Our neighbour decided recently to start renting out their property and we’ve now got new neighbours. What joy to find out they have a toddler daughter and seem to be what I see as irresponsible parents.

The father is a dangerous looking man, likes to play his video games loud and late through a subwoofer sound system, mother seems rarely to be around. They’ve only been in for a couple of weeks but we’re already getting sick and tired of hearing their toddler running around on their hard wood floors and screaming her little head off until late every night. She is under 2 years old but they let her stay up until 11 pm on a regular basis, and at the weekend past 1am. We are then frequently woken by said child at 3 and 4 am.

We’ve got an infant child ourselves, so it’s not as if we’re not sympathetic to problems with sleep. We’re just a bit surprised our new neighbours seem to condone and even encourage their toddler to stay up late with them. What should we do? Speak to them first (they don’t seem like the types to reason with, however, and they seem to treat their toddler as a little princess-presumably she’s beyond reproach in their eyes), speak to the landlord (our previous neighbour), or social services?

Any advice or anecdotage would be much appreciated. Ear plugs don’t work in the quiet of night BTW.

Mention to them first, then landlord – finally log it all and talk to Environmental Health.
As tenants there is a legal obligation for them to behave or they will get abatement orders and/or eviction

Every choice is bad one. Complain and you’ll get meathead gamer man possibly making your life worse. Don’t complain and the noise will continue and/or get worse. I’d go with …. put up with it in silence and just moan to: /your significant other every other day/people at work/on an internet forum.

move house.

Go round and play COD with him, bet you’ll have a right craic.

Social services?

You’re not one for over-reacting then? Why not give ’em a shout? They’ve not got much on at the moment, and I’m sure toddlers with late bedtimes are at the forefront of their concerns.

Alternatively: why not try a pretty groundbreaking and revolutionary concept: just go and have a chat with them. You might find that all your assumed prejudices are wrong, and they’re perfectly reasonable.

I know, I know… its all pretty radical stuff. But I’ve always been a blue sky thinker 😉

sounds like bin-bins didnt get tucked up in bed on time last night either. 😉

*who’s a grouchy little so-and-so?* 😀

I don’t think it’s an overreaction to think of social services – having a baby makes you realise how wrong it is to keep little children up very late every night. And the screaming at 2, 3, 4am. We’re keeping a noise diary already and will try to drum up the courage to broach the subject with meat head dad. I just kind of know how that one’s going to go down. Binners- do I have a volunteer mediator? Sheffield area?

talk to them initially but as others note it is unlikely to go well but you have to try.
the noise with games etc is easily solved if they wish to be considerate.

I doubt they will listen to the parenting advice tbh not that i disagree.

Do you have your neighbours the landlords contact details – raise it with them

PS I assume they like like lie ins – loud opera is good for annoying folk IME

They may simply not be aware that the noise travels. When we moved into our house we never heard a peep from next door so assumed that the noise they heard from us (3 girls under 10) was a similar level. We only found out the truth when the new neighbours moved in.

As for meathead gamer man, I look like a meathead – shaved head, 6 ft 3, 16 stone etc, but actually I’m a very reasonable person and if our neighbours came round and, reasonably, told me about the noise problem I’d do something about it.

I can understand the OP’s reluctance to confront the new neighbours. But initially its the first course of action.
Perhaps mention the noise from the gaming initially (as its less of an emotive subject than criticising their parenting) and judge from their reaction to that whether or not you subsequently mention the baby noise.

I think most noise problems are caused by people simply not being aware. If you have quiet neighbours you generally have no idea how much sound is transmitted through the walls. I certainly don’t know how we sound to our neighbours.

Perhaps mention the noise from the gaming initially (as its less of an emotive subject than criticising their parenting) and judge from their reaction to that whether or not you subsequently mention the baby noise.

This.

as russianbob said, they may not be aware that the noise travels.

If after a quiet word, nothing happens, maybe time to have a word with the landlord.

I don’t think it’s an overreaction to think of social services – having a baby makes you realise how wrong it is to keep little children up very late every night.

Yeah, and don’t forget to phone the social services of the respective, Spanish, Italian & Greek authorities whilst you’re at it!

FFS.

What type of property is it? Detached (guessing not), semi-detached or terraced. Also what age is it?

You going alone and having a chat might work for a bit, but then they will forget, fall back into old habits and the noise will continue. If it’s terraced then the people on the other side are probably having issues too. So get them on board and if both sets of people say something to them the noisy lot are probably likely to take it a bit more seriously.

