Semi-D neighbour complaining about noise

Mag23456

Hi there,

I'm new to Boards so apologies in advance if I've posted this in the wrong place!

We moved in to our new build 3 bed semi d over a year ago. The house is an A rated house, well insulated and of a very high build standard.

About 4 months in we received a visit from the neighbour next door asking us to close the door quietly in the morning when we leave for work. Fine we said. Understanding that we both leave between 6-7am each morning and the neighbours appeared to always be at home.
Then 2 months ago we got another complaint - this time via text message. My partner had to leave for work at 5:30 and he received a text message asking him to go quietly down the stairs in the morning and the neighbour complained that the houses are not up to the build quality that he expected. I have to add at this point that neither myself nor my partner wake each other up in the morning when leaving for work. Against my advice my partner decided to just ignore the text as he deemed it completely ridiculous.

On Saturday morning just gone, the neighbour called in to ask my partner to my partner to come in to their house for a 'chat'. He proceeded to say that our dog has been barking continuously and it's causing himself and his wife a world of stress. We have a small dog who has access to our house via a dog flap. She doesn't bark during the day according to other neighbours but she will bark if someone enters the house or calls to the door. The neighbour proceeded to play videos recordings that he had made of our dog barking in the utility room.
Once every two weeks we have a cleaner call to the house for two hours. The cleaner was in the house on Friday and that's when we reckon the recordings were made.

Really I'm just looking for some advice here. I would like to like to get a solicitors letter or something to ask them to stop complaining about ridiculous household noises. Essentially I'd like to remind them that they bought a semi detached house and they need to just get over it.
My partner reckons we have to just live with the complaints - humouring them or ignoring it as we have to live next to them for the foreseeable future.

For reference: the neighbours are in their 30's. We've never had any parties, work long hours and are rarely home. The dog is well exercised, quiet and barking is limited to the cleaner or postman. I have set up a webcam to check in on the dog and there has been no 'excessive barking' or barking for long periods with the exception of Friday when the cleaner was in.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can share!

intheclouds

So he has video evidence of your dog barking and you want to send him a solicitor letter?

You sound like an unreasonable neighbour who does not take a noise complaint seriously.

Why dont you sort out the noise rather than send a solicitors letter to the neighbour?

Cork2015!

Mag23456 wrote: »

Hi there,

I'm new to Boards so apologies in advance if I've posted this in the wrong place!

We moved in to our new build 3 bed semi d over a year ago. The house is an A rated house, well insulated and of a very high build standard.

About 4 months in we received a visit from the neighbour next door asking us to close the door quietly in the morning when we leave for work. Fine we said. Understanding that we both leave between 6-7am each morning and the neighbours appeared to always be at home.
Then 2 months ago we got another complaint - this time via text message. My partner had to leave for work at 5:30 and he received a text message asking him to go quietly down the stairs in the morning and the neighbour complained that the houses are not up to the build quality that he expected. I have to add at this point that neither myself nor my partner wake each other up in the morning when leaving for work. Against my advice my partner decided to just ignore the text as he deemed it completely ridiculous.

On Saturday morning just gone, the neighbour called in to ask my partner to my partner to come in to their house for a 'chat'. He proceeded to say that our dog has been barking continuously and it's causing himself and his wife a world of stress. We have a small dog who has access to our house via a dog flap. She doesn't bark during the day according to other neighbours but she will bark if someone enters the house or calls to the door. The neighbour proceeded to play videos recordings that he had made of our dog barking in the utility room.
Once every two weeks we have a cleaner call to the house for two hours. The cleaner was in the house on Friday and that's when we reckon the recordings were made.

Really I'm just looking for some advice here. I would like to like to get a solicitors letter or something to ask them to stop complaining about ridiculous household noises. Essentially I'd like to remind them that they bought a semi detached house and they need to just get over it.
My partner reckons we have to just live with the complaints - humouring them or ignoring it as we have to live next to them for the foreseeable future.

