Shouting in the garden at 2,3 or 5am

ziburu

Hi just a quick query about what to do.

My daughter who lives at home, is starting last year at uni. She also suffers from Epilepsy and POTS. To keep her epilepsy and pots controlled, she needs to get a good amount of rest and undisturbed sleep. As well, she must not overheat. Her window therefore, needs to be open.

A neighbour, not directly, but a few doors down over the back, has an older son with some kind of SEN? He shouts at all times of day and night, including in the back garden. You can hear the parent talking loudly as well, as they try to control him. My daughter said it sounded like they’d hit him.
My priority is my daughter, who is getting very stressed with all the random noise. I am also sorry about the neighbouring boy, and do not want him to suffer.

How, can I get the noise to stop and who can I speak to. I don’t see any point in speaking to the parents, as they are already not managing this situation.

Any ideas appreciated

vikki66

Hi @ziburu

That sounds like a really stressful situation, and it must be very difficult for you.

If anybody had a genuine concern that a child, or vulnerable adult, was being hit they should raise a safeguarding concern with their local social work department, but you need to be way more sure than ‘think,’ as you definitely don’t want to make that family’s life any harder than it already is. There’s also a chance that it’s the son who’s hitting family members, and possibly that they’re moving him outdoors at times when he’s becoming more dysregulated, as this kind of thing going on in your house constantly will quickly break you.

I can tell from your post that you do sympathise with the family’s situation, even though your own daughter is obviously your priority, so it must be frustrating.

Re noise - local authorities have ‘anti-social’ hours (ours is 7AM to 11PM), but this is usually for reporting people who disregard their neighbours by playing loud music regularly during the night, or an upstairs neighbour who always puts on their washing machine at 2AM, or similar.

Councils have some sort of ‘enforcement officers’ aka the community safety team, that you can approach for advice, though I’m not sure what they’d say in this case, as it sounds from your message that the noise possibly arises from distress associated with a profound disability.

In my area there’s a lot of noisy anti-social council tenants in flats that the council had to turn into temporary emergency accommodation. These tenants are classed as ‘vulnerable’ and, if you try to bring up anything that they’ve done, zero action is taken, unless it’s a serious crime (I’d need to put a trigger warning if I mentioned what).
I say this because I think it’s likely that the person you’re mentioning might be classed as vulnerable (but without the criminal element) and there might not be much the local authority would/could do.

In most places I’ve lived housing associations are more likely to take action with noisy tenants (if you want action taken), and will also have some type of community safety officer who you could approach, and who could go and speak to the family if that’s what you wanted. I’m sure that if you approached the council (or housing association) and said you wanted your details to be kept confidential they’d have to respect that.

I know this isn’t ideal, but could your daughter change her bedroom to the other side of the house (even short term), so there’s less noise for her? I don’t think it’s realistic that you’d get quick action from any authority, and, especially if your daughter is in her final year study, she’ll want to have as little stress as possible.

I wear earplugs when noisy neighbours become unbearable, and I’ve put full-length nets and heavy curtains over the windows so I can leave the windows open but still get airflow.

My son has struggled with outside noise at times (he has ASD) and I was recommended soothing noise apps, which have gentle music, or wind sounds, or white noise, or play a soothing frequency. They made a difference to my son.

Hope you get some resolution.

ziburu

Thank you for all your suggestions.
I’m afraid we don’t have a spare room on the other side of the house. Of course, that would be ideal.

Its not just the pressure of her final years uni study though. She suffers from anxiety, mood issues also, as part of her hyper mobility/ connective tissue disorder.
We live on a post war, local authority estate, which is now largely owner occupied. I’m not sure if the property at the back is still council rented.

I have heard the local authority was going to fund a garden room, at the end of the garden. Perhaps that might help. It would need pretty good sound proofing though.

vikki66

Hi @ziburu

Hope last night wasn’t too noisy.

Your local council has noise-enforcement officers, it doesn’t matter if anybody owns or rents, there’s still potentially some help there. If you want to talk to them about it, they would be obliged to keep your name confidential, if you asked them to. You could ask for them to go speak to the family to say that your own child’s disability is being substantially impacted by the noise at night.

If you do that, I suggest you don’t tell any other neighbours that you’ve done so. I say that because one of my neighbours reported another neighbour, and told a third neighbour (who she thought was a friend), then that neighbour told everybody, and it escalated into unpleasantness.

You’re entitled to confidentiality, so the Council can’t tell (they shouldn’t even if you don’t ask). You could ask them to be sensitive and say you know it’s hard for the family, but that your child is being severely impacted.

I’m so sorry this is happening, I’ve had very noisy neighbours several times, and it’s difficult.

egister

A possible solution is headphones with active noise reduction. It is possible to design an active noise reduction system for a room, but it is very expensive.