I’ve been renting for over 10 years now, and in my time I’ve experienced quite a few different types of neighbours. Some of them were really friendly - they’d invite themselves in for a cup of tea, hang about for a while to have a yarn before heading back to their own place. Some wouldn’t speak a word and would make an obvious effort to stay away from me (arguably a wise choice 
). I have no problems with either of these types because they have consideration for their neighbours, and tend to keep noise levels down to a bearable level. When you share a wall with someone, you have to expect some level of noise!
Recently, that is about 5 weeks ago, we ‘acquired’ a new set of neighbours who are opposite to those described above. Here’s a shortlist of the things we’ve experienced since they’ve moved in:
- Constant smell of smoke (from cigarettes and dope) billowing over the fence all over the clothes line and into the windows of the house. This happens at all hours of the day and night, so keeping windows open during the hours of sleep is not a good idea because we wake up to a house that stinks.
- Noise and stink from a barbeque that gets fired up at all hours of the day and night. This is almost directly under our window and on more than one occasion we’ve been woken up to a room that stinks. The noise isn’t exactly quiet either!
- Parties up to 5 nights a week. These start from as early as 4pm and go to as late as 4am. A million different people seem to cram into the house next door, and the volume of their activities is just unbearable.
- General noise levels beyond what you’d expect - ie. seriously taking the piss. We’ve had stereos cranked so loud that we’ve had to sleep in other rooms with all the doors and windows closed just so that we can be in a spot quiet enough to give us the chance of falling asleep. Most of the time the music starts early, and goes through until I wake up to go to work in the morning.
- Having to listen to the neighbours in a drunken stupour talk about how many “bitches” they’ve shagged, and what interesting positions they managed to get themselves into. Not really the kind of thing I want to hear while I’m eating dinner.
- Being parked in. This is one of my favourites. On Easter Sunday we’d arranged to meet a friend of ours up on the Sunshine Coast to go for a swim and hang out for the day. When we opened up the garage, this is what we found:
Yup, we were parked in. How nice! It’s hard to tell from the photo exactly what the scenario was so I’ll explain. Our neighbour had some visitors who decided that our garage was actually owned by the people they were visiting. Not only did they not confirm this with the neighbour, they assumed that parking their car on the driveway was fine and that they could leave it there despite there being ample visitors parking exactly the same distance but in the other direction. Said visitors then all crammed into another car and took off, leaving the neighbour’s driveway completely clear, and our car blocked in.
Some valid questions at this point would be:
- Why not confront them and ask them to turn it off/down/etc?
- Ask them to move the car
- Ask them to not smoke outside over the clothes line?
The short answer to them all is that I tried. At first I was nice about it, it got me nowhere. Sometimes when I knocked on the door they didn’t answer because they couldn’t hear me knocking over the volume of the music. Sometimes I’d ask them to turn it down and they would turn the volume up instead. It was a battle I was never going to win.
As far as the car parking thing goes, I knocked on the door, but noone was home, so the car couldn’t be moved. I even called the Police to find out if I could have the car towed away on Easter Sunday so we could leave, and I was told that while it was legal to have it towed to the nearest car park, I’d have to cover the cost myself - hundreds of dollars to move the car 5 meters isn’t a good investment in my book. Instead, I roasted them when they returned.
After putting up with this for weeks, I decided it was time to take it to the next step. I spoke to the landlord, and he informed me that the only unit in the entire complex that was not under his management was the one our neighbours were occupying. This put them outside the general rules of the complex and meant that there was nothing he could do other than pass on any complaints to the current property manager. This turned out to be a good move, because the tenants had moved in to finish off a lease held by someone else who wanted to leave early. The new tenants were on probation, and they needed to demonstrate that they were good people to have living there otherwise the lease would just expire.
My complaint pretty much ended their chances.
Unfortunately for me, the property manager made sure that the tenants knew that it was I who complained, and hence they took it upon themselves to be as loud and inconsiderate as possible for the rest of their stay. During one encounter not long after, one of the tenants made an idle threat to stab me for getting them kicked out. One of the loud-mouthed friends who was there for another all-night bash decided to have a go at me for “complaining so bad that it got his friends kicked out”. So it was a really happy family atmosphere
So the level of noise didn’t drop, if anything it went up. Amy and I have since been travelling the countryside at every opportunity so that we didn’t have to be at home. We did everything in our power to be away from home as much possible so that we didn’t have to put up with any shit from the guys next door.
