Noisy neighbours

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.

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 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.

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!

Our garden backs on to the noisiest neighbours ever! They play loud music, the kids have all night parties, it's horrendous. When I asked them if their immediate neighbours complain, they answered that they invite them in as well! Every time I ask the council to go round to tell them to turn the noise down, they tell tell them that it's a birthday party and a once off . . . which it isn't.

Linsco56, I love him too. Your friend sounds in a dreadful position. The house next to us is rented to self confessed party animals. Luckily I am good friends with the owner so I can get things done.

peaceatlast Leonard wouldn't have me heading for the hill...just love him! but I know he's not to everyone's taste. We are very lucky with our neighbours but my friend is having problems as the house next to hers was bought by a buy-to-let landlord and he doesn't give a fig who lives there providing they pay the rent and he has told her as much. This family neither work nor want. During the summer they sit in the garden most nights chatting and laughing with friends until 2 am. When they retire indoors they continue to play music. She has spoken with the local Community Police Officer who had a quiet word with them (to no effect) and advised my friend to keep a log of all the incidents and disturbances. Unfortunately, since the CPO has been involved the "neighbours from hell" have been making her life a misery. She can't even go into her garden to hand out a washing without them make rude remarks about her...all done at the top of their voices. She is now considering selling her house and moving away from the area.

We're detached with a big garden but surrounded by young families in Victorian terraces enjoying their gardens having bbqs, kids shrieking on the trampoline etc. A bit annoying, yes, but I'm at home all week and most others aren't. Things are very difficult for young families these days so I don't grudge them enjoying themselves. That said, I would never have allowed my own children to scream like many do today. I warned mine (and now my grandchildren) that they would have to go inside if they did that.
There's also a lot of building work/garden maintenance etc. I'm sure I did my fair share of that over the years.
Anyway, I just put Leonard Cohen on in the garden and pump up the volume. Its amazing how the noise goes down as they all head for the hills.

When I moved into my present home it was a new build and four of my neighbours are the original residents from 45 years ago. We all had our children at the same time so they grew up and left home at the same time, now we are pensioners the only noise is from visiting GC. I hold my hands up because GDs can scream when they are playing out but they get checked so that it does not go on too long. Happy chatter and laughter is not a problem.
One of my neighbours was a club singer and on summer days liked to play recordings of him singing while they were sitting in the garden. I don't know whether he was practising or just liked to relive the moment. He didn't sing my kind of music and it usually ended up with me calling it a day in the garden.
I can not abide the smell of a bq it is not something I ever eat and they seem to leave a fug in the air that you can smell for hours.

When I first met my husband he lived with his parents in a quiet, beautiful street in London; tree lined, with Edwardian houses. Within a couple of years you would not have known it was the same place. The houses had been bought up, sub let, and at one point thirty people lived next door and my mother in law's beautiful garden was a place where the people next door emptied their rubbish bin over the fence. A woman opposite killed a chicken on the doorstep, and a delightful child walked about with a small hammer, cracking the rendering off all the front walls in the neighbourhood. When mu husband remonstrated with the father he was told 'You're lucky he isn't hitting your car, aren't you?'
We had by then married and moved away and my in laws were close to a breakdown - they often had to drag their mattress downstairs to get some sleep ready for work the next day as parties went on all night and needless to say the neighbours didn't work. They sold up, and left the area. Nobody was ever interested in their hellish circumstances - my father in law tried to speak to a landlord about excrement on the pavement and was told he was a racist. He hadn't mentioned the ethnic background of the pile of excrement as it was difficult to tell, but that was the stock answer if you tried to express a need for your own circumstances to be considered. That was forty years ago - nothing seems to have improved.

We have a girl and her 4 year old son next door and he must be the noisiest boy on the planet ... from shouting to running around thumping his feet he is very annoying. What's worse is that the adults with him, whether it's his mum or grandparents, seem to join in the noise. Since they are living in a mid terrace house, you'd think they might realise how noisy he/they are being, but apparently not!

Thankfully he's not here all the time so it is bearable, but I'm so glad we are the end terrace and have a bedroom in the extension away from any shared walls!!!

We are currently looking for a wee detached cottage!

The neighbours both sides are not very noisy as such, but whilst the sun shines they're making the most of it and the barbecue's have been brought out.
It's more the smell of them than the noise of the party that accompanies them that gets to me, I actually retch at the smell, as a veggie I don't like the smell of beef cooking and the coals give off a horrid parafinny pong, and as for that smoke washing brought in from the line early. Right! That's my grumble-for-the-day over

I left a lovely house after 12 years and at the age of 64, because of my neighbours.We had a shared passageway which some of the 5 children used as a toilet,my house was used as a chalk board,the women were foul mouthed and abusive .I had spent several thousand pounds getting it shipshape so that I could retire from work.Instead I sold up,moved into a rental for 2 months and bought another home in very poor condition but in a nice quiet neighbourhood. I have had no boiler for the past 2 winters and still cannot retire while there is work needed,but the peace is bliss.
My daughter is moving home now because of anti-social neighbours.
Both houses were fine until buy-to-let landlords took over and filled their properties with tenants whose rents were guaranteed to be paid by the tax payer.