For reference: the neighbours are in their 30's. We've never had any parties, work long hours and are rarely home. The dog is well exercised, quiet and barking is limited to the cleaner or postman. I have set up a webcam to check in on the dog and there has been no 'excessive barking' or barking for long periods with the exception of Friday when the cleaner was in.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can share!

Do the neighbours have young kids?

IvoryTower

I would ignore them they sounds unreasonable to me

Mag23456

No kids but they are at home all day. I can totally understand noise complaints if they are legit but this just seems mad. Has anyone had experience with deterring these complaints? Legal or otherwise? It's just getting ridiculous at this stage

athtrasna

Moved to stand alone thread. Welcome to boards OP, a rule of thumb is that if the post is more than a year old, start a new thread. I've closed the three year old thread you'd previously reactivated. Thanks

gordongekko

Don't send a solicitor letter. You may have to live beside these people for the rest of your life. Try to keep things civil with them.

April 73

gordongekko wrote: »

Don't send a solicitor letter. You may have to live beside these people for the rest of your life. Try to keep things civil with them.

I agree. A solicitors letter will destroy any hope you having of living peacefully with your neighbours.

Next time they knock, say you're sorry but you aren't having parties or dancing on the ceiling, you are just living a normal life & cannot be any quieter than you are. Do your best not to bang doors or pound up & down the stairs early or late & after that forget it & politely rebuff them.

Neighbour wars are no fun.

Eric Cartman

might it be worth getting an engineer out to take a look. If I was living in an A rated insulated home and could hear my neighbours walking down the stairs id be rightly pissed.

TheQuietFella

I find dogs barking continuously very irritating.

The smaller the dog the more vocal they tend to be!

jopax

I think they are being very unreasonable to yee.
Nothing wrong with the way yee are living, its a pity they didn't have bad neighbours who were throwing parties all the time, then they would know what noise is.
I don't know how I would handle this to be honest, I think it depends on how far they keep pushing things.
Does anyone else you know in the estate have similar issues or is it just the couple next door.
Also just wondering where they lived before, do they have unreasonable expectations of a semi d.

Charles Babbage

The dog is one thing, but they shouldn't really be aware of whether you are walking on the stairs or not, so they wouldn't be in position to say what time you did it. A person walking responsibly on properly carpeted stairs should be invisible to the neighbours, however sensitive they are. So either the stairs not properly fitted or you are not using them properly.

TheQuietFella

jopax wrote: »

Also just wondering where they lived before, do they have unreasonable expectations of a semi d.

It depends on what you mean by 'unreasonable expectations'

Turtle_

Doggy daycare on the days the cleaner comes.

dealornodeal23

Tell them that's their problem if they can't live with your normal everyday life noises either they put up with it or move house

quadrifoglio verde

I'd be having a party every Friday night for the next four weeks. Noise stops at 11 o clock which is perfectly fine.
Reasonable but might teach them a bit of cop on.

Dogs bark, a door closing normally makes noise, if all you want to hear is the birds tweeting in the trees, then they should move to the countryside. However they'd probably get annoyed with the sound of the tractor and cows mooing.

What's going to be their next complaint? You and your partner have a child and it cries

These people will complain to you about everything and anything and if you keep giving in they'll keep bringing up something else.

Squatman

you should visit your neighbour, and have your other half walk up and down the stairs normally, while your in their house to determine if it is a legitimate problem. To demonstrate it, you could have his wife go up and down the stairs normally too, and that would demonstrate if there is a legitimate problem or not. Perhaps there is poor noise insulation between both houses, and perhaps there is a problem with the mounting of the stairs against the boundary wall, you wont really know until you carry out this test first. IMO

caviardreams

Do you have wooden floors at all OP? This could be contributing.

el_gaucho

It would be reasonable of the neighbours to expect that a new build would be built to a higher standard. It isn't, which is not your fault. A properly constructed party wall should block the kind of sounds you mention.
A rating is irrelevant anyway, thermal insulation is different to sound insulation. You can retrofit sound insulation. It could be expensive though.

April 73

There have been a lot of these "noisey neighbour" threads recently.
Maybe the best thing to do is go to the neighbour's house & listen for the noise of someone running up & down the stairs, closing the front door & the dog barking. Perhaps there is something about the insulation or a gap between the houses that amplifies sound & makes it worse in their house than you'd believe possible.

