Neighbour mediation

[rrrrrreatt]

Has anyone used neighbourhood mediation? If so, how did you know the problem was bad enough to need it and did it work?

We bought our house at the beginning of this year and our neighbour has been extremely unhappy about any noise from building work, DIY, hoovering or socialising. They’ve screamed abuse at me and the builders repeatedly and send us multiple texts every week telling us we’re awful, selfish and inconsiderate. We don’t have parties or play loud music, limited the builders hours when they were here and now limit the amount of DIY we do (about 6 hours of intermittent noise over a weekend if that), and had sound insulation fitted on the party wall.

I understand any building work or DIY noise is disruptive and we’ve tried really hard to be understanding and accommodating but I’m at my wit’s end. We bought our house from an old man who had done no work, maintenance or otherwise, for 25+ years and the house was quite literally falling down (a few feet from the party wall) so it couldn’t be left untouched unfortunately.

I want to try and find a resolution as they’re clearly unhappy and so are we - would mediation be suitable for this?

Also our other neighbours have all fallen out with them over the years, mainly over parking but also the noise of children playing in a garden and not bringing their wheelie bins in promptly - does this mean I’m being too optimistic to think mediation might work?

Any advice is much appreciated - we can’t afford to move and don’t want to but it’s reaching the point where I feel anxious if we’re laughing watching TV at 10pm.

Has building work and D.I.Y been going on since the beginning of the year?

Disturbance from noise is pretty soul-destroying and gets you down - your neighbours also probably can't afford to move and they won't have any benefit from all the disruption once it's over. I'd be pretty pissed off if it had been going on for months.

But I wouldn't be abusive etc - just silently cursing you ;)

More practically - I'd be really wary of anything you would have to definitely declare when you sell on down the line.

It sounds like it's a temporary issue on the noise so I'd think about popping a note through the door outlining the schedule / awareness of any particularly noisy works dates, and the timescale for when it should all be done, then just leave well alone.

If they are complaining to other neighbours about the noise of children and other people not bringing their wheelie bins in on time, I am afraid you are saddled with people who will never be happy and probably have nothing better to do with their lives than complain.

Be courteous and move on with your own lives.

The problem with sound is that it is like water. Any cracks etc it gets through.
So if your property is poorly insulated (mine is!), sound proofing the party walls isn't enough. As the sound gets through the floorboards and then travels through the part of the wall that adjoins the cavity between the flooring. You need to basically pare back around 30-50cm of the ceiling adjoining the party wall insulate and close back up.
This is if you believe there's an issue of course!

We got the house late January and have had 5-6 months of builders (not solidly) and maybe 3 months of DIY (1-2 days a week, not normally Sundays and not always noisy). We didn’t expect it to go on this long - we had unexpected serious structural issues, despite having a structural survey, and the builder disappeared for a month leaving us with no plaster on most of the walls downstairs.

We provided a schedule of works when the builders were here, asked them to work 9-4 instead of the permitted 7.30-6 and tried to accommodate any days/weeks they said didn’t work for them.

The work now is adding trim, misting, filling blemishes and painting so the noise is my partner cutting a piece of skirting and screwing it in or me using a mouse sander on a small patch of filler. Mainly it’s painting which we do in silence (we like different podcasts so listen on headphones).

That’s really interesting @nibblessquibbles - we insulated the party wall and under the floors downstairs but didn’t do the ceilings or floors upstairs so I guess that’s how it gets in. We don’t have an issue with the noise - their dog used to bark a lot all day & night and we can sometimes hear them argue but we chalked it up as being part of living in a semi. I guess if they always do we may have to think about what else can be done.

have had 5-6 months of builders (not solidly) and maybe 3 months of DIY
9 months of disruption then, and with some of that being with no plaster on the walls it must have been hell.
sound also carries through joists so just doing party wall and floor won’t have stopped much noise.

