Noisy neighbours

New neighbours here have bought a bungalow. They have altered the inside (skips, rubble on footpath, road etc)
Now they are having a massive extension built! It is completely out of character with our quiet tidy road where we are all elderly!( think I'm the youngest at 71).
The builders started in February and I've been told that there is another 16 weeks to go.
They park inconsiderately and their muck and rubbish is constantly blown down my drive.
The last straw was when during this nice weather I was unable to sit outside on my usually peaceful patio due to the noise of building and the very loud radio that seem indispensable to builders!
They are a young couple with two small children. They are complaining the road is too quiet and everyone is old!

I think when you live near people a certain amount of noise is to be expected. However, I think constantly screaming children or barking dogs (like whitewave our dog barks occasionally but is brought indoors if he continues to bark) is unacceptable and very inconsiderate. I don't care about the odd noisy party lasting into the early hours of the morning but if it happened regularly I would find it annoying.

Building noise is horrible too but hopefully when the work is done things will settle down.

Unless things are absolutely intolerable I would be loathe to complain as I don't think there is anything worse than having a bad relationship with neighbours.

My lovely neighbours on one side have been known to apologise for the noise their 2 little boys make (occasionally) playing in their garden. I can think of few nicer sound than a 4 year old and a 2 year old having fun! Similarly the couple whose garden is at right angles to ours have apologised if their dog's barking annoys me. No it doesn't, dogs bark, end of, and he only does it to say hello to Grace, who, being a greyhound rarely barks, if ever. I know we are lucky, backing on to a large farmhouse orchard, with just the Manor house gardens beyond that, however, as noise can be horribly Intrusive and one man's garden is too often another man's strimmer.

I have lived in my house for 22 years, raising two children here. My old next door neighbours were charming, married 64 years and always polite, helpful and generous.Sadly they died, and a man who resembles Vladimir Putin in more ways than one moved in. He is rude, aggressive and the least neighbourly person we have all ever met. He has alienated everyone over parking issues, actually invading a nearby neighbour's house, going into their lounge and "f...ing and blinding at the neighbour's 17 year old daughter.

Mr Putin also has a "friend " who calls from time to time and they have sex very noisily with all the windows open.

On the other side I have folk who have put in a water feature right next to me that runs 12 hrs a day, 7 days a week and sounds un-riverlike, more like a Shire horse spending a penny in a pond.

Compared to others here I can see these issues are relatively minor, but I used to love living here and now I love it less.

That sounds appalling and you have my every sympathy.

I know the building work will eventually finish. I don't know them as I can't walk to their place, but, they've managed to upset everyone in the road they've had anything to do with!
When they first moved in the postman said ' l see you've got the neighbours from hell moving in' apparently they are well known in the town
As I said, I don't really know them. I've only spoken to her once when she said they'd moved there because of its large garden. The garden is tiny compared with all of ours and has now been 3/4 taken up with the extension. They are left with a strip about 15 foot wide by about 20-30 ft long.

One of our neighbours has a drumkit in his shed so we all hear practise time if we are outside!

My neighbours are really lovely but every time there is a warm sunny day, power tools of some description appear. Power hose, strimmers, lawnmowers, even chain saws! Now I know the garden needs sorted but why can this not done on dry dull days? I swear they wait to see me set out a deck chair and go and look for the noisiest tool they have. This is the first good day we've had this year and my husband has been driven indoors and I've my headphones in with the music cranked up. I have laughed about it with them hoping they'd take the hint but no. But reading other posts, I know things could be a lot worse.

So glad my neighbours are all around my own age I think on the whole young and old don't always mix well not as neighbours anyway I remember living next door to an elderly lady when my children were young and I found it quite stressful constantly telling them to keep the noise down my youngest daughter has frequent bus throughout the summer and to be honest I'm so glad I'm not her neighbour fortunately they are all around the same age with children and always at the bus.

Bqs

I live about a mile away from a new development of student housing. Having been a student myself many moons ago I remember the parties and the music in my own college accommodation so imagine my surprise and dismay last week to find that the derelict land on the other side of the road from the student accommodation is to be "a new development of accommodation for over-55s". What idiot town planner thought that was appropriate?!!!

Interesting comments it does seem sad that the neighbours suffering anti social noise are virtually left to get to with it, maybe local councils could be more active in asking for some consideration for others who also live in the area, it does seem that generally people are often inconsiderate towards their fellow man and the idea " it's all about me" is prevelant. I would be horrified if I was upsetting someone with my behaviour.

Our next door neighbours are nice friendly people. However they have wooden floors and virtually no soft furnishings. Consequently there is nothing to absorb the noise. They shout from room to room. Or if someone is upstairs, whistle .We can hear telephone conversations, the shower pump, and their television. In the summer they sit in the garden quite late talking and drinking. They do not lower their voices and get louder the more they drink. We have heard quite a lot about their private life.
We did mention it to them years ago but they didn't take it seriously. We find it annoying and amusing in equal parts.

I used to hear sex noises from my old neighbour. I did tell her but she didn't believe me until I went into more detail! She still carried on though!

