Neighbour being a **** (sorry, long post)

cuthbert

cuthbert

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Mark
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hey everyone,


just wondering if any of you have ever been through or gone through a similar situation?


in may this year we moved from a pretty cramped and horrid 'town house' to a lovely little place in the countryside. beautiful views and walks all around and of course none of the problems of living down a modern town estate like no parking or garden.


anyway, from about may to august everything seems well. spoke to neighbours both sides, both seemed very nice, always said hello and had a quick chat and everything seemed pretty pleasant.


then, strangely, something seemed to change with one of the neighbours. the single event which seemed to be the start was one saturday morning in august we got woke up at about 7:00am with a cement mixer going in the neighbours front drive. at the time we thought 'that's a bit inconsiderate, but hey ho' never said anything as we assumed it was just a one off...but then the last two or three weekends in august we got alot of grinding and sawing most of the day until sometimes quite late.. i remember saying to the wife at the time 'maybe i'm imagining things, but it *seems* like it's being done to p*ss us off'.


then it came to a head in september. it was my mums birthday and we'd all gone out in the garden for birthday tea and cake. the other (very nice) next door neighbours were also eating out with their family and grandkids in their garden.


then we got a chainsaw or quad bike revving, and revving, and revving. went on for about 30 minutes. it's really loud. my wife actually went round asking if they'd mind stopping it as it was my little girl's first day at school the next day (she thought she had a good relationship with the wife of the chap who's making all this noise), but instead the door was slammed in her face and she was swore at by said gentleman.


we actually reported this event to the police and they did go around his house. on the police advice we also reported them to the local authorities neighbourhood nuisance team and we got some forms to fill in to document the noise.


the noise pretty much stopped for a few weeks, but gradually started again. it first started whenever we'd have somebody round - the first time was a very cold and wet October weekend when the inlaws came round for sunday dinner, we got some loud revving, but only for ten minutes before he gave up.


then the chap who's making this noise started staring at us, he'd stood their staring at my wife taking the kids to school on a couple of occasions and to also visitors (always female).


this weekend things seem to have started again. On saturday we went out all day and then about 15 minutes after we got home we got some grinding/sawing (about 6:30 pm)


and on sunday night same again, got home quite late, around 7:30 and we got the loudest outburst yet. chainsaw, bandsaw, grinding. the works. i have a recording made on my phone and if you heard it i think you'd agree it's pretty hard to believe it could be the side effect of a legitimate task. This went on for well over an hour and although i didn’t speak to the other nice neighbour, i did see him come out and he looked pretty angry.


and tonight. 10:15pm car door banging, garage door banging, gearbox grinding, lights flashing. luckily it doesn't wake any of the kids up, but still. in fact, this noise was so loud i heard it over my headphones and actually assumed momentarily that it was my wife coming home from her christmas meal as sounded like the noise was actually in my house - it was that loud.


we're going through the whole process with the local authority to document it. but has anybody ever been through this before? how long does this process realistically take before a resolution?


to me, it isn't about the noise really as it’s quite sporadic. it's more the targeted noise, the staring visitors - the anti social behaviour part of it and for the life of me i can't think of any reason or what i've done. we don't make any noise or have late parties and we're not inconsiderate people at all.


i spoke the the neighbour who lives at the other side of us a couple of weeks ago and he said that he was also starting to get p*ssed off with it.


one of the people at the council who my wife has been dealing with (who have been very supportive) did say that they'd spoken to the police and the whilst this chap has no history of violence, they seemed to indicate he'd done something like this before, but obviously she isn't able to divulge any details so i think this would have happened to anybody who moved in... not just us. but still. it's quite stressful and upsetting... because i think i'm a pretty decent person and i'd never knowingly do anything to upset anybody like this.


sorry for the long post. you just need to vent sometimes.
 
I quite understand the vent under the circumstances.

It's always better if you can sort things like this out amicably, but you've tried that. Whether it's worth having another go to find out just why they're doing this is up to you.
Otherwise I'd say you're going about it in the correct way. Do keep records as and when it happens, and if the your other neighbour would do the same it certainly wouldn't hurt.

We all have our moments, but there are some pretty weird people in this world! Other than sympathy I'm sorry I can't be of more help.

Cheers
 
You're not wrong... What a *****.

Sounds like he's got a screw loose. Maybe the best thing you could do is what you are doing now... Document everything, by the book and don't let him know how much he is ******** you off. He will either give up or get worse and judging by what you've said, others are getting wound up by it too.