Falling that there are a quite a few options, noise abatement notices, threat of eviction from landlord, noise monitoring, checking sound insulation specification of the walls etc. E.g. in that latter case, they might not actually be that noisy, your previous neighbours may have been very quiet and the walls are not up to scratch. This can be quite common in both old and new buildings. I used to work in building acoustics sector

1) talk to them about how bad the sound proofing of the houses is gently point out how you can hear everything through the walls say if they are ever disturbed by you just to let you know.
2)in the event 1 fails talk to them say sorry to raise this but when you play your games could you use headphones etc cos it comes through in to our house oh and by the way are you having problems getting princess off to sleep?
3) write to your landlord firmly re your tenants they are causing as noise nuisance and wont stop you do something or I will and sue you for the costs involved.
4) move but be where 3 may have to be disclosed when you move so you may want to skip 3
or 3 ) tenancies tend to be 6 months speak to landlord see what he plans are after that.

I think most noise problems are caused by people simply not being aware

IME the main problem is they are aware and dont GAS tbh
WHo play a computer game through a sub woofer and thinks there neighbours wont hear it?

I’ve had similar problems in the past. I politely asked them if they were aware how noisy their tv/music etc was and would they mind toning things down please. In this case though,I suspect they won’t give a hoot. Who in their right mind lets a baby stay up that late?
I think Little miss panda et al has it…

best of luck

we moved house to avoid similar problems, and dont regret it for a second.

they don’t seem like the types to reason with

Have you tried?

Like others have said MTFU and go round and speak to them politely. Don’t get all condescending about parenting, people do things differently and some kids are a nightmare through the night. I say that from experience, my neighbours probably hated us after my son was born, he didn’t sleep through until he was 4, we’d moved house and he was sharing a room with his sister! And there was regular screaming while we tried to settle him, some of that was poor and inexperienced parenting from us and some of that was just the way he was.

My daughter on the other hand was an angel at bed time, guess we knew what we were doing second time round though!!

Give them a chance, you’ll be the bigger man for it.

I wouldn’t count on your landlord getting involved. We had environmental health involved but the landlord (who was also our landlord) wasn’t interested. Luckily we were renting so got to move instead.

Take some hints from here:

22 Outstanding Neighbour Complaint Notes

i think someone on here played classical music as loud as possible then went out for the weekend.

yours is a common problem. our neighbour shouts at her 19 month old when it wakes at 3am and screams what the ‘f’ do you want? the poor little mite goes to bed at stupid o’clock and has to endure her parent’s late night drink and drugs gatherings.

imo you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Again.. As mentioned above, your prejudices may be misplaced..

Give him a try but appeal along the lines of the common ground..Say that their evening noise is keeping your kid awake which is causing problems obviously..
Assume they’re innocent until they prove you wrong.. I look absolutely **** despicable in the flesh, but I’m actually a tremendously obliging neighbour 😀

That poor child shouldn’t consistently be up so late.

Taking that particular moral high ground, I think Bombers are the best option.

Yes it’s a terraced house and we’ve noticed how thin the walls are since moving in – we just got used to the slamming of doors and occasional weekend noise from both sides. This is of a different order. Not only is it disruptive but sad to think this toddler is basically being entirely let down by parents who clearly don’t care about getting their house in order, as it were.

It’s a nice house in an up and coming type area and my assumption on sale point was that Victorian builds had thick party walls. Wrong, there are evidently more gaps in the bricks than a colander. So we’re willing to accept that, negotiate with neighbours and keep the peace, but how can one go about telling someone to completely alter their chaotic home lifestyle?

I would be willing to sell up and move but we’ve got to open a dialogue first. Fortunately our ex neighbour turned landlord is friendly and my partner spoke to her today. She seemed sympathetic and suggested we discuss this further with her. We’ll see what can be done. It’s so hard to escape a noisy house with a baby on board, not like how it used to be – at one point I’d have been stopping out at mates’houses or late pubs if not night riding. Buying now seems like a poor decision. Can’t afford sound proofing (dmorts- what would you suggest? I think sound travels through poor plaster work, through gaps in brick and through the floorboards too – my thoughts are that it’s a big job, not worth the expense. We’ve even got some walls of the lath and plaster variety). Can’t move any time soon. Tonight, however, sounds noticeably silent. Fingers crossed they don’t turn up at 4 am having play group in the next bedroom to us tonight!

Mate had similar issues and decided to sell without raising it as he would have had to declare the ‘dispute’ in the sellers declaration thingy.

Make them aware of the problem by inviting one of them into your home whilst the other parent, child and games consol/TV is on thier usual setting and let them hear the noise so they understand the situation. Nothing you can do about baby noise though as most toddlers will wake up early and some won’t settle til late. Any noise after 1am can be reported to the police if it goes on into the early hours. You will have to keep a log and involve the local council and other neighbours if it effects anyone else. Failing that, I usually find classical music or some hardcore gabba with some full sub bass gets the message across rather well.

I usually find classical music or some hardcore gabba with some full sub bass gets the message across rather well.

+1 for Gabba

I recommend Naim for winning noise wars.

Whilst quite an expensive option, it’s definitely less expensive than moving house. So see it as a good value investment.

Agreed zokes.

My next door neighbours lovely but teenage daughter had obviously been used to the deaf old couple that were here before .

