Very Very Noisy Neighbours, very unpleasant

[berties_ears 10]

I really feel for you. I am one of the people who had to move house to save my own sanity from the clutches of the neighbour from hell.

 

There are a few things that might determine how you deal with this.

 

Are you a homeowner or a tenant? If tenant, council or private?

Are they a homeowner or a tenant? If tenant, council or private?

 

If you both own your properties then it is pretty hard to get anywhere by reporting them, calling 101, keeping diaries. The council will help 'advise' you and lend you a noise recorder but they do not get involved with court procedings unless you/they are council tenants. You would have to arrange that side of things and stump up the fees etc. All of that is only going to cause more strain and bad feeling. Also, from the minute you officially start proceedings, you would have to declare it if you decide to sell.

 

I lived with it for 6 years and was literally driven mad. My advice would be move and never look back

[*Wallace* 333]

If you own the property, be careful. when you come to sell, one of the forms your purchaser will want you to fill in asks about relationship with your neighbours. If you've officially reported it, you then have to declare it, and I guess the sale would fall through.

 

HIP packs ? i thought they had gone ?

[mystery man 10]

make them think you are real hardnuts like that irish family from shameless, when they are around pretend not to notice them and pretend to have a phone convo to someone on your mobile and say "yeah thats what I mean, if I hear one more noise from them bloody neighbers we will get steve alan and jeff round to teach them a leason"

[max 13]

HIP packs ? i thought they had gone ?

 

No, not HIPs, it's a standard question on the questionnaire which the seller has to fill in. It's been around for a while to protect purchasers against being sold a property the owners of which have had a dispute with neighbours.

[jamesogt 11]

So I have a problem but vice versa!

 

I am accused of making too much noise!

 

I work unsocialable hours, as in I get home around 1am. When I do I use the microwave and watch TV usually until around 3am then go to bed.

 

My neighbour (Flat Above) claims that my noise is so loud she cannot sleep and is now ill and off work with fatigue and inability to sleep.

 

Now this may sound terrible, but using sound equipment from work my decibel levels hover around 30dB when watching TV and only peak at 61dB if anyone else is there and we are chatting*. She claims the noise is so bad she has taken to sleeping on the couch. (This is above the living room and only television) Apparently she can't sleep in her bed as she can hear voices from my flat.

 

*

http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedImages/tes/info/typicalsoundlevelscr.jpg

 

She has reported it to the council and I have invited them to use one of their sound machines, though she has asked that maybe as she owns her property and I rent that not using the TV or Microwave when I return from work is a resonable request, i disagree. I am careful not to use washing machines or vacuums as clearly they are loud.

 

Am I wrong?

[NorthernStar 11]

So I have a problem but vice versa!

 

I am accused of making too much noise!

 

I work unsocialable hours, as in I get home around 1am. When I do I use the microwave and watch TV usually until around 3am then go to bed.

 

My neighbour (Flat Above) claims that my noise is so loud she cannot sleep and is now ill and off work with fatigue and inability to sleep.

 

Now this may sound terrible, but using sound equipment from work my decibel levels hover around 30dB when watching TV and only peak at 61dB if anyone else is there and we are chatting*. She claims the noise is so bad she has taken to sleeping on the couch. (This is above the living room and only television) Apparently she can't sleep in her bed as she can hear voices from my flat.

 

*

http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedImages/tes/info/typicalsoundlevelscr.jpg

 

She has reported it to the council and I have invited them to use one of their sound machines, though she has asked that maybe as she owns her property and I rent that not using the TV or Microwave when I return from work is a resonable request, i disagree. I am careful not to use washing machines or vacuums as clearly they are loud.

 

Am I wrong?

 

 

It sounds to me like the building has little or no acoustic insulation to separate the flats.

 

I do think that as you know that this is bothering your neighbour that you should make an effort to try and keep the noise down especially in the early hours.

[shoo gal 10]

So I have a problem but vice versa!

 

I am accused of making too much noise!

 

I work unsocialable hours, as in I get home around 1am. When I do I use the microwave and watch TV usually until around 3am then go to bed.

 

My neighbour (Flat Above) claims that my noise is so loud she cannot sleep and is now ill and off work with fatigue and inability to sleep.

