Noisy neighbours- what's the law?

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[Europa1]

Have you tried your local council's website?

[Integroo]

I wondered this the other day. I live in a basement flat, and at around 9pm on Saturday I could hear loud music playing from upstairs, and stamping. It wasn't really the music that was the problem, but the droning bass line - obviously had a proper sound system. After an hour or so I got fed up and asked him to quieten it down. He did, and was very nice about it, and gave me his number in case it was still too loud. It was turned down a bit, I could still hear it but thought I will live with it. It however was turned back up half an hour later, and there was a lot of stamping such that ornaments on my shelves were vibrating. So I text him and got a snippy response about it being a Saturday night.

Is it lawful to make noise that disturbs your neighbours just because it is a Saturday night? Should I have just accepted it or was I right to complain? I have had mixed responses from people I have asked - some who say "it's a Saturday night, gotta live with it" and others who agree that I have a right to peace even at 9pm on a Saturday night.

[Vocal Minority]

Starter for 10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuisance_in_English_...

[Tony1963]

Integroo said:

So I text him and got a snippy response about it being a Saturday night.

Is it lawful to make noise that disturbs your neighbours just because it is a Saturday night? Should I have just accepted it or was I right to complain? I have had mixed responses from people I have asked - some who say "it's a Saturday night, gotta live with it" and others who agree that I have a right to peace even at 9pm on a Saturday night.

I'd say if someone wants to make a lot of noise ANY evening of the week, then they should buy a detached property.

[donkmeister]

Doesn't it all come down to "quiet enjoyment" of your home?

TLDR: we had noisy partying neighbours. Council useless as no one to investigate at night, police useless even though their guests were fighting and urinating in people's gardens. Noise abatement order did the trick but only after they violated it once.

Long version:
We had a neighbour who decided to have a sound system (in the Jamaican sense of the word) in the back garden during a very hot summer. The first day we shrugged and got on with our lives because surely it was just one Saturday, so what. By 1am we'd all been round to ask them to turn it down. 5am Sunday we were all thoroughly pee'd off. 9am Sunday I was thumping on their door to wake them up, got an apology but no assurances it was a one-off. 2am Monday morning they seemed genuinely surprised that an invitation to join the party didn't ameliorate the situation.

My other neighbour managed to get a noise abatement order on them, I think it took a couple of weeks. They violated it once, no idea what happened but never heard another peep even when they moved.
I genuinely don't think they wanted to upset anyone. Even though several of us had been firm and direct they felt the success of their druggy party was more important than other people getting sleep on a work night. Of course when their son (a mouthy little turd) won himself a thorough kicking a few weeks later they were up in arms...
(I had a moment of schadenfreude... Aren't I lovely?)

[cptsideways]

If you own your own home do NOT go down the official route

[Lemming Train]

Integroo said:

I wondered this the other day. I live in a basement flat, and at around 9pm on Saturday I could hear loud music playing from upstairs, and stamping. It wasn't really the music that was the problem, but the droning bass line - obviously had a proper sound system. After an hour or so I got fed up and asked him to quieten it down. He did, and was very nice about it, and gave me his number in case it was still too loud. It was turned down a bit, I could still hear it but thought I will live with it. It however was turned back up half an hour later, and there was a lot of stamping such that ornaments on my shelves were vibrating. So I text him and got a snippy response about it being a Saturday night.

Is it lawful to make noise that disturbs your neighbours just because it is a Saturday night? Should I have just accepted it or was I right to complain? I have had mixed responses from people I have asked - some who say "it's a Saturday night, gotta live with it" and others who agree that I have a right to peace even at 9pm on a Saturday night.

With all due respect, you don't move to a block of flats to have "a right to peace". That is naive in the extreme.

