So stressed with noisy building work

[Kazz94]

New young neighbours bought the house next door in November and since then have stripped the whole place internally, taking walks, ceilings and floors out and only doing this work evenings and weekends! It’s driving me and my partner crazy. I never know when the noise will start, sometimes the noise vibrates. We’ve moved our dinner time to later and haven’t been able to have long lie ins or naps at weekends. We’ve spoken to them, with me in tears at Xmas! I’ve spoken to environmental health and they have said I can keep a log and they will send a letter but I’m not sure it’s even worth it now as I’m hoping the noisy work might be coming to an end so not sure what to do? Anyone else had this and sorted it?

What do they say when you talk to them?

Going on two years here. Next door terrace is only a two up two down with one bathroom. Yet we get building noise every day and often gone midnight. First it was a young couple plus non stop barking dogs, now it’s their parents who’ve decided to become landlords. Currently the house is missing a boiler and an outside wall to the upstairs bathroom. Council won’t do anything - no money.
We are moving as soon as someone accepts our offer. It’s the only solution.

Sorry but I think this is really unfair. They have bought a property, with you saying they are young, probably first time buyers and they are renovating. Clearly around full time jobs if it is on evenings and weekends.
If they are working late into the night or before 8am on a weekend morning fair enough but you have said "long lie ins".
I think your being unreasonable for being annoyed by a couple trying to make a nice home for themselves.
Can you speak to them and come to a mutual decision on an acceptable time to do loud works?

We had neighbours a bit like this, who had a penchant for drilling into the party wall with a hammer drill on a Sunday before 8am. They were spectacularly unaware and saw no reason they shouldn't and also never bothered to apologise for the chaos (and damage to our house/trespass) due to their loft conversion. Still traumatised by it all, and it was a fair while ago (they moved on, thankfully).

Most people are more reasonable than this- go and have a chat, say 'I'm.not sure whether you realise, but...'. They may be horrified, and, especially if it's their first house, may not want to upset their neighbours. Maybe ask them to give you warning when they are doing anything loud?

We have spoken to them and they are aware that the walks are paper thin and the house vibrates when they are using power tools. We have been very understanding for 3 months and have changed how we live to accommodate. Later dinners, going to bed early to get up early. Ear plugs in bed. But we are in our 60’s and not very well. We have stressful jobs and need our evenings and weekends to destress and relax. Never knowing when the noise is going to start and for how long is causing a lot of distress now. I think we have as much right to live our life as they do. We will talk to them again and ask that they restrict noisy work to normal times, like before 6pm and not on a Sunday! Surely they have other non noisy work they can do at other times! We also have a crack on the party wall which we are concerned about but that’s another issue!

siunds awful and so unfair! Get in touch with environmental health?

If they are doing certain types of work they need to have a party wall agreement in place. If you have knowledge that they have gone ahead without one then contact your local council immediately. This government link explains it all.
https://www.gov.uk/party-walls-building-works

@Kazz94 our council doesn’t have the money and refuses to get involved in any such cases. Even fly tipping with cctv footage etc is ignored. We live in the arse end of the arse end of the county.
It’s not just us, the other affected neighbours have also complained not just to the problem
neighbour but to the council as well.
Even though it will wipe us out, detached property is the only way forward.

If you ask them to limit works to before 6pm and exclude Sundays, with your neighbours working full time jobs that's only going to prolong the works. It might be a bit more neighbourly to offer any help that you can to speed things along, and work on a better relationship with your new neighbours. These people have probably never been able to so much as put up a shelf without a landlord's permission, and now they're building their dream home, its not going to last forever. Have some patients and try to be a little understanding.

They are not allowed to make noise like this on Sundays and late evenings. Speak to them again and tell them that noisy work needs to be limited to the hours set by the council (typically Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm; Saturdays 8am to 1pm) or you will report them

This doesn’t apply to diy work as long as it’s not in the antisocial hours 11pm-7am then you won’t get anywhere with the council.

You can quote the rules forever but councils aren't the slightest bit interested. We had scaffolders erecting at 7am the other Sunday. People know they can do anything and get away with it. People do not care about the impact on others anymore.

@Diyextension according to our council
website it most certainly does apply to diy works. It does vary from council to council and also depends on wether the council can be bothered to enforce it.

You have my sympathy, but they aren't being unreasonable if. And if they work FT, then they will need Sundays. The more they do, the sooner the whole thing will be finished.

Perhaps there's a half way you could agree so that e.g. they can let you know in advance which evenings they don't need to be noisy and could find half a day per weekend? They don't have to do this, but it might help.

Sorry to hear that but sounds like best option is to get the hell out of you can!

I'm very forgiving in general about neighbour noise, but it does sound excessive in your case. I wouldn't accept DIY noise past 11pm. As has been said, there is lots of non noisy DIY that can be done past that time if really necessary.

On the other hand, if it's been going since November then it can't really go on much longer before it becomes quieter work. So every cloud...

Speaking from the other side of the argument, we were this couple four years ago. I’m handy so did it all myself - took a couple of walls out, replaced joists, flooring, plumbing, electrics etc etc. I have a 9-5 so it would have been similar to your problem in that it was evenings and weekends. I didn’t realise how much of an issue it was until neighbour summonsed me round for a chat and then was pretty much in tears. I felt so bad as crazy as it sounds, I didn’t think that the noise would be too bad.

Anyway we chatted, and the agreement was that I would do noisy drilling stuff on the weekends after 10am and then during the week if I needed to do something I’d text to give a heads up and to check she wasn’t entertaining or trying to sleep etc. it worked really well and we’re on great talking terms now. I’ve even done some small jobs for her round the house sort of as a thanks.

Moving out is a bit extreme. We were going about 18 months and now it’s all done and I’m quiet as a mouse. I’m a reasonable bloke and maybe your neighbours aren’t, but can you set a schedule like we did / agree to text and forewarn? There is a finite amount of time that truly noisy works can go on for as they will also get tired of living in a building site / they’ll run out of things to knock down and drill. My plan of action would be instead of demanding they stop, ask what is left still to do / how much longer they expect to be at it for. Come at it politely and non accusatory. If a number of things left then see if you can agree when they will do it and if they can give you a heads up by text if doing something midweek / late. At least it takes the suspense out of when will they start again and might let you relax a bit more not waiting with bated breath for a drill. You’re far better off going down this route than council notices etc which will just worsen the relationship and potentially make it hard to sell if you do take that route.

@NonmagicMike tou sound like a nice neighbours. Which is very rare!
Ours drilled straight through the party wall into our upstairs rooms and refused to accept it was them, or pay for repairs. They thought we had actually gone around to their house and drilled through the wall just for kicks! They removed chimney breasts without leaving (rsj) any form of support for the chimney itself. They’ve even asked me to pay thousands to replace their fence - it’s even stayed on the deeds it’s their fence and they have to repair or replace the fence with a fence! No talking to them is going to make them or their landlord parents see sense. Moving is the o lu
option. I just hope that we sell to a landlord who only rents to loud motorbikers who play drums at midnight. It would only be a drop in the ocean compared to what we have put up with.

There is no legal requirement to have a fence.

@Diyextension as I said in my post - It is in the deeds a fence must be instated between the properties on the boundary line and it is their responsibility to provide it. It is a legal requirement as it is in the deeds along with various rights of way to three houses, which they’ve also tried to block. That does make it a legal requirement.