 

Now this may sound terrible, but using sound equipment from work my decibel levels hover around 30dB when watching TV and only peak at 61dB if anyone else is there and we are chatting*. She claims the noise is so bad she has taken to sleeping on the couch. (This is above the living room and only television) Apparently she can't sleep in her bed as she can hear voices from my flat.

 

*

http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedImages/tes/info/typicalsoundlevelscr.jpg

 

She has reported it to the council and I have invited them to use one of their sound machines, though she has asked that maybe as she owns her property and I rent that not using the TV or Microwave when I return from work is a resonable request, i disagree. I am careful not to use washing machines or vacuums as clearly they are loud.

 

Am I wrong?

 

Maybe you don't realise how loud you're being. I dont mean that badly. Prime example is my next door neighbour. For weeks we kept hearing an intermitted vibrating noise. Was so loud! We eventually figured out that it was next doors tumble drier! Sometimes things are louder downstairs or next door than you're own house. Sound has a funny way of travelling.

Maybe you could get her to do what you do and sit in her flat and listen. Prob louder than you think.

It's not fun being woken in the night. She's probably stressed about you coming home and waking her that her sleeping has been impacted anyway.

Hope you both manage to come up with a solution

[cyprus10 10]

play your music louder than theirs.. when i was young and thoughtless i used to play music till the windows shook.. my sensible neighbour turned her tv up so loud i couldnt hear the music, i soon stopped.... may seem ridiculous, but it worked on that occasion

[retrogo 10]

So I have a problem but vice versa!

 

I am accused of making too much noise!

 

I work unsocialable hours, as in I get home around 1am. When I do I use the microwave and watch TV usually until around 3am then go to bed.

 

My neighbour (Flat Above) claims that my noise is so loud she cannot sleep and is now ill and off work with fatigue and inability to sleep.

 

Now this may sound terrible, but using sound equipment from work my decibel levels hover around 30dB when watching TV and only peak at 61dB if anyone else is there and we are chatting*. She claims the noise is so bad she has taken to sleeping on the couch. (This is above the living room and only television) Apparently she can't sleep in her bed as she can hear voices from my flat.

 

*

http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedImages/tes/info/typicalsoundlevelscr.jpg

 

She has reported it to the council and I have invited them to use one of their sound machines, though she has asked that maybe as she owns her property and I rent that not using the TV or Microwave when I return from work is a resonable request, i disagree. I am careful not to use washing machines or vacuums as clearly they are loud.

 

Am I wrong?

 

Had a similar problem with the 93 year old pensioner next door to me who's partially deaf of all things. She's in bed for 9pm and up at 6.30 in a morning. About 3 years ago she started reporting me to her landlord that she could hear a "wurring" noise comming from my property which started at 9.30 and lasted till 2 am every night. I was visited by 2 community police officers, I was open about the audiable equipment in my house and their relative positions. i pointed out that the washer wasn't used beyond 10pm but that I was usually upstairs on the computer and listening to music till the early hours in the spare berdoom. If any sound was audiable in the neighbouring properties, both sets of elderly neighbours would have had colloberating evidence. But they didn't

 

A few weeks after the police visit, I received a letter from the reporters Housing association, suddently the "wurring" noise became specific devices heard late at nigh9.30pm til 2.00 am: washing/dyer, house stereo, playing guitar. Somehow, a partially deaf old lady who couldn't make out what the wurring noise was, could itentify all these audio sounds???

 

I was visited a second time by the two community police officers who had a really bad/disbalieving attitude towards my insistance that no accessive noise was eminating from my property.

 

Environmental Services where called in, and monitoring equipment was installed in the property for 2 weeks, on two occassions. Only once, at 7.30pm did they record me playing loud music which lasted for 15 minutes. The Enforcement officer did not have a problem with this due to the time off day. A sound check was done between both properties by two environmental enforement officers. The tested for accessive noise levels, and acceptable noise levels and advised me what the house stereos could be set to late at night. To my astonishment, the 40watt bedroom stereo could be turned up full and not heard in the old ladies adjacent bedroom. The downstairs stereo has a lot more umpth to it. The setting I felt was loud enough for day time use (1/4 volume) They said was acceptable for night time. As for the washing machine, it was only just noticeable from my neighbours kitchen, it could not be heard way up in her bedroom.

 

Envirnomental Services where very professional in the way the handled this situation. Prior to their direct envolvement. The enforcement Officers had clocked up 200 referrals from 101, made by my elderly neighbour about the noise.