@BrokenCheese Yup, it’s been awfully noisy at times and I wish we hadn’t had to do the work. The alternative was the house was left empty until it fell down, probably taking their house with it, as it wasn’t safe to live in - not ideal for us as we’re paying the mortgage and probably not ideal for them, although much quieter in the short term at least.

Their dog used to (what happened to it?) bark all day and night and they had the cheek to moan to you?!?

Our neighbours had an extension and loft conversion done during the pandemic when we were home all day. It was months and months of constant noise when we couldn't go out. They were very apologetic at the timing but had no choice as that's when the builders were free.

I am VERY noise sensitive and was dreading it. But it actually wasn't too bad. We did complain when the builders at one point kept starting half an hour too early so they stopped. And there was the odd day when it was super noisy. But other than that it was too bad. We moved rooms to avoid the noise for work and sleep. and I used noise cancelling headphones some days.

People do need to do work on house and it's not really fair to complain about it. Also it's about give and take. We haven't done any jobs that lasted months like this but we do sometimes have to do noisy DIY and I had a v noisy and super late birthday party recently and they were very good about that.

I do think though that if you have builders doing work in the week you should give your neighbours a complete break at the weekend.

Given your neighbours other complaints though - the bins ffs, I would be telling them where to go with that one! - and the fact they were making unreasonable noise but still yelling at you about your noise, it sounds like they are people that are inherently unreasonable and will complain about anything so you might be on a hiding to nothing with the mediation. But worth a go, why not, it's unlikely to make it any worse than it is if they are already screaming at you! TBH it sounds like it could turn into a neighbour from hell nightmare. Hopefully not.

The dog died recently @CherryMyBrandy. When we moved in and heard him barking all the time we thought maybe he was spooked by the noise of us being in the adjoining house (new voices, movement at different times, etc) but we asked another neighbour and they said he’d always barked like that. They’d tried to speak to our neighbour before and she said she couldn’t stop the dog from barking, that’s what dogs do 🤷🏼‍♀️

I completely agree about weekends. When we had builders in during the week, we had quiet weekends - they did a few Saturday mornings towards the end to make up time (after going AWOL) but otherwise Mon-Fri. I don’t know now if that was the right choice; if they’d worked the full hours in the week plus Saturday am like the council allows we’d have been done quicker at least!

I guess if I suggest mediation it puts the ball in her court at least, like you say it can’t get any worse. There’s been periods where I’ve felt anxious about leaving the house because if she saw me going to my car she’d run out to shout at me - I don’t think I can live like that indefinitely.

She sounds like a nightmare neighbour. Regardless of how annoying someone might be being you don't do that. And she also sounds as if it's one rule for her and one for everyone else. I don't hold out much hope for you in trying to reason with her. I would feel like you, worried to leave the house, which is no way to live.

To be honest, I was bothered by neighbour noise as our terraced hhouses are poorly insulated. But as it bothered me ... I insulated my side ! Rather than asking my neighbours who were creating the noise!
It does sound like you've done a fair bit of insulation, you could suggest that they look into it too.

I think the idea of mediation is you moderate your behaviour and the neighbour modifies theirs to find some common ground.

I suspect you are unlikely to stop doing your renovations, and you have pretty much done what you want to do for the past x months. So if you are called into a mediation what exactly are you going to offer the neighbour as your part of the deal ? it's not like you can take that annoyance back.

It sounds like your rennovations are now coming to completion and you want bygones to be bygones now you have got what you want. The problem with that is that the neighbours have banked x months worth of hell and are probably not wanting to just wipe the slate clean so you can be happy.

I think the best solution now would be to just be as good a neighbour as possible and as quiet as possible after the rennovations are complete and hope the whole thing dies down.

Actions have consequences. You can't expect to annoy someone for an extended period then expect them just to forget about it because it doesn't make you happy.

@GasPanic I don’t expect them to forget it at all and be our best mates, I just want the abuse to stop. You’re right we aren’t going to stop our renovations, because they’re necessary to bring the house to a liveable standard.