This seems to be one of the saddest Gransnet comment threads I have read to date. The misery delineated here by inconsiderate people with dogs, parties, music, children running amok and barbecues is truly terrible. When I grew up it was considered anathema to annoy the neighbours. Children and dogs were largely controlled and politeness was the norm. This truly is the 'me first, you nowhere' society. I feel lucky to live in a village. We can hear a motorway in the distance and, from time to time the neighbours have a barbie or a party and I do confess I find the (perfectly well brought) up children and the dog a little noticeable at times. However, no one deliberately annoys anyone else. If they did I would move for peace and quiet even if it meant trading down considerably.

How sad that people are having to move from homes they love and have worked hard for and on. I assume that financial loss comes into the equation as well. Our first 2 homes were semis but we had absolutely no problems. Perhaps houses were built better then but we also had considerate neighbours. Our last 2 homes have been detached so it is only garden noise we might get but with no young children around, very little of that. Sympathy to those affected.

I think that neighbours do not, in the main, do these things to annoy. I think it just does not enter their heads. As some have already said , our generation were brought up to be considerate. Nowadays it is definitely " me first" .

I'm in a Victorian terrace. On one side they have a yappy dog who can't bear it whenever he hears me gardening, and occasionally loses it when I'm just sitting outdoors reading the paper (like this weekend).

Far worse is the other side. First they've extended their house so much they've blocked my morning sun , but part of the extension consists of a bathroom that looks out onto my side. I was trying to eat my lunch outside this weekend when they started hawking and clearing out their lungs in there - a disgusting noise that made me gag

We live in a terrace and next door is a rented house - for the last 10 years or so we have had a succession of people living there some good but most bad. We had the police helicopter overhead for one person on about 3 occasions - no sleep for anyone!. The latest tenants have been in about 3 weeks and we heard they were evicted for anti-social behaviour from their last house. A woman with 3 daughters who each have about 4 kids all cram in over the weekend and the noise is intolerable - they all shout at the tops of their voices and the language is more than disgusting. Why don't landlords vet them more? Its the only rented house in the area and there are lots of older people who must be quaking in their homes - as we are!

Good fences make good neighbours. Don't get involved with mine. Fortunately, the noise is the average noise of children, dogs etc. As we live in a family estate, I feel you have to expect a certain amount of noise. I do have sympathy for people on here who suffer noisy neighbours, it can get you down.

we moved here 35 years ago and we were one of 3 young families in the street . Now we are one of 3 elderly couples in the street . Massive amounts of building is constant underway . Why does a family of four need 5 bedrooms and an auditorium for a kitchen ?
Apart from the constant. Building work my main bugbear is our new next door neighbour's yappy dog . She is left alone for long periods and barks the whole time they are out . We could see over the fence she was shut in the back room next to us. Eventually we had to speak to them saying how concerned we were for her well being ! Didn't go down well but she now doesn't seem to bark so much and is not shut in the back room . But she yaps the whole time she is in the garden . Her owners seem to not notice at all . I'm told she is very old - let's hope this doesn't go on much longer ?

It must be awful if noisy neighbours are spoiling your quality of life. We make an effort to get on with our neighbours, even if they start loudly pressure washing while we are having Sunday lunch on the patio, for the very reason that we will probably live next door to them for a long time, and don't want any problems in the future.

We used to live in France in a beautiful rural setting with swimming pool etc. and ran holiday homes. The farmer over the road had his dog tied up and it barked all day long and squeaked all evening. We were very troubled by it, but didn't feel we could complain as we were the newcomers (to the country) and the farm had been in his family for generations. Luckily the guests we asked said it didn't bother them as much as it was embarrassing for us, but I still wince when I think of the constant yapping. It is difficult to ignore after a while.

We had noisy neighbours in our last house. They weren't until the parents split up and the children reached the ages of 15 and 17. The all night parties on Friday and Saturday nights started, drugs were involved it was a complete nightmare. We involved the police and had to keep a log. It did calm down a little bit but we ended up selling and moving. Its much quieter where we live now but most neighbours in our little cul-de-sac are like us and retired. We do get some noise as one of our neighbours is always building something, fortunately he works away during the week.
There have been some new houses built further away and they are rented and the noise from them is annoying. Especially the ones that leave their barking dogs out at all times of the day and night. Those sort of people will always be like that as they have no respect for other people. The same with people who let their children scream and carry on late at night. Our own grandchildren visit a lot especially as we live at the coast but they are not allowed to play outside before 9.00am and not after 7.00pm if they are making too much noise.
Give and take is the order of the day.

I don't know which annoys me the most, our neighbours' three dogs (plus at least two more at times that they look after for other people) going crazy every time anyone or anything passes by, including me whenever I go outside, or the neighbours shreiking at them almost non-stop.To be honest, i think the futile shouting is the most unpleasant of the two!

Mind you, DH isn't the quietest person in the world either. He doesn't seem to be able to open or close a door quietly - there was a sonic boom a few weeks ago and while other people in the region either phoned the police or ran to check their boiler hadn't exploded, I just thought that DH had gone out of the back door!

MamaCaz