Good luck
 
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thank you Bill and Paul - you know, Paul, that hits the screw on the head: i think the thing which worries me the most is you could take the view that i live next to a chainsaw wielding nutjob. it's an unpleasant thought and perhaps one i haven't come to terms with yet.

i'm not easily intimidated, i take the view that most people (99%) are decent like me who just want the quiet life. it seems such an alien thing to do all this to another person, not least because above all else he has to be outside in the cold/wet/dark making all this noise just to pee me off. it doesn't make any sense.

although this is speculation, part of what my wife was able to gleen from the lady who lives next door is that this chap doesn't speak to his family and when they got married she said that only about 5 people came to the wedding - i can really only assume he has a personality disorder or mental illness.

part of me thinks he's a coward who hides behind fences revving engines who ultimately might not be the full ticket but is harmless, the other part of me fears he might be a ticking timebomb, capable of who knows what. i'm no expert in such matters and that is what worries me. but then, if the police say he has no history of violence i suspect it's quite unlikely he'd start now. but still. humans aren't like machines and don't always follow regular predictable patterns.

worse of all i'm a pacifist. some people might go round his house and threaten all sorts. that might even actually work. but it just isn't in my dna to do such a thing, unthinkable really for me, and Bill, i'd love to just talk and hammer out whatever the problem is. The police warned the lady from the council not to go around the house to even attempt mediation - and she told us that.

thing is, all i want to do is come home, enjoy my house and garden and i almost feel violated by this.
 
Sorry to hear about this Mark, it certainly seems to be far more than just a "storm in a tea cup".
Does the guy who is doing this live alone, because it does sound deliberate, and he has nobody around to moderate his behaviour.
I am pretty shocked at the response from the council (and the police), because if they cannot confront him directly then how is the problem going to get sorted?
Is it possible that you could contact your MP, and get them to rattle a few cages, so that the police/council actually start doing their job?
 
who says the council arent doing their job? they often require something like a diary to be kept over a certain period of time recording the noise etc. video may also help.

team up with the other neighbour too, that should carry a bit more weight.
 
Sounds like a horrible situation. One thing that springs to mind is when I moved home earlier this year, I had to declare if there had been any disputes with neighbours. If the council have a record of this behaviour it might suggest the previous owners of your house reported it and if this is the case there maybe some redress via their solicitor if they deliberately witheld that information.

If nothing else you may discover what the root of the problem is.

Putting mental illnesses aside, he could just be a little "simple" and the old previous occupiers of your house *may* have upset him at some point years ago but he hasn't grasped that you have nothing to do with. I know there are a million and one possibilities as to what his problem might be but it could be something as simple as that.

My parents had a dispute with a neighbour years back, the guy lived 4 doors along from them and was accusing me & my brother of writing letters in morse code to him saying his wife was having an affair :cuckoo:

The police advised that my Dad went for a chat with him to find out what the issue was but to take another neighbour with him (if possible). My Dad told him in no uncertain terms that no one in our family could give a flying one what he or his wife got up to and if we received any more threatening letters he was taking him to court....... it all stopped after that.

Would your other neighbour be prepared to go round there with you to talk to the guy?
 
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....and don't forget to keep the police in the loop by reporting incidents to them too. Get to know your local bobby/PCSO and talk to them about how you feel.

Log everything, no matter how trivial it seems, as this is the evidence that is needed, should it go to court, and get as many of your neighbours to do the same. It will not happen overnight, but it will be dealt with.


Heather
 
cuthbert said:
hey everyone

then, strangely, something seemed to change with one of the neighbours. the single event which seemed to be the start was one saturday morning in august we got woke up at about 7:00am with a cement mixer going in the neighbours front drive. at the time we thought 'that's a bit inconsiderate, but hey ho' never said anything as we assumed it was just a one off
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why would you want to say anything about someone having a mixer deliver to their house ? seven am isnt that early ,i wouldnt find it inconsiderate at all .( even if it happened again ) but if it happened a third time i'd check to see if his wife was still about
 
I had a noise nuisance situation with a local pub, everything documented over a period of a couple of month, environment officers took noise readings from my back garden at various times of the night between 8-12pm, they were issued with some noise control orders like installing 2 sets of doors to the pub with 1 set fully closed before the other one opens which meant employing door staff, No open windows during evening business hours, noise limiting equipment was fitted on their DJ decks, all was fine other than their customers being rowdy on the street fr a few weeks but they gradualy started to ignore things, they were in competition for passing customers with another pub across the road so used massive speakers in upstairs windows to blast music out into the street, the Enviro team called around 10pm one night and closed them down on the spot for 14 days or until they got their act together.

Residents gathered a petition of complaint and fortunatly during this 14 day period the pubs license was up for renewal and was declined on the grounds of persistent noise nuisance, the pub was forced out of business, it did reopen a while later under new owners but they opened a wine bar type pub which was o problem a all.