Woke up at 9 with a really shitty stomach on a saturday morning to happy hardcore.at high volume in my room – which is not on a party wall , saw her mum was out

Fired open the cd player – saw iron maiden and stuck on run to the hills.

She got the point and we get along fine now

my right little pain in the arse (she`s sweet really) is VERY load and up at will as we have to take the cot side off as she will climb/fall out.

there nipper might just be a pain going to bed. ours is a similar age to theirs too. i`m grateful we have a detatched house.

up about 6 times last night. i`m at work for a rest.. what gin for making a nipper sleep? or better still daddy sleep!

our first kid was a great low volume lap child..

Those advocating noise retaliation, its not going to help the neighbour’s kid is it! Its not the kid’s fault. Just talk to the bloke and stop being so utterly pathetic.

Terraced house will have double brick party walls, i.e. the same as external walls. However as they are internal and not seen, no doubt that corners will have been cut when they were built and there are probably a lot of gaps in the mortar.

I’d advise against attempting any sound insulation. A vast improvement can be made to a double brick wall by taking back to brick, skimming with a parge coat then building a stud wall of double “Soundbloc” plasterboard in front of it. Then Rockwool insulation between the studs. But there are issues with this. There needs to be a gap between the brick wall and new stud wall of 75-100mm, therefore you lose this off the rooms. Also with this you don’t stop noise flanking over the ceiling and external walls (unless you redo all walls and ceilings in the house!). Flanking noise can seriously degrade any improvement to the point that it’s not worth doing. A bit on flanking noise

Working with an existing structure is always difficult as a lot of things will be hidden. You might get improvement with taking back to brick, skimming to fill holes and then adding two layers of 12.5mm Soundbloc plasterboard on dot and dab…. Essentially anything worthwhile will take a lot of work and expense. There are unfortunately no easy shortcuts like acoustic foam, soundproof paint etc.. although there are people may try to sell you stuff like that

I think negotiation is the way forward. Get on good terms with the landlord and get the tenants kicked out at the 6 month break clause point…

So … to summarise…. you need to keep noise logs, get the police and/or social services involved to get your neighbours kicked out by the landlord, or even move house? Or maybe start a high volume sub-woofer confrontation? Before countenancing the radical idea of nipping around and having a chat? Brilliant! You couldn’t make it up!

Have you thought about a career in international diplomacy? What the UN needs in delicate and potentially confrontational situations around the globe is this type of approach. It can’t fail! 😆

Faced issues like this many times in Edinburgh tenements. After years of calm and inclusive negotiating with numerous neighbouring tenants, I came to realise that there is only one language that will be clearly understood, and you’d better be pretty tough to even go there.

Have a word, and if that fails, and the landlord can’t/ won’t resolve it, move house. It really isn’t worth the hassle. These people play by different rules to the rest of us.

We’re planning on a discussion with them, but I just can’t see how it’s going to work. They’re clearly on a different planet, and you can’t expect people to change their lives and routines to appease the neighbours.

I’ve no idea what’s going on, but, for instance, it was quiet last night then they come home at 11.30pm and we hear the child on and off until 1am. That’s not normal, in terms of child care. We’re not talking about a child with sleeping problems, we’re talking about parents who do not care about their child’s bed time and think it’s ok to have her awake when they are awake. There’s no attempt to quieten down at toddler bed time. Which is why we’re thinking more social services than neighbourly chats.

Thanks for all the replies – we’ve got more of a strategy to work on now.

There’s no attempt to quieten down at toddler bed time. Which is why we’re thinking more social services than neighbourly chats.

Who are you to decide what time their kids should or shouldnt be up until ?

OK, i happen to agree with you.. but i’m 100% certain it’s none of my business. Whilst i agree the issue of noise is 100% your business, how the do or don’t raise their child really isn’t your/my business.

I don’t know if you’ve had much dealing with the child protection people at your local social services, hopefully not.

I suspect that you will find that “their kid is up late” won’t get the level of attention you seem to think it should.

We’re planning on a discussion with them, but I just can’t see how it’s going to work. They’re clearly on a different planet, and you can’t expect people to change their lives and routines to appease the neighbours.

You’re approaching this from the wrong way.

Assuming that they’re not the sort of people to consider and act on your request means that you’ll either not make your request at all (having convinced yourself of the futility) or your tone will come across as confrontational.

Decide what you really care about. Is it just noise, or is it their parenting choices.

Go and speak to them about the thing you care about. Be prepared that they may not like your request (that’s life), but also be prepared to come to an agreement on what is/isn’t OK for everyone. Leave your prejudices at home.

Had I thought this way when I had noise issues from neighbours, I suspect it may have been resolved more easily.

Noisy neighbours (especially drugged up 40 year-olds playing endless loops of the same CD at full chat at 3am midweek) are ghastly. Start at the first step: speak to them. If that doesn’t work, persevere and then move onto the other options.

Good luck.