The dog could be a genuine issue. People will have different perceptions of "excessive" barking. A dog barking next door from me in a semi-d would irritate me I must admit.

Better to try to see what the problem might be before it escalates too much. If you find there's really no justification for their complaints then you can draw a line under it & chalk it down to their sensitivity.

godwin

As someone who dealt with noisy neighbours for years you can basically ignore him, the council will do nothing,the guards will do nothing. Tell him to get some ear plugs for sleeping. At least you try to be quiet.

senordingdong

New builds are notorious for this. Lower standards and cheaper materials.
The 'A rating' means nothing, builder can get whatever rating he wants if the face fits.

Any physical remedies will be expensive and unreasonable for you to shoulder alone.
It sounds like they're being hyper sensitive and in my experience you get used to hearing normal domestic noises so it's worth sitting down and reasoning this with them, then present them with complaints of your own to emphasise that this isa mutual problem as a result of bad building and not from you being unreasonable.

But out of curiosity, what are a couple, in their thirties, in a new build, doing at home all day?

Chijj

Sound like boring idiots who have nothing else to worry about.

I wouldn't sweat it OP, could it be a case the house was vacant and they were in effect spoiled in having no neighbours?

deandean

OP what's it like in your house, can you hear your neighbours on the stairs or banging the front door?

The sound travel will be the same in both directions. If you can't hear them, they shouldn't be able to hear much of you.

Maybe your neighbours need to move to a detached house to meet their special need for quietness.

enricoh

Ignore them. If neither of them are working they have too much time on there hands and trivial stuff becomes big stuff.
God love them if they woke up at 7 in the morning some morning as ye went off too work. It must be a killer for them. With a bit of luck they'll be on to the council for a change of gaff.

seamus

Incredible the amount of people who think that a reasonable response to a complaint is to make more noise or send a solicitor's letter.

On the dog, you're going to need to sort that sh1t out. I have a dog who never barks. Next door have a dog who'll bark at a mouse's fart. Yes, it's annoying, especially when you're trying to relax and watch TV and the stupid dog is barking at people coming and going. We're pretty easy going so we don't make a fuss about it (and the neighbours are embarrassed by it), and it never goes on more than a minute or two.

They have a recording of the dog barking continuously (for 2 hours?). That's unacceptable, you need to sort it out. Either put the dog in daycare or get a cleaner who likes dogs so you don't have to lock it in the utility room. When she comes.

Also, work on its behaviour. If the dog barks when people arrive at the front door, then keep the dog restricted to the back of the house. If your doorbell sets him off, replace it with a bell that's less jarring. Train the dog to not react when people arrive.

That's not to say of course that these neighbours aren't being overly sensitive, but that's one thing I have to deal with so I can understand how some people would find it really annoying.

On the general noise issue - as others say, I would offer to hear the noise for yourself. Ask to go into their house so you can hear what's going on when someone is using your stairs. There is also a test that can be done to verify the noise insulation properties of a wall. Offer to go halves with the neighbour on this test. If the build standard is found to be below the legal requirements, the builder can be required to return and rectify the problem.

So many people quick to assume that a complaint from a neighbour is just them being a pest. I'm sure they have no more desire to be making complaints to you than you have to receive them.

Riverireland

"The neighbour proceeded to play videos recordings that he had made of our dog barking in the utility room."

How exactly did he video the dog in your utility room. Did he go into your garden and point the camera in the window and record the dog? If he did I would be mightily peed off.

JustAThought

My new renting neighbour sets off at 6 or 7 am every morning - slams the car door & whacks on the carradio - luckily his wife got to him for waking the baby before I got to him - it is really annonying. Particularly as I am happily asleep & then brutally woken by someone elses thoughtlessness. Grrrrrr

Everybody is very 'how dare they' but nobody want's to be a complainer & people are usually driven to it when it is something that happens habitually & they see no end to it. Do you have wooden floors on the stairs? Do you gallop up & down while retrieving bits & forgotten pieces!?Did your wife drag a wheelie case down behind her? If it was mid afternoon they probably wouldn't care because you wouldn't be waking them up. You could try just walking softly & save yourself the trouble & expense of a solicitors letter.

