You may have noticed that many of my posts are not exactly filled with jollity and often have a melancholic overtone throughout.
I do apologise for this, but the reason is that I live next to the neighbours from hell. Seriously, I’ve lived in over 50 different places and even though I got arrested at my last home for punching my neighbour after he let his barking dogs out at 5am for nearly two years running, despite our repeated requests not to (my wife worked the late 12 hour shift and we didn’t get to bed much before 1a.m. - his garden fence came right up to the corner of our bungalow’s bedroom) this lot are worse.
Pretty much every evening, every weekend, either all day Saturday or ‘just’ Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday he’s got his power tools out. Not only that, he sets his workbench up just feet away from our back door - he couldn’t get it any closer to our house. In the week they built a wooden workshop which runs along the other side of the fence, but he’s still doing all his bench-cutter work etc in the same place.
They also had two children a couple of years back, who they let behave however they like - which usually involves hammering things, screaming very loudly as much as they can, like little girls, though they are two boys.
Would you believe, the mother is a registered childminder and has a group of children to ‘look after’ every weekday. We never had a problem with those - they behave really well, it’s their own children that are the noisy ones (and yes, I’ve had my own and I know what it’s like, but these children are completely uncontrolled).
We have some friends, the people who live the other side of these nighbours.They are around 80 years old now and she suffers anxiety, parkinsons and all sorts of stuff. They complained to the council and got fobbed off. They ended up buying a caravan, just to get away - and now they go away every month - just to get away from the noise. Now they are considering selling their house, even though they have lived here all their married life and were happy here before. Unfortunately, we can’t do that.
I’d like to pay the guy a visit with my baseball bat, Maude, but I’m not going to go to jail for this barsteward.
Anyway, just a few words of explanation - I’m not a miserable old, cynical git - I’m just miserable.
My wife and I are actively looking for a new house and the biggest reason for me is the new farm worker. He has arrived with an obnoxious wife 9 Australian sheep dogs and a n Australian cattle dog. They bark incessantly and the bloke takes great delight in taking his dogs to the sheep pens opposite our guest house at 6.30 and swearing at the top of his voice at them. I complained to the landlord at the time it first started but nothing is getting done. I think his error will be apparent when our 1300 quid a month rent stops.
I feel for you and understand how problems with neighbours can take over your every waking thought. There are laws regarding noise at unacceptable levels. Better to try to stay within the law but I bet you could make life as awkward for the noisy huggers. Have you thought about a peacock
Hah ha, yeah, thanks. I’ve tried very hard to think of a way to get “even”, but I couldn’t think of anything so far. Thing is, I’m normally a nice, friendly type of person and get on with everyone, which is how I like it.
Unfortunately, I’m very bad at dealing with these situations and especially with confontrations of this kind. After I wrote that post this morning, things came to a head between us. We (my wife, dog and I ) decided to go out for the morning to get away from the noise, but before we left, I told them exactly that - that we were going away just to get some peace and quiet, and she came back with a really nasty response and also came out with the old “it’s our right” crap. They don’t seem to realise it’s also our, and our neighbours right to not have our live turned upside down by their inconsiderate actions.
Anyway, I lost my temper and gave them a mouthful and off we went. He was calling his parents as we left (his old man was a policeman - funny that, last time I lost my temper with them they called the police, too! Unbelievable). After we came back, their parents arrived and would you believe, they were suddenly an awful lot quieter than before, and soon after went out themselves - so now we have our bliss!!
Seriously, though, I was dangerously close to losing it earlier. I’m off to the doc tomorrow to see if I can get some uppers or something! Luckily, I already have Diazepam for my back injury (it relaxes the muscles), so I popped a couple of those earlier.
Would you believe - they did actually call the police! Got a visit an hour ago. Sorted, though, as far as they are concerned. I apologised to them, that they were called out for something so pathetic as an argument.
What gets me is that, according to the law, they are allowed to make as much noise as they like between 07:00 and 23:00hrs 7 days a week! I’ve never known that in any other country.
Well, good luck with your problem, Cib. I hope you get a good place.
Did you research that or did they tell you that? I’d be surprised if that was actually the case. At least here in Austria there are a lot of regulations on what is reasonable regarding noise and what is not. The reason for that being that permanent exposure to too much noise can be an intolerably large stressor and have dire consequences on somebodies health over the long term, effects ranging from psychological manifestations like depression to cardiovascular diseases, etc. If it really is as bad as you say, i’d invest some time into talking with a lawyer or a construction engineer who know the regulations.
Exactly, mate - that’s why I’m so amazed that this is actually the law in the UK. I had checked beforehand, but the cops confirmed that there is nothing I can do.
This explains a lot about the state of this country! I grew up respecting my neighbours and always thinking of the effect my actions would have on others, but it seems that these days it’s all “I want” and “It’s my right!”
All you can complain about is noise between 23:00 and 07:00hrs (and then only if it’s persistent) and working dog barking (not pets).
I spent most of my life in Cyprus and Germany and my friends from there would be shocked - and probably never come here - if they knew what the law was here. The UK is so far behind all the other Western countries in most things, it’s laughable when you hear the politician’s diatribe.
I have a huge amp upstairs for my guitars and bass - maybe I should be testing it out at 22:00hrs every night at full whack.
The cops were sympathetic, but they can only enforce the law, so they told me off for swearing at the neighbours (can you believe that) and said there was nothing else they can do.
I told them the neighbours are not victims in this case, but they disagreed. They weren’t interested in checking with the other affected party.
No worries @Brix, I hope you get it sorted out for your own mental health soon enough though! In the meantime I am sure all of our aquatic terran aficionados will be able to handle you
I’ll add my own grievancies here too…
We left an apartment in March which was paid until April- so we couldn’t cut off the services (water, gas and electricity just yet) and left the burden on the actual owner.
As of now we just discovered he didn’t cancel the services and we kept on paying for those bills.
Admittedly weren’t too high as there’s not usage but only taxes, but dammin, still…
I feel like I should really go medieval on that moron’s a$$ but it’s over three hours of car away so a physical confrontation is a bit out of place.
Order a tonne of quick drying ready mixed cement. Ask them to drop it on the drive of the owners house. Or keep ordering Pizza’s to be delivered to the offending person then they will have to pay for them at the door
I recommend imagining the most cruel and creative form of physical revenge, preferably something questionable in the eyes of the law, and post the details of your intent on a public forum so that the rest of us may encourage your downfall consequence-free.
Naah, my cousin is a Laywer.
I’m simply going to have him receive a stern letter with a reimbursment request.
And in case that fails I’m seriously going to sue his ass.
