please empty your brain below

We have to bear the neighbour's screaming baby in the bedroom just the other side of the wall to ours. It sounds like they're torturing it nightly, yet when I see them all outside, as I occasionally do, they look like any normal happy young family. Meanwhile, several months of broken sleep later, we've sold up and are moving out at the end of this week... and while the baby isn't the cause of this, losing it's nightly howling is one of the obvious benefits of the move.

You could always try to get a Noise Abatement Order.

You could always try having a polite word...

And if that fails, print this off and post it under the door.

Keep a noise diary, in case it gets even worse and you then have evidence for Andrewh's suggestion.

Don't suffer in silence.

It's why I'm a misanthrope.

In my experience, this is just the beginning. One awful tenant/set of tenants replacing others.

"something called 'sociable', which is not a home-based entertainment concept I fully relate to"
Perfectly put. Me neither.

To say "don't suffer in silence" is easy, but to take action is tough. Good luck with it - the cigarette smoking thing is particularly annoying, on top of their general rudeness.

Trouble is, if it isn't legally bad enough for a noise abatement order, it can make you look as if you're being the difficult neighbour. For example, you can't very well complain about them smoking on their own balcony, but I completely appreciate how unpleasant it is. I suppose, if you can come up with an unrelated thing to mention to them, you could go out on to your balcony to raise it "thought I'd find you out here - I always know when you're having a smoke" would point out the situation, of which they're probably unaware, and embarrass them without an actual complaint being made. If they have the grace to apologise, you could mention the other matters.

I think of all the neighbor irritations, the blasting loudspeaker is the worst, since it is tireless. I once had a neighbor who would leave the apartment with Barry Manilow blasting all day long, to make burglars think she was at home! Talk about torture!

I'd suggest meeting up with the neighbors and trying to communicate. They might not be as bad as it seems.

Good luck D.G.

My neighbours have an uncanny knack of lighting a barbecue whenever I want to hang my washing out on the line. Even if it's the middle of a midweek afternoon. In October.

I sympathise DG, we have the neighbour from H--- next door also. She loves the TV at full volume and we can hear it every evening. Bliss for us is when they go on holiday. Her husband doesn't watch tv he is in another room apparently on the computer but I think he must wear earphones.

Get an industrial sized fan and everytime they go on the balcony to smoke, blow them to the other side of the flats.
As for the music, sorry can't help there. We used to live in flat where the son of the neighbours always took advantage of the parents church visits as we got the crapiest rock music and accompanied rubbish singing on a sunday morning.

I had to call the cops once on mine, it was awful...

It'll drive you paranoid in the end. Because when they're *not* being anti-social, you'll sitting indoors waiting for them to start. I can't open any of my rear windows now because of the new people below, who constantly chain-smoke on their patio. They even sit outside, in dressing gowns, looking inwards towards their TV, up to gone 3 in the morning. If they don't like the smell of cigarettes in their flat, why should I be expected too?

Pete?

You could try playing some Opera or Classical music really loud in retaliation. Seriously, you need to invite them in for a cup of tea and sort out the local ground rules before they get too dug in and think they own the place. They may not realise they are doing it. Of course you could just be getting old. Victor Meldrew springs to mind!

Oh DG, I am sorry. I could have written the bit about the cigarette smoke myself as we now have hookah-smoking teenagers two floors above our balcony. It is vile and my kids always run to shut the windows at the first whiff but it is always too late. It is disturbing how an almost-unnoticed shift can shatter the peace of the place you go to get away from the world. Good luck.

I've been through this and I would suggest a polite word with them - face to face, not a letter.

If that doesnt work, you find out who owns the flat and tell them AND the freeholders.

If that gets you nowhere, call Environmental Health when its happening and is bad - there are usually crap, but its worth a try and they DO have powers.

Good luck!!!!

I dont mind the sound of the occasionally copulating couple... its the incessant sounds of the perpetually copulating foxes that makes makes my skin crawl











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