A kinder solicitor would refuse to take your money & point out that it looks as thou they are building a solid case to bring you to the district court for a noise case. It costs e10, no solicitor is required, it is a very regular thing & is heard quickly by a judge who can order you (eg) to not slam your doors before 9am, not cause any further dog annoyance to your neighbour, have your dog seized by the dog warden, or worse, etc. Tbh it sounds like they are already well underway with the process where you have to demonstrate proof, having tried to reason with the 'offenders', and the problem being documented as persisting. People like to do their own thing & not be nagged, & everyone just wants to live in calm & on good terms with their neighbours.

An absolutely awful thing happened a few years back to someone with either 3 or 4 terriers whose noise drove their neighbours mad. It ended up in court & the judge actually gave the order to either get rid of them, have them seized or destroyed or 'silenced'. To see those dogs bark & no noise come out bar a tiny whisper of a high pitched bark is horrific & even all the local dogs shun ghem & move away. I am still in disbelief that a judge would or could order something as barbaric as this, but he did. There are lots of dog haters out there & it could go badly wrong for you. Maybe your cleaner could come on a Saturday? Sounds like the dog is happy left to its own devices. Maybe a locked gate to prevent door knockers & random callers? Might help?

Either way good luck. You don't want to be on bad terms with your neighbours - if its a small enough or reasonable enough thing to keep the peace I would.

bohsfan

A lot of people quick to attack the neighbour here. What difference does it make if they are at home most days? Perhaps one or both work from home, or have medical issues? Who knows.

There are two sides to every story- they might be sitting next door wondering why two people who are rarely home have a dog. And maybe they are being hyper sensitive- who knows?

The advice to approach the neighbour to try and test the noise levels sounds good. At least you come across as someone trying to address the perceived issue rather than ignoring or escalating it.

mad m

Just a thought, can you suggest to neighbour to go half on a sound engineer and do a Building Acoustics test on both of your properties. If the engineer says its within limits of daily living then your neighbour hasn't a pot to pi$$ in but if not the engineer will suggest measures to take.

http://acoustic-environmental.ie/building-acoustics/

In no way affiliated with company above, I just did a goole search.

irish_dave_83

Can you hear them at all when you are home? But I think they are being unreasonable, I live in a semi-D and we hear the neighbours sometimes, and I'm sure they hear us as well, but there is not a lot you can do about it without spending some money on the house itself.

But if you are willing to spend some money, maybe suggest it to your neighbours and see if they will split the cost with you, as you don't seem to be doing anything out of the norm.

People are entitled to have dogs, walk/run up and down their stairs, obviously there are extremes but it doesn't sound like you are anywhere near them.

DavyD_83

Eric Cartman wrote: »

might it be worth getting an engineer out to take a look. If I was living in an A rated insulated home and could hear my neighbours walking down the stairs id be rightly pissed.

Possibly, but really sounds like it would be upto the neighbours to get an engineer out to insulate their house. Presumably noise would be travelling in both directions, but is not upsetting the OP.

We are attached to students, who we can hear going up and down the stairs, etc etc. Usually it's not an issue. We have added extra insulation(soundproofing boards) our adjoining bedroom wall, to reduce the noise coming through and it works. Before the upgrade, we could hear the lads chatting next door at night (nothing loud or unreasonable).
I certainly would not have expected the neighbours to implement a vow of silence after our bedtime, or to insulate their wall to prevent sound escaping their room.