I think it`s called getting old.
I never used to bother about noise coming from my neighbours, but the past few years I seem to be obsessed.

I live in a ground floor flat. The woman in the flat above has two children, and she's expecting a third. She used to have a partner living with her, but he disappeared, although he turns up at times to take the children for the weekend. After he had moved out, she started having loud parties on Friday nights, which gradually increased to Saturdays and Wednesdays as well. Her music was so loud, I could hear it in the bedroom. Her stair leading up to her flat ran right behind my bed, and people would come in and out, noisily clumping up or down the stairs, and talking in loud voices. One weekend, an argument from one of her parties spilled out into the street, with women screaming at each other, and her parents, who live across the road, tried to get her inside their house, but the other woman followed them in and tried to assault her. This was around 7:30 am on a Saturday morning. Many of the neighbours complained to the local authority, and investigators came out to interview the neighbours. The noise has since abated, although in the warm weather, she ramps up the volume, opens her windows, and the entire street gets to listen to her questionable taste in music. I'm not a musical snob - I like most music, but can't relate to the stuff she plays most of the time.

Leticia, I would suggest you ask your radio playing neighbours very nicely if they wouldn't mind wearing headphones. I also can't stand other peoples' noise despite having a dog like Whitewaves who has to bark at passers by, foxes, birds, ducks ....anything that moves, it's his job as a terrier or should I say terrorist! However, I also call him in immediately if it goes on for longer than 30 seconds. Is it age? I just don't understand why other people can't be more aware that they have neighbours. x

Our garden is very small so the neighbours are quite close which is ok at the moment but the 5 bedroom house at the bottom of the garden has just been sold. The current owner is our age, a widow with no children at home. I haven't seen her yet to check out who is moving in but the people before her had a hot tub just over the wall and they also had lots of friends with lots of children! It got quite noisy at weekends!

We have lovely neighbours, and sometimes they are noisy and sometimes we are, especially when all our GC play out in the garden after school.

Some of us have dogs and sometimes they bark.

I suppose it's a matter of degree. And once you start noticing it's harder to turn off.

I do understand that if this is pretty constant and loud LiberyLola it must be very upsetting. Could you perhaps have some sound proofing installed, and I presume you already have double glazing? Trouble is, in nice weather you like to have windows open and be in the garden.

I attended a family party yesterday in my sons garden. He lives in a lovely new build of about 15 houses. They were built on a piece of land besides an isolated block of flats for OAP's ( sorry don't know the correct P.C phrase an I'm one myself so no insult intended) As we were leaving at 11.30 pm after a full on day with three excited children an array of noisy cousins and friends plus their very noisy adults engaging in lots of assorted alcohol and choruses of "my my my Delilah" my husband commented that the neighbours must find it difficult living next to all these young families after years of relative peace and quiet. He was over heared by an elderly gent who was obviously being kept awake sitting on a chair having a smoke who agreed with him but said " that's life going forward and that he'd engaged it that sort of family life in his youth there'll be plenty of peace and quiet at his next abode and any way I'm looking forward to the non stop moaning and gossip from his other neighbours in the morning, much more interesting than their usual moans about their aches and pains. I do have sympathy if the noise is almost constant and unbearable, but I agree with him about ordinary family life noise being rather a comfort. However laminate flooring has a lot to answer for and I'm still working full time I might very well feel differently if I was at home all day living next to neighbours from hell. I hope those of you who do can find some peace.

There is not much you can do if you have noisy neighbours , I think we get very intolerant if we are not careful and focusing on other peoples noise can make it sound worse . As I have brought 4 kids up in my house they were probably noisy at some point . I suppose the only thing you could do is move to a place where you have no other people living near you and become a grumpy old person in peace and quiet

I got woken up this morning by neighbours arguing and then an ambulance was called. I have no idea who for as I was busy having my cup of tea and left them to it. Often though there is noise from the grandchildren, from early on in the morning, when it can wake me. They don't live there, they come round for about 7 am each day to see their grandmother. That is why I am still up now, some peace and quiet. Road quiet, son in bed, neighbours in bed, peace.

We live in a 1930's semi ,we have a family with 3 children and another on the way next door,you can hear every noise and they even talk loud you can hear then talking on the phone.the worst thing is the children never go to bed until after 11 o clock and they are running about all evening.We have to use wireless headphones to listen to the tv.The modern trend of having wooden floors in every room instead is carpets is one of the reasons for the extra noise as there is nothing to cushion it.It is especially bad for us as we have wooden floorboards and not a solid floor.

They also have a wood burner of some sort and the smell is horrible.

I wish that I knew. The people who back in to us have a patio just at the other side of the fence. They often play the radio and I can't stand it- I don't know why people are so antisocial when there are headphones.

The other couple in our pair of semis are a bit noisy, our houses are solid (hammer drill to hang a picture) but I hear them stomp up stairs and I'm sure they don't know how to close a door. They also have a dog that stands in the garden and barks at nothing. On the other hand their 3 children have left home and in fact in our row of 10 houses there are no children
So we consider ourselves fortunate.