I currently live in the ground floor of a 4 storey apartment block having moved here to be close to a sick relative, but despite the landlord assuring me it was decent place and there was no trouble/noise I was under no illusions that the reality would be somewhat different. And it is. My landlord owns 4 out of the 8 and the crowd he had in on the top floor were young chavs who deemed it acceptable to have parties at least twice a week with all their windows wide open, music cranked up and them sitting on the window ledges screaming profanities at each other all night until they got bored/too drunk around 6am the next day and fell asleep/got taxis home. In fairness to the landlord they were evicted around 6 weeks later.

But then you get people moving out and fresh ones moving in that can be even worse than the last lot! The guy in the flat above me is a top bloke to talk to, but J H Christ his nonstop game playing from the minute he gets home from work until midnight every night of the week and all day all weekend really starts to grate after a while. I'm pretty sure it's either a Call of Duty type game or a space game from his sub woofer - all I hear is d-d-d-d-d-d-d-BANG, d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d, d-d-d, BANG, BANG, d-d-d-d-d - something akin to a gun firing and throwing grenades..

It's just part and parcel of living in a block of flats/apartments. Noise carries very easily (even with concrete floors between the flats) and you need to have some degree of tolerance for each other. Obviously the first example were completely taking the piss and I have no sympathy for them getting booted out, but the guy in the flat above me isn't doing anything "wrong" and annoying though it can be after a while, I wouldn't dream of going up and asking him to knock it on the head. If you don't want any noise, distrubances or other irritations, don't live in a flat or anywhere else where there's a lot of people crammed into a small area (new build housing estates, for example).

We have a council contact number for night noise issues but they are worse than useless from what the other residents have told me. All the 8 flats here have private landlords and any noise problems generally get sorted pretty quickly through a call to the management company who then contact the relevant landlord.

[cmvtec]

I think it depends what you're used to - I've lived almost exclusively in flats for ten years or so now - since I left home, and I've lived in all sorts of different flats, conversions, purpose built 150 year old Tyneside flats, purpose built apartment blocks (medium rise), and my current place is a flat purpose built in the early 90s, one of two nestled into a row of 3 bed family houses, with an old dear in the ground floor.

Seems to be from the time when floor space was still planned to be generous but built with Weyroc floors. I try to be as considerate as I can to the old dear but I've done quite a bit of noisy work on the place, so I keep it to sensible times. Reassuringly I hear her pottering around downstairs, which I'm quite happy to as I know shes OK.

Only problem I do have is that the woman that lives in the house next door has a dog with separation anxiety and it yaps constantly whenever she leaves it. I can hear that clearly through the wall, but she's an otherwise very good neighbour so I tolerate it.

If you're not used to living in flats, you will have problems.

[Lemming Train]

cmvtec said:

If you're not used to living in flats, you will have problems.

Yep . Living in flats requires a whole new level of tolerance to that of living in, say, a mid terrace or semi.

[Camelot1971]

Tony1963 said:

Integroo said:

So I text him and got a snippy response about it being a Saturday night.

Is it lawful to make noise that disturbs your neighbours just because it is a Saturday night? Should I have just accepted it or was I right to complain? I have had mixed responses from people I have asked - some who say "it's a Saturday night, gotta live with it" and others who agree that I have a right to peace even at 9pm on a Saturday night.

I'd say if someone wants to make a lot of noise ANY evening of the week, then they should buy a detached property.

Or, if you can't tolerate ANY noise, YOU should buy a detached property in a remote part of Scotland.

[Integroo]

Camelot1971 said:

Or, if you can't tolerate ANY noise, YOU should buy a detached property in a remote part of Scotland.

To be fair, I tolerated some noise, but the point my ornaments started shaking was a little too far...

[Lazermilk]

Tony1963 said:

Integroo said:

So I text him and got a snippy response about it being a Saturday night.

Is it lawful to make noise that disturbs your neighbours just because it is a Saturday night? Should I have just accepted it or was I right to complain? I have had mixed responses from people I have asked - some who say "it's a Saturday night, gotta live with it" and others who agree that I have a right to peace even at 9pm on a Saturday night.

I'd say if someone wants to make a lot of noise ANY evening of the week, then they should buy a detached property.

I'd say someone who wants total peace and quiet all days of the week should buy a detached property also.