So, after 5 weeks of utter hell, you can imagine our complete joy when we arrived home today to find them leaving! I was under the impression that we were going to have to put up with it for another few weeks, but from what I can see, we’re finally in the clear.
Let’s just hope that we don’t get someone worse next time round 
Anyway, I just wanted to say that if you live in close proximity to other people you should expect to give them a bit of consideration. Firing up music from 11pm to 4am on a working night is just not on.
Have any of you had bad experiences with neighbours?
April 30, 2007
Whoa! That’s just horrible. I know people who’ve been driven round the bend by noisy neighbours in the past. It certainly makes a massive difference to your quality of life.
I’ve been pretty lucky that it hasn’t happened to me (yet!), and the two either side of the house we bought last year are great.
You have my sympathies.
April 30, 2007
Yeah it was pretty awful mate. I’m happy to confirm that they’re definitely gone. In the last few days I’ve had the best sleep I’ve had in 5 weeks!
Thank god it’s over
April 30, 2007
You described my neighbours almost spot-on, except that mine are council scum who the local authorities refuse to evict.
We have had thrash thrown into our garden, cars keyed, constant loud music, police picking up (a former) boyfriend of hers twice a week, public sex, intimidating behaviour (on a daily basis), public dope smoking (despite them having small kids) etc.
The most disheartening thing, however, is listening to their kids when they “play” in their “garden”. By “play” I mean “destroy stuff” and by “garden” i mean “dump”. They can’t speak 5 sequential words without using either the f-word or the c-word at least once. These kids will grow up to be exactly as useless as their parents, and rely completely on welfare through their nuisance lives. And that is what we, the taxpayers, have to pay for.
May 1, 2007
Hi OJ, bad experiences with neighbors; tell me about it. Next door lives a family with 5 children, between the age of 5 and 13, I don’t know how the wife managed to deliver all of them but I think she wanted a big family and fast.
As you all know kids can be loud, I mean very loud, but the thing is when 5 kids get loud at the same time, you won’t be able to hear yourself thinking, and the worst part is that the playground is under my window. The 2 girls have the loudest pitch I’ve ever heard and they are good at using it, and they use it all the time for no reason, happy or sad they just fire the high pitch. Some day I think my screen will crack.
So the answer was simple, I bought them a PC (I mean the husband did but I helped him), yes believe it or not, they had a birthday the other day and the father came asking me for a price so I’ve told him I’ll make you a huge discount (60%) and from that day, the 5 kids are inside playing with the PC, and I can think again, thank god!. I don’t know how long this will last but at least I’m happy about it, since summer is near I might offer them a trip to somewhere far, because I think they are ready to be back in the playground.
azmo
August 11, 2007
My neighbours are absolute hell,constant loud music,screaming and shouting,slamming doors,you name it.How can some people be so inconsiderate is beyond me.
August 11, 2007
I’m sorry to hear that Carol. I really feel your pain mate. Are they approachable people? Can you talk to them about it? One of the issues at this end was that they’d appear to be sorry and promise to do something about it. Things would just continue as they always had.
Based on what you’ve said I’m guessing that you’re in a similar position.
Do you rent? Or do you own? If it’s the former, perhaps a move is on the cards if they’re that bad? If it’s the latter, chances are you’re stuck with them for a long time
I hope things improve for ya!
September 17, 2007
Yeah…noisy kids and unconsiderate parents…can make ya life hell.
September 17, 2007
Bang on Davo. When the times comes for me to be a dad, I’ll be mindful of the effects on the neighbours (that is until we move to our land!).
Our neighbours, while better than the previous lot, are still inconsiderate. One of the residents does nothing other than sit outside, drink beer and smoke the heaviest cigarettes you can imagine. Our clothes (which have just been washed) constantly stink of smoke because our washing line is so close to the fence. It’s horrid. Smoking is such an invasive habit, and I hate it. The whole house stinks if we don’t close the doors and windows in time.
September 25, 2007
I HAVE NEIGHBOURS THAT RENT THE FLAT NEXT TO ME THEY HAVE PARTIES EVERY NIGHT THERE ARE LOADS OF PEOPLE IN AND OUT AND THE MUSIC IS LOUD AND THE START AT 7PP AND FINISH AT 5PM USUALLY AND SOMETIMES THEY START AT 10PM UNTIL 8AM.
