Neighbour is making my life miserable

jonnyburgo

Lol awarded

cacophony

i can be of little practical help here, but can echo what many have said. my wife was a housing officer and got involved in a few cases like this, document and record everything. don't retaliate , keep any contact you have with the neighbour, formal and polite, and things will go your way. it may take a little time, but that's the way of the beaurocratic world we live in now.

good luck.

Chalky

jonnyburgo said:

Lol awarded

And returned!

The OP is renting so moving is an option.  It was the option I chose many years ago in a similar position when I owned a flat and the downstairs neighbours would play Eddie Grant on repeat.  The idea of spending a year or more making complaints and keeping records of every 'noise event' just sounds like a stupid waste of a year or more.

William Williamson

Yeah, it's starting to feel that way but I while I'm organising moving I'm noting everything down on the off-chance it makes a difference.

Those Laserlite earplugs are the business however, and thus far haven't been kept up (although my wife who doesn't like to wear them has - seems a simple question for the interim to me ) 

marcus449

I have the same problem with not just neighbours but also the surrounding continents. That's why god invented thefretboard.com

Garthy

Is the stopcock outside to all of your properties or do you have one each out there? If the former be prepared then turn it off, if the latter just turn theirs off. They;ll have to turn the music down just to call the water company. Or high risk, pull their electric mains out. Or leave a guitar propped up infront of a cranked amp for incredible feedback and just go out for the day.

On a serious note you have my pity, we went through hell with a problem child down the road a few years ago, it was the worst time of my life.

Emp_Fab

I'm a thread policeman.  Hello Hello Hello.... what's goin' on 'ere then.  G'worn gerrarravit or I'll give you bofe a clip raaand the ear.

IvisonGuitars

TheBlueWolf said:

Complain to your council. I can't remember the exact times but there *are* antisocial times for noise. Keep a log too. The police can't do a lot beyond telling them to shut up but you'll get reference numbers to give the council.

I think the official line is something like 'any time you are disrupted by noise nusense that hinders the enjoyment of your home is classes as antisocial behaviour' - we had it with students next door. 

We own the house, the previous neighbour died and it was sold and converted to student lets. The landlord puts any little scroat in there that will pay her rent every week and they are left to their own devises. 

Some years it's fine others are unbearable.

Last year we had to get the university involved. I'd gone round to speak to them, got a load of attitude and they got louder in protest that someone had dare challenge their entitlement to make noise so then the uni rep came and spoke to them, made no difference, so we started a log of every time we were woken up or loud music was played for three months on their advice then had a review with the uni. The agreed it was unacceptable so they went round and said if it didn't stop they would be thrown off their courses (that's what they told us they'd said anyway....but I don't think they'd want to loose 5 fee paying students personally). Stopped for a week then started again.

So I called the council, they came round and advised that I should have been logging everything with them, NOT the uni as this was little more than a delaying tactic on their part. So we'd need to start again, they told us to log everything "make a real pain of yourself" where her actual words. Then the council would install a noise recording device which would need to be switched on to record every time there was a disturbance for a month.

However, as a stroke of luck, when the Antisocial Behaviour officer came, she turned out to be an long since ex. of a pal of mine who I'd gotten on really well with years ago so she had a brew and assured me she'd take care of it.

She wrote them a letter explaining anymore complaints would result in confiscation of all equipment that could cause noise issues (stereos/iPod/laptop/tv/radio) and a 10 grand fine each and the landlord would be served with a 20 grand fine per student. Didn't hear a peep out of them for the rest of the year.

thomasross20

William Williamson said:

Those Laserlite earplugs are the business however, and thus far haven't been kept up (although my wife who doesn't like to wear them has - seems a simple question for the interim to me ) 

Glad to hear you're using the laserlites!
I use them all the time now, every night. Very handy when you go on holiday, too. 

High five!

William Williamson

How can I find out which housing association they're part of? If I do indeed need to log it with those guys, I'd rather get started now than doing it with the council for months and then nothing.

littlethoughts

I used to have very noisy neighbours. They were just a couple of lads out of university but since they had a nice flat their place was the "party place" every weekend. Even when it was two of them I think one of them had designs on being a house DJ or something, as well as having a loud sound system which they would play call of duty type games on until the small hours. Random gunfire is pretty good at keeping you awake...

We did all the usual things with the council but because they were private tenants it didn't resolve anything, and their flat had a different landlord (who basically said he didn't give a shit as long as they didn't trash the place and paid the rent promptly). Talking to them didn't really resolve anything either. As in, if we asked them to keep it down since we have work in the morning they would, but the very next day it would be as though we hadn't said anything.

Anyway long story short we just moved in the end. But one thing I found that helped a lot was the Rain, Rain app on my phone. It just made rain noises with a sleep timer so it doesn't run all night. I would just set it for an hour or so and that was usually enough to drown out the noise on an average day.

Jimbro66

William Williamson said:

How can I find out which housing association they're part of? If I do indeed need to log it with those guys, I'd rather get started now than doing it with the council for months and then nothing.

Firstly ask other friendly neighbours if they know. It's probably not the only housing association house in your road.

If local enquiries draw a blank you can always go to the Land Registry web site and for a small fee (about £10?) you can find out who owns just about any property.

DrCornelius

I went through this and if you are anything like me it will eat you up eventually. I had my neighbour and his 2 brothers forever giving me grief in front of my mrs all because my car was parked in 'their spot' in the road one day. They were plumbers and used to literally wave wrenches in my face and all sorts. I ended up inviting some mates round to even up the numbers but even after the altercation they soon went back to causing trouble when I was on my own.

Luckily a job came up abroad and I left and the weight off my shoulders was huge, it was only then that I realised how much emotional energy was wasted on trying to manage the situation.

In short - move !

p90fool

Don't you, y'know, know anyone?