If it was a regular occurrence then I can see it getting annoying, but if he just had a bit of a party one Saturday and invited friends round then it wouldn't bother me personally.

[Red Devil]

donkmeister said:

Doesn't it all come down to "quiet enjoyment" of your home?

This may answer your question - http://www.stjohnschambers.co.uk/dashboard/wp-cont...

[lyonspride]

I found that Rammstein's "Du Hast" helped to cure my neighbours loud noise problem, nothing quite like some German heavy metal belting through the wall, to make them realise that not everyone appreciates "Chav anthems 2018", if they want to live in a night club, then they can pissing well move into one.

When that stereo broke however, I converted one of the speakers into and anti-chav music device, it's got a small MP3 player inside, with a 100W amplifier and plays a tone of 42hz constantly, which is enough to shake pictures off walls, it's a good resonant frequency for anything made of glass (makes drinks glasses dance about on their own) and yet at that frequency it's impossible to determine where it's coming from
Haven't had to use it yet thankfully........

Lazermilk said:

I'd say someone who wants total peace and quiet all days of the week should buy a detached property also.
.

I suppose they should also get a better paid job to pay for it?

[nickydee]

Red Devil said:

This may answer your question - http://www.stjohnschambers.co.uk/dashboard/wp-cont...

no it doesn't - Its states the following:-

Meaning of Quiet Enjoyment
2. The first question then in any analysis of the covenant for quiet enjoyment is what
quiet enjoyment actually means. The quiet in quiet enjoyment does not mean
undisturbed by noise. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with noise; in this
context quiet means without interference or without interruption of possession
.

[nickydee]

cptsideways said:

If you own your own home do NOT go down the official route

what official route are refering to and why not.

[MrBarry123]

My brother and his partner live in flats and there's a note in their tenancy agreement which effectively says that if there is proof (recordings etc.) that a tenant's activities are audible to other flats after 10pm on any day of the week, a £150 charge is made to the nuisance tenant.

Whether it's legally enforceable I don't know but they've lived there for 3 years now and haven't had any issues related to the noise of other tenants so it seems to work.

[Lazermilk]

lyonspride said:

I found that Rammstein's "Du Hast" helped to cure my neighbours loud noise problem, nothing quite like some German heavy metal belting through the wall, to make them realise that not everyone appreciates "Chav anthems 2018", if they want to live in a night club, then they can pissing well move into one.

When that stereo broke however, I converted one of the speakers into and anti-chav music device, it's got a small MP3 player inside, with a 100W amplifier and plays a tone of 42hz constantly, which is enough to shake pictures off walls, it's a good resonant frequency for anything made of glass (makes drinks glasses dance about on their own) and yet at that frequency it's impossible to determine where it's coming from
Haven't had to use it yet thankfully........

Lazermilk said:

I'd say someone who wants total peace and quiet all days of the week should buy a detached property also.
.

I suppose they should also get a better paid job to pay for it?

That would be up to them of course, but it works both ways, should the person who cant afford a detached property then automatically not be allowed to enjoy themselves on a Saturday night every so often with some loud music?

Don't get me wrong, if this happens all the time then I would be pissed off too, but if its the odd Saturday night every so often then no big deal imo. Turn up the TV or play some music of your own if needed.

You cant live in a block of flats and expect perfect silence all the time, especially weekends.

[lyonspride]

Lazermilk said:

That would be up to them of course, but it works both ways, should the person who cant afford a detached property then automatically not be allowed to enjoy themselves on a Saturday night every so often with some loud music?

Don't get me wrong, if this happens all the time then I would be pissed off too, but if its the odd Saturday night every so often then no big deal imo. Turn up the TV or play some music of your own if needed.

You cant live in a block of flats and expect perfect silence all the time, especially weekends.

The problem is when your neighbours are immature enough to think that everyone else needs to hear what they're watching or listening to, ultimately if people are playing excessively loud music, they're doing so for the "benefit" of others, they're showing off because inside their own social circle that's what people do.