I HAVE TRIED TALKING TO THEM AND THEY JUST TELL ME TO FUCK OFF I AHVE ALSO TOLD THE COUNCIL AND ENVIROMENTAL HEALTH BUT THEY DON’T DO ANYTHING EVERY TIME I CALL THE POLICE THEY SAY THEY CAN’T DO ANYTHING AS THERE IS NO DISTURBANCE OUTSIDE I AM REALY FED UP AND TIRED PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO.
September 25, 2007
Hi Shelley!
Wow, sounds like you’re in a world of hurt mate. I don’t envy you. Are you the owner of your flat? Or are you renting as well?
If you’re renting, you need to speak to the landlord of your flat and tell him/her what’s going on. Tell them that the neighbours are making you consider moving out and will have a long term detrimental effect on his rental property, because noone will want to live there.
You could get in touch with the landlord of the flat next to you and speak to them about adding some conditions to the rental. Unfortunately, most landlords don’t give a shit about this kind of thing and just expect you to deal with it. So your mileage may vary.
Can anyone else in your flat complex hear the noise? If enough of you get together to complain to the cops, then perhaps you’ll have more luck?
If the police refuse to do anything, then you might have to fight fire with fire. They have to sleep at some stage. So, figure out when they’re asleep, and pump the loudest music through the walls to keep them up awake. Something with a consistent and very frequent beat, heavy base, and awful singing. That’ll do the trick. Over a period of time, they’ll hopefully learn to shut the f**k up. If they come to complain to you, you’ve then got bargaining power. Depending on how nasty you’re feeling, you might want to just tell them to f**k off too.
Other than that I have no idea mate. Inconsiderate neighbours are just the worst, and can really make your life hell. As a last resort, you can possibly move house!?
Good luck mate.
June 8, 2008
I have noisy neighbours. This is partly due to the structure of accommodation being arranged around a central green, which means sound travels all the way round the houses.Our next door neighbours moved in about a year ago and had extremely loud sex at all hours of the morning, sometimes in the day, and never worried that their windows were open.On several occaisions we were woken up at silly times,were not totally happy about it and made our feelings known.We can hear everything they do,but thats life.Comments like ‘you wouldnt need so much makeup if you got your beauty sleep’ were the norm.But whatever the problems,I’d sooner be friendly to people than fall out,just have a whinge to my husband or the other neighbour about it.After a few months it became less and less.The other night I was watching tv at about 11.30pm and I heard a hellish load of banging and someone screaming like a banshee. I jumped up to see my other neighbour storming away from their house.I put my daughter back to bed after she was woken,and sent my neighbour a text saying’I guess you were shagging’.Next day my angry neighbour asked me if I’d had an interesting conversation with my noisy neighbours.I didnt appreciate her insinuation that we’d been talking about her after her outburst,like I would be arsed to be out in the cold and wet to talk about her.So she was either round the back of the houses listening to them when they had a cigarette.Her house is side on from mine,so the backway is a distance from her,whereas the front is closer.Or she was listening to the conversation I had with my husband on the phone.So I told her actually she had disturbed me, that she was as bad as they were when they used to wake us up at silly hours,but to be fair it wasnt that late this time,and I didnt hear them,but I definitely heard her,and my husband and I felt we couldnt have sex without worrying if she’d complain.I won’t side with people just to alienate some one else.Whatever her complaint,she had no regard for my daughter,or anyone else who was disturbed by her.To be fair she had become very controlling and assumed she could put me down and make decisions about my life,including telling me to leave my husband,and that I should have respect for someone who physically assaulted me along with her partner,just because they are slim,bitched about my cats shitting in her borders,when it wasnt my cats,gloating that she’d hosed them off the fence twice(sorry its not my cat,none of mine have a blue collar).Well,maybe its my fault for not being direct enough so as to save people’s feelings,as we all have to live together.But after she drove like a woman possessed with my daughter in her car,as we shared transport, I suggested maybe she should go down the doctors and sort out her antidepressants,she doesnt talk to me,but creeparses round my husband like you wouldnt believe.In the present time we get on well with our noisy neighbours,who still occaisionally have extremely loud sex,and as a result of the falling out we no longer consider the overbearing neighbours feelings.If we want to do it loudly now,we do.occaissionally.And I’m sure she’s listening…