Please help! legal stuff about Volume levels and times of day in he UK and a rant from me

Hi guys

First off let me get you al up to speed this thread will be me asking you for help and also a big rant from me.

Ok so I live in a row of 5 houses and I am no 2 on the row the lady who lives at no one is lovely and I am haveing problems with the neighbours at No 3 on the other side of me.

I have lived here for 27 years the people next door moved in around a year ago  and have been causeing me problems ever since

I had a roland TD 6 drum kit I would practice on everyday then at the begining of the summer just past I got a Roland TD - 20 a friend of mine had never played one so I invited him up to have a shot but he wasnt able to make it til 8 oclock at night.

I went to my neighbours at No 3 and said I hope you dont mind but I have a friend comeing tonight to try my new electronic drum kit and I promiss to be no later than 9 oclock and this will be a one off! She replyed Norrie I didnt even know you played drums we have never heard you so dont wory about it. ( bearing in mind I had the td 6 before and had ben playing the Td20 for a few weeks by this point. )


So he came and played until 9 and all was well

The following week I was playing the kit at 2 in the afternoon with headphones on as I always do as I heard a banging on my front door and I went down and got a mouth full from the woman from number 3 telling me its all she can hear in her house and she is trying to read.
( any one who knows theys kits know they can cause vibrations and just a thuding noise)

I should let you know that there is 2 rooms between my studio room and the wall that joines our houses.

This now happens all the time with them comeing to my door and complaining or moaning about one thing or another ( strange after them telling me she never knew I had a kit )

I constantly hear her screaming at her children and I feel so sorry for them! Its so bad it wakes me up a lot but Ive never complained about any noise they have made.

Anyway her husband has recently started to complain about it aswell so hes been told to F off since no one has ever complained who have lived in that house before and just them.

This is happening a lot with the complaints now

Tonight I had mixed a track and wanted to listen to it on the computer downstairs with its little speekers and sub woofer it was 9:10 at night and I didnt have it up loud no louder than I would normaly watch a film in suround sound with the other sub on.

I hit play on the track and 1 min in to the song all I could hear was them my neighbour next door hiting the wall with something hard enough to make the ornaments on shelves on my wals start to move and fall off!!!!!

I am so dam angry and had to be perswaded not to go in and hit him like he was hiting the wall.

I plan to go see them tomorow and give them what for as I just feel like they are harrasing me now I suffer from Rapid cycle Bi polar and have recently been diagnosed I also suffer from Clinical Anxiaty so al this from them is makeing it very hard for me to get on with my day to day.

So I was hopeing some of you guys might be able to help point me in the right direction of a web site that will tell me the legality of sound limits and times etc that I can play and at what volumes in the Uk / Scotland?
I cant seem to find anything other than just how to complain about someone makeing noise

I never play loud and never play my accoustic kits in the house anymore I am so angry and pissed off right now

I hope some of you could please help with some info and advice

Thanks to all

Norrie

Run....run like the wind ....life is too short to deal with stress from stupid people 

mgh


Norrie - f@&% them, get some lads and show 'em who's boss...

no but seriously errm...yep, same as above. sounds like you ain't doing nothing wrong. but no legal opinion i'm afraid

HAHA No lads needed..... this is a time when the BLACK BELT IN BASEBALL BAT comes in hand :P ( joking of course )

Wow.... I feel your pain. I have had my share of neighbors that were "police callers" every time they hear music from my house.


You have 4 choices as I see it.

1. move

2. hope they move

3. kowtow to them and don't play music when they are home.

4. convince them you are psycho, and have them living in fear of you.

It will be interesting to see which one you choose.

Record them yelling at their kids. Then play it for them when they come over and complain.
May be a bargain.....the best you ever had...

No solution I moved my studio because of unbelievable neighbour ranting.

Just remember that if they complain to the local authorities and they get enough complaints, in the UK they can impound your sound reproduction and source equipment.

Situations like that I've been involved in usually results in the cop saying something like "it doesn't matter what time it is; if they say it's too loud, it's too loud". That was in California, though.

Norrie,

You've lived there for 27 years, they've live next door for just 1 year, the issues have started since then.

They're always screaming at their kids.  The parents bang so hard on the walls it's knocking your things off the shelf, get a video capture of those things falling off the shelf.

You and those neighbours have already talked about the issues many times yet still unresolved thereby you have two choices.....

(1) Either you move out or (2) First up; I would also ask your other decent neighbor to write a letter of reference stating that they have no issues with you. Get a video capture of things falling off the shelf and then report this to the police and child welfare. 