The compromise we could offer during the main bit of the renovation was reducing the builders working hours and putting off noise on the days or weeks they had plans which we did. If we’d done what we wanted (in line with council guidance) the builders could have worked an extra 2.5 hours every weekday plus every Saturday 8am - 2pm and they’d have finished weeks earlier.

Now we can offer the compromise that we’ll limit any DIY noise to a few hours over the weekend but we want the abusive texts and shouting to stop.

Well the abusive text messages may be considered to be harassment by the police. Whilst I wouldn't suggest you engage with the police in any form (not least because you might have to declare it at point of sale), maybe the next time they are shouting abuse at you over the fence, you could drop in 'do you know I have been told to take my phone to the police who might want to have a word with you about the offence of repeated harassment?'

It might be enough to get them to back off.

Well you shouldn't have to suffer abuse.

But the only real alternative is to report it to the police. The negative consequence being how much the police will actually do to solve the issue, and if you sell the place you will need to report it.

I doubt very much that someone who is being abusive is going to want to go through a mediation process.

Maybe you should record some of the abuse. The act of doing it might either annoy them further or make them think more carefully about what they are doing because that sort of stuff rarely looks good on camera.

As far as I can tell you only really have 3 choices.

i) Go to war and give them it back.

ii) Call the police.

iii) get your rennovations done with as quickly and as quietly as possible and hope it all dies down.

What other options are there ?

I’ll try this next, thank you. My partner wanted to call the police a while back but I wasn’t keen because it doesn’t seem like a good use of their resources. I hadn’t even considered the impact if we come to sell as we’ve bought this as our long term home rather than to flip in 5 or 10 years.

If they are like this with all the neighbours, mediation isn't going to work.

Block their number so they can't message you.

Get a ring doorbell or similar so that you can record any doorstep interactions.
Ignore as much as possible.

They sound horrible. I'd definitely mention the police and get a ring doorbell.

Oh OP, I could have written your message. The only differences being that our house hadn’t been touched in 45 years (they bought theirs ‘done’) and they’re a barrister/solicitor couple - fun.

We suggested mediation, he (barrister) said it wasn't appropriate but didn’t expand on why. They were (touch wood for past tense) similarly abusive and high maintenance - one of the first comms we had from them was an email from her telling us that our building works were going to poison their newborns lungs, asking us to postpone by 6 months and telling us (not asking) that we’d have to agree to quiet periods over lunch for their toddlers nap.

We did so many things to placate them, including items they specifically requested, but nothing was ever good enough. In all honesty it didn’t get any better until I started pushing back on them.

Two incidents spring to mind, after which things settled again:

1. They’d gotten into a habit of berating our builders for any works at all during their nap time. They tried to sneak a clause to this effect into the party wall award (!) - we agreed to no noisy works on the party wall itself during these periods. I, eventually, reminded them of this and advised them that it was thus not appropriate for their nanny to tell our builders off for erecting scaffolding on the other side of our property to them, as it could in no way involve the party wall, during these periods. No response from them but no more complaints to builders.
2. We had repeatedly raised with them that their new dog would bark the entire time they left it home alone to no avail. It culminated in one particular incident in which the dog had been left, barking, for an entire day. After a very rude email reply from him, I advised them that noise from barking dogs was something the council would investigate (with the suitable website link) and told them that as they, regrettably, were refusing to engage that my next step would be a formal noise complaint to the council and this would constitute a neighbourly dispute that they would need to disclose when they sold. Dog barks occasionally now but appears to go to a dog sitter during the week and they take it with on week ends generally.

My advice would be this. Offer mediation, in writing, and document the many ways in which you have clearly tried to be accommodating. And then put your foot down. Honestly, we let them intimidate and bully us for far too long when really all people like that respond to is firm, but polite, pushback. She is being unreasonable - you are entitled to do work on your home, either DIY or by using contractors.

We also got a Ring doorbell 4 (does sound too) and pay for the monthly subscription that stores all recordings. I had already blocked her number long since.