Our house (3-bed-semi) was built around '85, and seems like soundproofing was not a priority.

crusha101

My living situation is very similar to yours except we have never received a complaint, We have a dog that barks when a stranger enters the house or when other dogs start barking , 2 of us in the house leave at 7 am for work while our neighbors leave at 9, we live in a new build semi d which isn't as sound proof as we first imagined but neither us or our neighbors have ever had a problem , meanwhile on the other hand our good friends living in the same type house across the road have received complaint after complaint after complaint from their neighbor and i can assure you they are not a noisy bunch ,it has went as far as them ringing the guards and it just happened the responding guard was my friends uncle they have also rang the husband who they knew was in Dubai working to tell them that the dog is barking, what is he supposed to do in Dubai ?? Neighbors are like family you cant choose them, its mostly a lotto and it looks like you got the short end of the straw

snoopy29

We have the exact same problem with our new build semi. Our neighbours work shifts and always leave around 5am and the banging of internal and external doors generally wakes me up even through earplugs and the master bedroom is on the far end of the house. We had numerous "chats" with our neighbour during the first year as they were also playing loud music out the back garden. My husband went into their house and asked him to show how they were closing doors etc. I can hear them and the dog running up and down the stairs. We have complained several times but basically after 2.5 yrs its just not going to change. They have stopped the loud music and parties to be fair but the door banging and hearing him on his phone and loud TV is persistant and short of moving out, its unlikely to change.

Little CuChulainn

If you're dog is barking for the full two hours the cleaner is there then that is a very legitimate complaint. For the rest of the stuff it might be worth exploring the possibility of going halves with them on some additional soundproofing. It's unlikely they are making up hearing the doors open and closing so dismissing them is probably not going to make them go away.

REFLINE1

mad m wrote: »

Just a thought, can you suggest to neighbour to go half on a sound engineer and do a Building Acoustics test on both of your properties. If the engineer says its within limits of daily living then your neighbour hasn't a pot to pi$ in but if not the engineer will suggest measures to take.

http://acoustic-environmental.ie/building-acoustics/
In no way affiliated with company above, I just did a goole search.

Excellent practical non-confrontational advice. I would be making a friend of this person and not an enemy if at all possible. The "f&*k him attitude will end in tears. Make the builder the enemy
And sort out the yappy dog if possible

loyatemu

Poor sound proofing - if you can't hear him then it's his problem, ignore his complaints & let him sort it out by improving the sound proofing on his side.

Yappy dog - your problem; if you're both out all day leaving the dog home alone you should consider a dog-sitter/doggy daycare. It also undermines your case on the other noise complaint.

ted1

intheclouds wrote: »

So he has video evidence of your dog barking and you want to send him a solicitor letter?

You sound like an unreasonable neighbour who does not take a noise complaint seriously.

Why dont you sort out the noise rather than send a solicitors letter to the neighbour?

No he sounds perfectly reasonable. It's a semi D and there just going on about their business closing doors when they leave, going down stairs.

ted1

DavyD_83 wrote: »

Possibly, but really sounds like it would be upto the neighbours to get an engineer out to insulate their house. Presumably noise would be travelling in both directions, but is not upsetting the OP.

We are attached to students, who we can hear going up and down the stairs, etc etc. Usually it's not an issue. We have added extra insulation(soundproofing boards) our adjoining bedroom wall, to reduce the noise coming through and it works. Before the upgrade, we could hear the lads chatting next door at night (nothing loud or unreasonable).
I certainly would not have expected the neighbours to implement a vow of silence after our bedtime, or to insulate their wall to prevent sound escaping their room.

Our house (3-bed-semi) was built around '85, and seems like soundproofing was not a priority.

Ours was built in 84 and sound isn't an issue , the stairs and Doir are at opposite sides of the building. The only noise we here is the curtain rail being used in the front room.

intheclouds

ted1 wrote: »

No he sounds perfectly reasonable. It's a semi D and there just going on about their business closing doors when they leave, going down stairs.

Letting a dog bark for 2 hours doesnt sound reasonable to me.

DavyD_83

ted1 wrote: »

Ours was built in 84 and sound isn't an issue , the stairs and Doir are at opposite sides of the building. The only noise we here is the curtain rail being used in the front room.

Not saying it's an issue for all houses at the time, and OP's is a new build so prob not even that relevant.
Our stairs are on far side of houses too, unfortunately bedrooms are on joint side.

As the houses are new build, would you have any re-course with the builders? Although I'd imagine this would only be possible if can be proven to be below regulation rather than below buyers expectations.