Should add that we lived behind the pub, about 60 mts from door to door, the noise was always there but we never noticed it until the local council demolished a block of 3 storey buildings/shops between us and the pub, i suppose they formed some sort of noise barrier much as the concrete/wooden fencing does on Motorways

So, document everything, dont be afraid to hound the local Environment officers, make them agree to call round, make recordings, badger the local plod but most of all do not approach this idiot, it wont do you or your case ay good.
 
Can you talk to local police about an ASBO?
They will probably want you to keep records of all disturbances, harassment etc. and it could take some time.
 
It may help to always smile and be cheery when you see him, that may make him think his endeavours are wasted...
 
Rapscallion said:
It may help to always smile and be cheery when you see him, that may make him think his endeavours are wasted...
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or make him more determined to 'up his game'

Can't offer any other advise than has already been said, log and report often.
 
just as a bit of devils advocacy - looking at it from his PoV , may be he's having some renovations done, or doing them himself - so yeah he has machines running to do the work he needs to do, then one of his neighbours starts complaining about it at 7.30 which is quite early (if it was midnight or something it would be much less reasonable) , eventually the complaints get on his nerves so he tells the woman to **** off , next thing he knows he's got the police on his doorstep. ( I mean if i've hired a power sander or a chainsaw or whatever for the day i'm going to use it, i'm not going to lose the money just because one of the neighbours wants to have a garden party)

so yeah he's staring at the people who in his head are giving him all this grief , thinking kinnell I wish they hadn't moved in the people who lived here before were lovely.

I'm not saying that is the case, but it could be - my mum has a log burner and from time to time (like maybe twice a year) I have to chainsaw up wood for her - this usually sparks a complaint from a particular neighbour who doesnt like the noise... but doesnt seem to consider that mum has to put up with the row from his yelling badly behaved brats, garden parties, son's trumpet lessons etc.

So yeah he could be a passive agressive nut case who's hiding behind fences revving a chainsaw purely to annoy you - or he could be a perfectly normal guy who is currently on a forum spomewhere moaning about his neighbour who called the police because he was doing some DIY
 
if there was any history of this with previous tenants then they should have disclosed it before you purchased the house
 
Just dont say anything. Leave it for awhile. Maybe he is having a lot of work done. If he gets weird or aggressive then up to you!
 
Maybe you could apply to the courts for a noise abatement order against him during unsocial hours. I would suggest getting advice from a solicitor who could look into this on your behalf.

long time ago we took over these kennels and straight away a person living some distance away complained to the local council about noise from dogs barking in the kennels. Seems this person did the same to the previous owner of our kennels. They even had the local council environmental officer to pay us a visit.

Without getting into any verbal/physical arguement I got my solicitor to write a letter to this person warning of a legal action taken against this person to stop complaining. They stopped straight away when court action for harassment was mentioned

A letter from a solicitor works in most cases and that is what I would recommend if all else fails
 
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I used to work for a local authority anti-social behaviour unit and have had many such cases. Are the properties local authority owned?

Steve
 
Have a word with Environmental Health. We use to deal with noise of all kinds and if a noise nuisance can be proved then a Noise Abatement Notice can be served
start keeping a diary of events, times, duration etc it will help when they visit
 
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Hi Mark.
I've been there- kept records, phoned the police, council, environmental health etc.
Nothing worked, nothing was done.
My kids were scared to go out into our garden.

The hassle just became too much and we moved house.
We eventually found out why it was done, and it wouldn't have mattered who had bought that particular house.

We now have really good neighbours. But that is just luck!
 
You don't live 2 doors away from me do you.....lol

Had same sort of issues - logged them for 3 years - council noise abatment team even knew my next door neighbours family name before i called them - as do the police...

I live (still) next to the family from hell - mum - never worked a day in her life (unemployable !), daughter - up the duff at 17 & has just moved out with boyfriend (who is actually pleasant) , Son (4 asbo's to his name, court cases against him, most of the estate knows his name - from the age of 11 !!) He now has gypsies & police after him, has been taking drugs since 13 so hes scarpered from here (He's now 18 & is either going to jail or morgue).

Finally came to a head last year - when the daughter moaned at me I was trying to get them evicted (I was - lol). I explained that if you want to have parties during week nights till the early hours (3am-ish) then I will make your life as painful as you do mine. I get grumpy with 3hrs sleep.....

Its actually quite nice next door now - you just have to find the boundries of what you are prepared to deal with.