@LondonNQT oh my god, I’m so sorry you went through this but reading your post makes me feel like it’s not just me.

We were told the’d had to take their rabbits inside because we were going to kill them through noise-induced stress (in true comedic timing one jumped through the hole in our fence from their garden 5 minutes later) and their mother-in-law would also die when she visited.

I’ve washed walls, paid window cleaners and used numerous tools they said they’d prefer only to be told they’re still too loud. I changed my working week so I could be here on a weekday and leave the house completely silent on weekends, they complained about me being here on Tuesdays and shouted at me for being here.

At their request, we prioritised buying all the materials to replace our missing fence panels which we planned to assemble in place as they didn’t want the boundary bushes trimmed at all - it’s all in a pile in a garden because it’s a two day job and we couldn’t find a weekend when they were amenable for us to do the work before the weather turned.

It’s just a relentless uphill struggle of trying to be as accommodating as possible of someone who moves the goalposts and is constantly hostile. I’ll try putting the offer in mediation and note all the ways we’ve tried to make things work.

We do have a blink doorbell that records to a usb but it only records at certain times (night and when someone rings it I think) so maybe we should adjust the settings on that too.

The irony is I’d love to not be doing work, we didn’t sign up for a project this big but we own the house now so we’re getting on with it. The unexpected structural work meant we had to go back to brick in parts so all the skirtings, coving and picture rails had to come off and they fell apart because sections were in fact just filler which is how we ended up here - fitting skirtings and filling in the bodge job plastering the builder did (a story for another day).

Ah yes. Old houses - the gift that keeps on giving! Our builders discovered the last metre of their kitchen extension has no foundation - they, aggressively, told the builders this was their fault… I can’t help but laugh at the rabbits and MIL - the emotional blackmail really is something else.

Genuinely though. Enough already - read back your last post, you’ve been bending over backwards! Literally! Stick within the letter of what’s permitted under your council building works noise - we found the hours generous compared to what we had been trying to do. Obviously also stick to the book on any party wall agreements etc and accept there will be no good will if you get something wrong.

I strongly encourage you to tell her this. That you can no longer advise her of noisy periods of work, as this is no longer practical, but that you’ll stick to the council guidance. Also request that going forward all comms go via email and that if she approaches you in the street again you’ll report her to the community support team for antisocial behaviour. Quote from the appropriate sections so she can see you’ve read up on this and include links to the website pages.

Things will be wobbly for a bit (I won’t go into the threatening behaviour I had from their nanny) but it will calm down eventually. Some people just like a pet angst project 🤷‍♀️ The most important thing is don’t let this spoil your enjoyment of your home in the long term - the greatest revenge is to live well and be exceptionally happy.

Forget mediation and start pushing back.
When you leave the house put your phone on record, if she comes out point it towards her and clearly state that you are recording her harassment for your police report.
Don't back down, you've bent over backwards, unfortunately people like this will never back down or compromise so it's time to get tough.
I agree with your DH to inform the police, you have evidence of harassment with the texts.
I had a problem neighbour, not through building works, he was just an unreasonable arsehole.
I'd been in my house 20 yrs and he'd moved in and took against me, shouting abuse, banging on walls, throwing rubbish in my garden, telling my other neighbours that myself and DD were prostitutes (we apparently had men / customers in the house when everyone else was in bed) he accused DP of sexualy propositioning him, screaming abuse at me in the street and the supermarket.
I called the police, he was so surprised, he truly believed his own nonsense, he abused the police officer and nearly got himself arrested.
He ended up having to write me a letter of apology which I (pettily) stuck in my window for the neighbours to read.
So I would definitely call the police

We got the house late January and have had 5-6 months of builders (not solidly) and maybe 3 months of DIY (1-2 days a week, not normally Sundays and not always noisy).

He sounds awful and unreasonable, but this would drive anyone mad. I hope for all of you that it's almost over.