Houses? I mean cars!

You can always plan to plan heavy shrubbery/trees along the neighbours side to lower the noise coming through. I think noise is relative. I moved from a detached to semi and was worried sick about neighbour noise. Couldn't figure out the noise level when buying as the attached house was unoccupied at the time. When people moved in a year later, I was super stressed. However there is barely any noise at all (3 teens!) and quite muffled when there is some. I need not have worried.
Barking dogs on the other hand are an utter nightmare. I think you'll be ok.

Unfortunately any time you move you can start out with quiet neighbours and end up with dreadful ones. I had a really noisy one for 5 years but he wasn’t there when I moved in. Fortunately he’s gone now but the quiet neighbours are moving out so god knows what I’ll end up with next.

frankly, screaming kids are up there with barking dogs for me, and dreadful music. If an Ed sheeran lover moved in next door I’d have to sell up.

I have this almost exact set up; and have never been bothered by noise from the neighbors.

I sympathise OP as I was in the same position. Unfortunately we've ended up with another noisy neighbour despite trying to check out all the neighbours before buying.

Our issue with our nasty, vindictive neighbour was mainly the pounding dance music until 4am and the threat of property damage. The current neighbour although not as awful as the previous one, is much more consistent with the noise and therefore it drives me even more mad than before we moved.

You only need one neighbour to be a pain in the arse and it can permanently ruin your enjoyment of your home. It really does make you extra sensitive to noise and even now I still panic when I hear certain sounds even though we moved away from the source.

We bought in an area where there are only 5 houses yet we have the arsehole neighbour attached who makes our life a misery, a neighbour who has noisy dogs and likes playing loud music and a neighbour who regularly uses a digger for 12hrs a day and let their kids fuck about on quad bikes 😑.

I don't think I could buy a house with that many neighbours, OP. But it all depends on what the neighbours are REALLY like and you won't know that until you've sunk all your money in unfortunately.

It so depends on the actual neighbours. Our garden is long (approaching 100m) and is bordered by a hotel with courtyard, a church, a pre school, 2 'normal' gardens, a large car park and a market square with a covered market that regularly hosts events, incl bands and choirs. Yet it's so peacefully quiet all the time. The only offender is our own dog who likes to bark at the cats (or ducks) that wander into the garden. It has high walls, though, which seem pretty sound proof.

It would be a no for me; just too many close neighbours with bordering gardens.
If you can find somewhere that at least has one part of the property boundary that isn't adjoined then you know you'll have somewhere to relax outside without being overlooked or having someone just the other side of the fence being an arsehole

It looks fine to me for an urban/suburban garden, which usually feel more like ‘public ‘ spaces as it’s hard to block line of sight from all neighbouring windows.

The neighbouring gardens are 10m long and will probably have a shed or plants at the bottom of their garden blocking some of the noise. I never hear anything from my ‘end’ neighbours who are about the same distance away; I know one has a dog but not sure I’ve ever heard it. Usually people have their patios next to the house and rarely go to the end of their garden.

And you have a wide garden so enough room to plant an hedge along the right fence. Plus they are lower down which would help with noise and not being overlooked.

In terms of noise, surely you'll be no worse off than someone living in one of the houses nearby. If you're near your house, noise from the garden backing on to the far end of your garden will not be louder because it adjoins your property; it will still be coming from 30+ metres away and over several fences.

At least you know there'll be no noise coming from that massive 35 metre area behind your house, and if one part of the garden is a bit noisy you have the option to move to another part.

I agree it should be a no.

I lived in a simile set up - when I first moved in three houses were owned by elderly people - they were sold and new folk moved I . There were six houses in total that sided on to my back and front garden.

i decided to mii on be one day when my back garden felt like an episode of Benidorm! It was a beautiful sunny day - one set of neighbours had a karaoke machine going - another had a radio blaring - another had kids screaming. On a trampoline that was tight against my fence! They all got on and would shout over the fences to each other! There was ofcourse a barking toot dog in there somewhere.

and at night the wood bribing drives came out!

a deck was also built right to my fence. It was very high and the neighbours were staring directly into my garden.

so many people, so close. I was so received to get away.

We had a very similar setup at our last house (also on a hill), although ours was a very wide garden (100') but not so deep. We were detached with one fairly close neighbour to the right, whilst the house (actually a 60s bungalow) on the left was not visible from ours at all.

Behind our garden we had five (far newer, ours was Victorian) houses with much smaller gardens all backing onto ours. Theirs were probably around 20-30' deep and obviously fairly narrow. They were also built into the hill so that the part of their gardens closest to ours were higher than their houses.

Three of the houses had families with youngish kids, two of which had trampolines right up against our 6' fence (which we'd installed as previously there was just a wire fence along the whole rear of the garden). One family built a summerhouse adjacent to the fence and their kids would regularly jump from the roof onto the trampoline. They would also stand on the roof, peering into our garden and setting off our two dogs barking. When we attempted to install trellis to grow climbers above the fence two neighbours complained and we abandoned the plan as by then we'd decided to sell and didn't want a dispute we'd have to declare.

We sold up and moved more rurally - the old place was a village that had been encircled by new build estates- and now have just one near neighbour....

But - our one neighbour is a twat, a local 'mansion' has occasional weddings which can be noisy, it's chainsaw and quadbike heaven, plus there's a nearby dog kennels which when the wind is in the right (or wrong!) direction you can hear in our garden. Also lots of shooting wildlife on Sundays.

So, in hindsight I'd actually rather have stayed where we were!

Every situation is different though and good neighbours now doesn't necessarily mean they'll stay good forever. I do agree that the more houses/gardens that back onto 'yours', the more likelihood there is of issues going forward. Its just so hard to make the decision.

I am very noise sensitive after the nightmare of my last house. I wouldn't buy it.

However, I currently live in an apartment building with another adjacent to me and it's much quieter here than with just two neighbors.

There will be the right one out there for you soon!

I am in a very similar situation, l have lived in this house over 20 yrs, never had any problems with the four gardens that back on to mine, they tend to sit nearer their own houses, rather than down the end near mine, and mostly have sheds and greenhouses down the end backing on to mine. My garden is approx 80 ft, there's are half that. It is my immediate neighbour who is a nuisance with his bloody bar and Hot tub shoved up right against my fence and patio area. I hardly hear the other neighbours to be honest. Also l have grown some pretty climbers so l have plenty of privacy.

We live in a zone 3 street of wide 1930s houses. Behind us is a terrace of narrow tall Victorian. We have 4 houses back on to our garden. They’ve all built kitchen extensions so their yard sized gardens are now tiny compared to our 100 ft + gardens. Invariably, we have strange problems: anything we do at the back of our garden they obviously object to, anything they do in the back of our garden feels like we are sat with them. Privacy is a major issue for us ad they like looking out from their tall houses jn to our garden with flood lights etc. so not all problems are noise related. I think so many neighbours on the side is worth reassessing.

Thanks for all of the replies... we've ruled it out now. It did seem quiet but when we saw it we realised that, being on a hill, the windows of the 4 houses were eye level with the garden. It just seemed so over looked, even without the potential noise.

Such a shame though as it was a huge garden, which is my absolute dream, and they're so few and far between!

We moved from a terrace due to noisy neighbours (hot tubs, parties, kids screaming ) in a tiny back yard where it all echoed.

We are now in a not dissimilar position the house you like. It's very quiet mostly because we have retired neighbours as well as big hedges.

We've had horrific noise issues with neighbours and I wouldn't choose that house.

But I'd rather live facing a busy motorway or have trains running through my back garden than have to deal with selfish humans again. 😑