 

Even now, She will wonder round her house slamming the doors and windows at 2am because she cant sleep. But I don't even speak to this woman now. The last time I did, I was very rude to her, not the done thing by a 38 year old to a woman of her years. Especially with the sensitive nature of my job. So I ignore her, rather than loose my cool.

[rosaespanola 10]

I'm very lucky in that my neighbours on both sides are elderly people who are very pleasant and make very little noise - during the day we hear hoovers from one side and the TV from the other, but that's to be expected in a terraced house and no doubt they hear the same from us. However we have some people whose garden backs onto ours who spend most of the day in the summer outside with very loud music playing, vuvuzelas going and last summer their new toy was a megaphone which they thought it was great fun to shout through for a couple of hours at a time, often until well past the time when people would normally be going to bed on a weekday. Obviously people are going to be in their gardens in summer and you expect to hear a certain amount of noise, but megaphones?! One day I went round to ask them to be quiet, I was polite but made it clear that if they carried on then I'd ring 101 and report the noise. They stopped straight away on that day, but the next day it started up again, I rang 101, they went round and had words and we never had a problem for the rest of the summer. I'm just hoping the megaphones don't make a reappearance this summer!

[Ms Macbeth 73]

Had a similar problem with the 93 year old pensioner next door to me who's partially deaf of all things. She's in bed for 9pm and up at 6.30 in a morning. About 3 years ago she started reporting me to her landlord that she could hear a "wurring" noise comming from my property which started at 9.30 and lasted till 2 am every night. I was visited by 2 community police officers, I was open about the audiable equipment in my house and their relative positions. i pointed out that the washer wasn't used beyond 10pm but that I was usually upstairs on the computer and listening to music till the early hours in the spare berdoom. If any sound was audiable in the neighbouring properties, both sets of elderly neighbours would have had colloberating evidence. But they didn't

 

A few weeks after the police visit, I received a letter from the reporters Housing association, suddently the "wurring" noise became specific devices heard late at nigh9.30pm til 2.00 am: washing/dyer, house stereo, playing guitar. Somehow, a partially deaf old lady who couldn't make out what the wurring noise was, could itentify all these audio sounds???

 

I was visited a second time by the two community police officers who had a really bad/disbalieving attitude towards my insistance that no accessive noise was eminating from my property.

 

Environmental Services where called in, and monitoring equipment was installed in the property for 2 weeks, on two occassions. Only once, at 7.30pm did they record me playing loud music which lasted for 15 minutes. The Enforcement officer did not have a problem with this due to the time off day. A sound check was done between both properties by two environmental enforement officers. The tested for accessive noise levels, and acceptable noise levels and advised me what the house stereos could be set to late at night. To my astonishment, the 40watt bedroom stereo could be turned up full and not heard in the old ladies adjacent bedroom. The downstairs stereo has a lot more umpth to it. The setting I felt was loud enough for day time use (1/4 volume) They said was acceptable for night time. As for the washing machine, it was only just noticeable from my neighbours kitchen, it could not be heard way up in her bedroom.

 

Envirnomental Services where very professional in the way the handled this situation. Prior to their direct envolvement. The enforcement Officers had clocked up 200 referrals from 101, made by my elderly neighbour about the noise.

 

Even now, She will wonder round her house slamming the doors and windows at 2am because she cant sleep. But I don't even speak to this woman now. The last time I did, I was very rude to her, not the done thing by a 38 year old to a woman of her years. Especially with the sensitive nature of my job. So I ignore her, rather than loose my cool.

 

Years ago as a housing worker I had to respond to similar complaints, some from elderly people sound very similar to yours. One old lady lived in a bungalow, surrounded by other elderly people, and she said she could hear buzzing all the time. The other lived in a flat, and she complained about noises of different types, and constantly reported water leaks. I have been in the flat more than once to inspect the 'water leak' on her ceiling, and there was nothing there. This was corroborated by technical inspectors who investigated further. I've also been in both properties when they could hear the noises, and there was no noise.

 

Intensive investigation came up with nothing, apart from the fact that they were really elderly and perhaps a bit confused. Sounds a bit like your neighbour. Very difficult when you're getting complaints made against you that have no basis. However, your post demonstrates why the authorities can't just take the word of someone who makes a complaint.

[matty0114 10]

tell the council thats what we did with our anti social neighbors they havent given us any problems since.