Noisy neighbours

[themalster]

Since our new neighbours (African couple with 2 young children) moved in to the house next door about 3 months ago (privately rented), we have been having problems at night with noise. When they moved in, I introduced myself and explained that the walls were very thin (purely to make them aware of this and also to make them aware that we had a very young child). Even with thin walls, we NEVER had a problem with the previous neighbours.
The noise consists of banging doors, loud music, children screaming/playing and shouting between various other adults.
In the past 2 weeks my fiancee and I have been round to complain to them 6 times after being woken at 1, 2 and 3 o' clock in the morning. They have woken my 13 month old son on each occasion and this has made me angry to say the least. Also what annoys me is that I have to be up for work at 6am.
I have also spoken to the Dad and he has apologised each time. But as he works nights, when he leaves the house after 9pm the music is turned up. Whilst I understand that kids will scream/shout when they play, I personally find it wrong that they are still up and playing at these hours.
I have decided that I will not go round there again as they simply seem to ignore us.
What can i do without causing more problems?

[kira000]

The best course of action is to start cataloguing each occassion, the details, i.e loud music, (even the name of the song if you know it!), and start and stop times of the activity, even if this means four or five things per night.
Make it factual and detailed, but not ofensive or accusatory.

Whilst doing this contact the environmental health department of your council who deal with noise- you should find details on your council website. Tell them you are having problems which you have tried to handle with the neighbours but with no sucess. Explain that you have been keeping a noise log.

They should ask you to continue this, and may send you some logs to fill in. It may be frustrating, but they will probably ask for a few log sheets worth before they will take action. Keep at it.
Once you have a number of sheets completed, the council will review them, and decide if they can take any action- this is likely to be placing recording equipment in your home for a period to ascertain the ambient noise levels, and noise levels during incidents.
If they feel it is unreasonable, they can take proceedings against the neighbours.
They may offer to write a letter to the neighbours before this, asking them to be considerate. This can have a shock effect, but keep doing the logs anyway!
Good Luck

[stonekicker]

i always find the direct approach to work best. by this i mean to do to them what they are doing to you. if you know he works nights, make loads of noise during the day and then go round and tell him that the reason you are doing it is because they are inconsiderate barstewards. i tried this approach with some students who lived next door to me. they were partying all night and doing things like skateboarding down the stairs at 2, 3, 4am etc. i tried the nice approach which didn't work, so when i got up at 6 in the morning to organise myself for school run, work etc., i would go round to theirs and repeatedly kick their front door until someone answered and tell them they they were a) annoying me because of their noise the night before
b) i would carry on until they got the message, and
c) i am a stubborn old coot who could think of many more ways to make their lives a living hell if they continued

funnily enough, it only took 3 days of me doing this before they got the message (i do look a bit wild when i am agitated!) and my other neighbours (who were also annoyed by the noise) gave me a standing ovation in front of them and laughed their socks off as they had never seen anything so hilarious.

this approach may not work, tho, for everybody and you may have to resort to the sensible answer above. but it might also make you feel a little bit better. people tend to think a bit more about their actions when they are also a victim of their own bad behaviour. good luck x

[ELVIS68]

Best approach after a quiet word is a phone call to the council, if that fails then move to the countryside where sh!t like that doesn`t happen

[themalster]

Thank you for your replies. I have kept a log and will continue to do so. As I said what annoys me the most is the fact that they wake my son up.

Luckily, a friend of mine (i've recently found out) works for the Letting Agency so I think I will start by phoning him before phoning the Council.

Many thanks

[kira000]

In response to Stonekickers reply: you could try this route of retaliation, and i certainly understand the temptation to do it!!

You just have to beware that whilst it worked with Stonekicker, it can have the opposite effect. I did the same thing with the 4 students living next to me when i was at wits end beng kept up all night, and all that happened is that they got louder and more obnoxious in response, so the situation got worse not better.
It also means that if the council get involved, your neighbours can justifiably say you have been noisy too, and could make complaints about you, which kind of weakens your case.
ITs hard, but often better to "rise above it" and make sure you are seen purely as the victims not co-protaganists..

[daffy654]

Try contacting the landlord of the neighbours as well as the noise abatement officer at the council.The landlord can threaten them with eviction if they are in breach of the tenancy agreement.Most standard tenancy agreements state that you must not behave in a manner that will annoy neighbours.

[abstibus]

I had a long-standing problem with noise from the house next door, and appeals to the landlord and to the (very) anti-social tenants, most of whom seemed to live a carefree benefits-funded life, supplemented by a bit of illegal private enterprise, had absolutely no effect.
I contacted Environmental Health (EH) and have to say they were just fantastic. The house was an HMO (multiple occupancy), so EH wrote a warning to the tenants, to the landlord and asked the council to check if the house was registered, and licensed, as required by law.
EH advised me to keep a log, offered me recording equipment if the problem continued, and assured me that my complaint would be completely confidential, except if the case for eviction went to court.
It worked - the noise stopped within a week. I only wish I had done it years ago.
So, my advice would be to contact EH.

[Wonderous]

Might sound a strange question, but why did you feel the need to tell us that your neighbours are African? What difference does that make to the fact they're noisy?

[themalster]

No reason in particular, but in their culture they tend to raise their voices when having a normal conversation so it does seem as though they are yelling at each other. Also a friend at work (who is from Ghana) also said that it is normal for them to let their kids go to bed later than what is considered normal (before 9/10 o'clock).

[hello-kiity]

I'd get the kids out for like a day and get a nice huge system and do it to them, haha. Or i'd call the cops...