Live & let live
 
terryuk said:
if there was any history of this with previous tenants then they should have disclosed it before you purchased the house
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* should* a world away from *would*. I think they only have to disclose if you ask. If I was selling due to noisy neighbours I wouldnt want to let on as you'd lose the sale in all likelihood.
 
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big soft moose said:
just as a bit of devils advocacy - looking at it from his PoV , may be he's having some renovations done, or doing them himself - so yeah he has machines running to do the work he needs to do, then one of his neighbours starts complaining about it at 7.30 which is quite early (if it was midnight or something it would be much less reasonable) , eventually the complaints get on his nerves so he tells the woman to **** off , next thing he knows he's got the police on his doorstep. ( I mean if i've hired a power sander or a chainsaw or whatever for the day i'm going to use it, i'm not going to lose the money just because one of the neighbours wants to have a garden party)

so yeah he's staring at the people who in his head are giving him all this grief , thinking kinnell I wish they hadn't moved in the people who lived here before were lovely.

I'm not saying that is the case, but it could be - my mum has a log burner and from time to time (like maybe twice a year) I have to chainsaw up wood for her - this usually sparks a complaint from a particular neighbour who doesnt like the noise... but doesnt seem to consider that mum has to put up with the row from his yelling badly behaved brats, garden parties, son's trumpet lessons etc.

So yeah he could be a passive agressive nut case who's hiding behind fences revving a chainsaw purely to annoy you - or he could be a perfectly normal guy who is currently on a forum spomewhere moaning about his neighbour who called the police because he was doing some DIY
Click to expand...

I'd go with this, all the stuff about ASBOs and reporting to council sounds likely to produce an impossible situation.
It could have been best dealt with early on by defusing with humour perhaps.
As a 'newcomer' you have to be prepared to put up with what existing residents need to do.
I don't suppose this period of increased activity would have gone on indefinitely.
 
thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice.

We have been logging and documenting everything, how ever minor both for the police and local authority - and they have been really supportive - surprisingly so actually.

As a couple of you have suggested, the notion that i could be a paranoid/victor meldrew and the noise could be part of normal DIY activity and not carried out on purpose is something that certainly went through my mind, especially in the early days - but i can say now without any flinch of doubt that much of it is targeted - but i would accept that certainly not all of it would be.

my wife had to file the return to the council a couple of days back and the pattern is pretty clear; nearly all the main episodes of sustained noise happen between about 7:30pm and 10:00pm, with the latest at around 10:30pm. during the day time, strangely the revving of engines is normally very brief, although on occasion it has gone on for a long time.

to give you another example of what goes on... one morning i heard a load of banging out the front of the house. not sure what it was, i peeked outside and this guy is staring in my daughter's bedroom (she was actually awake and up, but her curtains closed... as i say it was fairly early) and he was just repeatedly banging his car door - and we get this several mornings a week now between 6:15am and 7:00am.

and so it goes on!
 
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I think the technical term is a 'plonker'. :)

They are put on this earth to make life interesting for the rest of us.
Hope things work out for you.
 
You've got to record everything, camera, video recordings, the lot.
 
All I can say is that starting a war with people who live around you, by complaining to the authorities, is never the thing to do unless they are actually committing some kind of major crime.

Unlike in TV and movies, they won't go away, they won't be sorry, they won't be stopped - all you have done is start something that's unwinnable.

You probably don't want to hear that, as you've already kicked off, but...

Only thing you could do is to set your solicitor on trying to discover if the problem was undisclosed when you bought the property and persue the vendor for damages.

Once you have the damages, move.

Just two roubles from someone who had a nasty neighbour that made our life hell....
 
We found out that our neighbours, on both sides, were wanting to buy our house between them so that they could vet who lived there. They didn't like children(or the police!) and we had two young kids at the time.
Our time there was difficult. We sold the house to a policeman, but we did explain the situation to him.
 
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As mentioned in my previous post and as an ex Environmental Health Officer we are all sympathetic to your problem and with your logs I am sue they will do everything to try and bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion
I wish yo and your Family all the very best
Dave
 
Perhaps an idea to get some CCTV cameras up, make sure he sees you installing them. The staring thing must be concerning.
 
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by the sound of things he is staring at your daughters bedroom and banging the car door in the hope that he will get her to look out of the window ,this is not then simply a nuisance i think its termed perversion and stalking and takes it into a criminal activity ,if you can capture this on film and produce it as proof the police should be able to act on that alone .
 
Can be a nightmare, I've been through a lot of this myself, whatever his beef is or not, you could try pleading submission, beg him to stop upsetting you and see what his response is... If it turns out he enjoys bullying people this way, rather than being empowered and apologetic, well at least you'll know for sure.
 
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