Do neighbours having noisy building works done lose the right to complain about noise?

[CabbagePatchSquirrel]

If your neighbours are having noisy building works done all day every day, including Saturdays, do you think they then lose the right to complain about your family's noise which is much less intrusive than their building works?

Yes!

Yes, for sure

Their building work presumably has a limit and will stop once the work has been done. Your family noise will presumably carry on.

And if someone said to me 'because of x you've lost the right to complain about y' then my reaction would be a polite 'oh really? sez who?'

Well, not necessarily. Building work is annoying but will last a fixed time. Loud parties, dogs barking or your children screaming in the garden might be forever?

Would you play them a recording of what you've had to endure if they came round complaining, tell them to bog off, shut the door in their faces and encourage your children to play as loudly as they like in the garden? Bearing in mind that that their builders have been blaring out unnecessary music every day. Or would that be going too far?

They can always complain to the council if they have grounds for a noise complaint, can't they?

No because that would make me look absolutely mental.

I live somewhere surrounded by building work at the moment. I've become more sanguine about it.

I think it depends. Everyone expects building work to be noisy. It is what it is and the noise is finite.
However, a dog that never stops barking or loud parties every weekend, for example are completely different imo.

What about playing music in the garden at the same level as the builders' music next door?

I just ask the builders to turn down their music before I did something that crazy and unnecessary.

Within reason.

If you were playing the macarena at 3am outside rheir house, you would be unreasonable.

Normal daytime noise... no.

Deliberately making extra noise as revenge just makes you a twat whose disturbing innocent neighbours. (Unless its just two house in the middle of nowhere)

Seems a bit hard on the other neighbours.

No, though builders or any other contractors should stay within the law on noise nuisance.

If the music is racist, misogynistic or could be deemed to be offensive within the law, then involve the police. I'd also be tempted if it is a small company or sole trader to ask HMRC to check they are paying taxes.

You are deliberately being noisy to antagonise your neighbours because they are having noisy building work done? Sounds totally unreasonable and nuts.

I've been living next door to a house where the neighbours have been extending it for over two years. It's a single builder who works for the man who owns the house.
He's not there all the time, but when he is, it's very noisy.
There are also deliveries of skips, building materials etc which block our drive when we're not expecting it.
It's a right pain.
However, I think I'd rather live next door to the building work than to you.
(It's okay, I'm sure you feel the same.)

We're talking about normal daytime noise in the sense that it wouldn't constitute grounds for a noise complaint to the council or disturb other neighbours. It's just a case of not being bothered to entertain requests from these people to keep it down anymore, rather than necessarily making noise deliberately.

A few years ago we had building works going on at both sides and behind us. Building works are by their nature boost. The only time we complained was when the big building site behind us started at 6am, which is obviously unreasonable. It wouldn't occur to me to think that building noise gives me a licence to be anti-social, though. I'm quite chill about daytime noise, generally. I get more annoyed about late night noise. If you're making a racket after about 9pm then I would be complaining, regardless of how much noise my building work makes in the daytime.

However, I think I'd rather live next door to the building work than to you.

I was thinking there's a neighbour being an arse here and it's probably both parties.

Small children so no noise after 9pm. Although there have been complaints about a sick baby crying through the night in the past.

I'm thinking that your neighbours have been complaining about excessive bothersome noise coming from your property for some time. They're currently having some building work done and you would like to use that to negate the ongoing noise from your side, for now and forever.

I don't think it works like that. It sounds like you've not got a neighbourly relationship to be saved, so while I wouldn't go out of my way to make it worse, I'd just carry on like you presumably have been... if you don't think you're being unreasonable, why wouldn't you?

Building works properly, such as drilling, wojkd be one thing. Unnecessary shouting or blaring outdoor radios quite another. Have you brought this up with the neighbours in question?

I think we need more information OP otherwise posters are going to start making things up - like you being a terrible neighbour anyway, for example. For what it's worth though, I think anyone complaining about a baby crying is a twat. So lets rule that one out at the get go.

The local council gave no fucks when we had 7 days a week for months and months from next door. They didn't live there..
.or bring their ddogs with them while ours endured that hell..
1 had a stroke and was pts. Stress the vet suggested.

They seemd confused when dh told him not to bother ever trying to talk to us.
Twats. And animal abusers.
Their ddogs live in misery.

So you're angry that their builders played loud music? Did you tell them what was going on?

Unfortunately, buiding work noise, during the day, is a perfectly legitimate noise and no, you don't get to complain. Nor does it mean that they aren't allowed to enjoy the peace and quiet of their home outside of "normal" noise hours.

So , if your children are very noisy at 3pm in the afternoon, I'm sympathetic to your neigbours but tough. Children are noisy and have the right to play out in their gardens at 3pm.

On the other hand, if your teenager is blaring loud music with friends at 10:15 on a Tuesday evening, then yes, they hvae the right to complain, no matter how annoying their building noise is.