Remember you have to live with them but they have to live with you (works both ways)!    I think you may have a strong case against the neighbours from hell, if your report (along with evidence) is successful they will receive a court order to stop abusing the kids and disrupting the peace, if they breach that order?, first up call the police, file the report, and from thereon it's bye, bye to the neighbours from hell and the kids may be taken for examination to check them for physical and mental trauma.

spacey


Record them yelling at their kids. Then play it for them when they come over and complain.
May be a bargain.....the best you ever had...

I have actualy planed to do that because her husband goes to work at 6 in the morning and then the screeming at the kids starts I dont think he knows anythign about it. Ihave never mentioned there noise before but I think this will be the time to do it.

DeeS

Wookiee



Just remember that if they complain to the local authorities and they get enough complaints, in the UK they can impound your sound reproduction and source equipment.

If that's the case you might want to leave the Country.
 
I had a friend that had the same problem. After many times of trying to come to a mutual understanding nothing seemed good enough for the sound sensitive neighbors.
 
He finally resorted to taking a dump in a paper sack and sitting it at their front door and lighting the top of it with a match. Knocked on the Door really Loudly and then Ran like the wind. Of course he stayed within eyesight of the front door so he could see them stomping the fire out.
 
Of course I wouldn't recommend you do this but he sure felt better the next time they came over complaining.

You wouldnt recomend I do it ? What about if I video it for you :P haha

(not me takeing the dump I may add )

Just the them stamping it out part

SongCraft


Norrie,

You've lived there for 27 years, they've live next door for just 1 year, the issues have started since then.

They're always screaming at their kids.  The parents bang so hard on the walls it's knocking your things off the shelf, get a video capture of those things falling off the shelf.

You and those neighbours have already talked about the issues many times yet still unresolved thereby you have two choices.....

(1) Either you move out or (2) First up; I would also ask your other decent neighbor to write a letter of reference stating that they have no issues with you. Get a video capture of things falling off the shelf and then report this to the police and child welfare. 

Remember you have to live with them but they have to live with you (works both ways)!    I think you may have a strong case against the neighbours from hell, if your report (along with evidence) is successful they will receive a court order to stop abusing the kids and disrupting the peace, if they breach that order?, first up call the police, file the report, and from thereon it's bye, bye to the neighbours from hell and the kids may be taken for examination to check them for physical and mental trauma.

Thats a very good Idea about asking all the other neighbours to write a letter of reference ( I dont think they wil have a problem with that)

The video one is a good Ideas well I just hoped it would never come to this type of thing

Bullying her kids is exactly what shes doing screeming at a 4 year old because he cant spell some words shes telling him 2 and screeming at him because hes crying screeming dont cry about it and get the spellng right.

Poor kids .

 
Seriously, it's getting towards bullying behaviour, if not already there. It does seem that you are doing more than your share to live your life and yet still consider your neighbours. Standing up to bullying always works but you have to decide what the fallout is likely to be and if you consider that to be worth the action.
 
All the tit-for-tat stuff, defensive activities involving getting to the police first etc will never work. People in this mind set just love the battle and it will firm up their resolve, unreasonable as it may be and continue to escalate.
 
Here's what I would do. I would tell them that any neighbours with adjoining houses have to have a certain tolerence for normal living / activities otherwise things get unhappy very quickly. However you are happy to match their new found intolerence and will refrain from any of the activities that appear to now annoy them for a period of time, say, two weeks. HOWEVER, in that time you will knock on their door and the walls if necessary to inform them of any living noises or activities that you and only you, deem to be at the same level or higher than any activity you may have previously undertaken. You have effectively turned round their actions on themselves, without giving them recourse to any reciprocal argument that you are doing the same. In negotiation terms, you have now provided yourself with something to trade with, whereas previously you had nothing. Its a key tactic of any negotiation strategy and works when dealing with either sophisticated or dumb 3rd parties.
 
Regards
 
Garry Kiosk
 

Your local council may intervene and issue a "Noise Nuisance" notification.

 
I think you will find they need three separate complainants to get this to run and it has to be sustained over a minimum period of three months.
 
You could of course prepare some form of evidence for yourself by recording their nosey activities so if the local authority do show up or write to you could send a suitable response.

ericyeoman

Record them yelling at their kids.

I believe that is illegal in the UK. Invasion of privacy and all that.

seriously?  if I can hear it in my house it's illegal to record it?  that just seems wrong.

Invite Steve Strummer out for an overnighter.

Ask him to cook up some of his famous Chicken Vandaloo... and make sure he stays around long enough for the smell to linger.

They'll move sooner than later.

best regards,
mike