If not, I still say as long as noise is as reasonable as OP has outlined (with exception of dog), then it's up to neighbour to soundproof their walls or get over it.

ThisRegard

For the poster with the accusatory question as to what someone in their 30s is doing at home all day, they might be like me, works from home. At this stage I know how every neighbour sounds who lives in my immediate area. By far the most annoying are those with dogs that bark for ages at the slightest sound.

You can live with the odd bit of music on a day like this(apart from the dsh dsh dsh of God awful euro ****e) but barking dogs push me to the edge, and I have 2 myself. Don't underestimate how irritating it is, especially when you know it might go on until when the owner returns home.

Interior noise can travel easily, best solution as others pointed out may be to agree to go halves on more soundproofing.

TheDoc

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

If you're dog is barking for the full two hours the cleaner is there then that is a very legitimate complaint. For the rest of the stuff it might be worth exploring the possibility of going halves with them on some additional soundproofing. It's unlikely they are making up hearing the doors open and closing so dismissing them is probably not going to make them go away.

IF the OP doesn't hear the neighbours making the same noise then I don't see why the OP should pay out of pocket for this.

The dog is something to deal with for sure and improve training and the environment for the dog so its not going mental. When we moved into our last house we realised our dog was barking in the middle of the night for ages.

I'm pretty conscious of not causing excess noise,so for a few nights I got up at the hour the barking would occur to scope it out. Coped that a neighbour behind worked nights and turned on his light at like 3am, and the dog caught the reflection in our door and would go mad.

Moved his kennel so he didnt get sight on the window, problem solved. We had no complaints, but took the first steps knowing it would be annoying. Other neighbours in that area have dogs who go non stop and it was a pretty horrendous noisey place at times.

As for the living noise, certain amount of tough **** here. Modern builds seem to be absolutely garbage for noise. Our old house was the same. I'd hear everything the neighbours would do, close a press, walking on floor, flushing a toilet. And surely the same for them with us.

We moved into a new rented house over the weekend, much older house and we dont hear a peep from the neighbours. Our little one got very unsettled first night in and it was a slog getting her to settle. Next morning going out to work caught the nieghbour and apologised for any noise from my daughter and he said he couldn't hear a peep, that the houses here are solid.

IF your neighbour has a problem with noise from general living, they can get an engineer out to assess. IF they are new builds, then its shocking for an A rate house they have walls that thin, but then I'm not surprised. New builds seem to have some poor quality material and building techniques as opposed to older houses.

As mentioned above no one will have an interest in this, so your neighbour cant threaten anything. So I wouldn't go down the legal route, courts or authorities literally wont give a **** and you will be wasting your money. Instead try maintain a relationship there, keep things civil, but I wouldnt go offering to open your wallet for a problem your neighbour has, that sounds unreasonable.

Bar the dog, the dog barking for two hours is a pain in the hole, daytime or not.

simdan

The OP has closed their account

Fian

For what it is worth I have a neighbour who would complain when our children were playing football in our back garden in the evenings. Their garden backed on to ours and they wanted peace and quiet in their garden so they could sit out and enjoy it. While I sympathised (slightly) I was not about to tell our children that they could not play in their own garden. We have never really gotten on since, they think we are "bad neighbours" and that we are unreasonable not to keep our children quiet. We think they are oversensitive and have unreasonable expectations of quiet in a suburban setting. As they got more frustrated they started calling over the fence to tell our kids to be quiet which meant we got very annoyed with them. I know it is reciprocated too.

Subsequently their own children grew a bit older and are now playing in their garden themselves, though not really playing football. Anyway we don't even notice the noise but we are getting less complaints from them as their own kids become louder. Also I suppose as they no longer want their kids to go to sleep at 7 pm.

Anyway we are never going to be friendly which is a shame because we are likely to be neighbours for a very long time. But basically the only sensible solution (imo) is to state clearly what you regard as reasonable in terms of noise demands and to just try to ignore each other after that.

athtrasna

simdan wrote: »

The OP has closed their account

And for that reason, thread closed. Hope the op takes into account some of the very helpful responses they got on here. Mod