Noisy neighbours are the bane of many people’s lives – driven to distraction by stereos turned right up, barking dogs, children screaming or doors slamming – TheMoveChannel checks out what you can do to help make a life polluted by noise more bearable…
Picture this: you’ve bought you dream property and moved all your stuff in. For the first two hours, life is bliss. Then the neighbours get home. Life is no longer bliss. In fact it is hell. They have loud children with huge stereos. They have dogs. They have a widescreen TV with surround-sound. Suddenly, your haven feels more like a jail. A noisy one.
Ground floor flats in converted houses or older terraced houses often suffer the most from noisy neighbours as the sound insulation between the walls or ceiling is poor or non- existent.
Nowadays, new properties in the UK have to have a certain amount of sound insulation by law, meaning that many everyday sounds will be muted and far more bearable.
The thing to remember is that everyone has a right to reasonable enjoyment of their home and garden. Other people’s children may be noisy playing in the garden all day on a Saturday, but that doesn’t constitute noise pollution in the same way that exceptionally loud music at all hours of the night does.
It is a fact of life that the sounds we all make every day, although acceptable to us, are likely to be unwanted by someone else. One person’s music is another person’s noise.
But, excessive noise can reduce the quality of life and, in some extreme cases, can even destroy it completely.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) considers that each resident can reasonably expect not to have their nights sleep disturbed by noise, to be protected from significant loss of amenities due to noise not to hear someone else’s excessive noise in their property on a regular basis.
CIEH receives over 1000 complaints of noise each year and the most common complaints are barking dogs, loud music or TV, shouting, banging doors and DIY activities.
If the situation is ongoing, an assessor can come round to your home to see if the noise is unreasonable and, if it is, they can serve an abatement notice requiring the person to eliminate the unwanted noise.
Failure to comply with the notice is likely to lead to a fine of up to £5000 and/or seizure of all noise making equipment and accessories, such as stereos.
Obviously the best way to rectify noise pollution is to go and talk to the culprits face to face, explain the situation and the effect it is having on you and ask them nicely to keep the noise, whatever it may be, down.
This, however, is not something that appeals to many people as they don’t want to fall out with their neighbours or are scared of their reaction.
Indeed, sometimes you will be met with a blank stare or a shrug but try not to fall into the trap of threatening people (‘if you don’t keep quiet I’ll take further action’) as this will rarely result in amicable relations or a solution to the noise problem.
Mediation is one way you could try to solve the problem – a mediator acts as a middleman between the two parties, who meet to discuss the issue and hopefully find a solution. Ask your local council for a list of mediators in your area.
If you live in a leasehold property, you have the right to enjoy a ‘quiet existence’ in the property. If your neighbours are ruining that with excessive noise, then they are contravening the terms of their lease and could be punished as a result. You could try getting in touch with the leaseholder to see what they suggest.
People living in leasehold flats above the ground floor are also often not allowed to install laminate or wood flooring, but must have carpets to help provide sound insulation between the other flats.
If they have installed wood flooring and it is causing you, in the ground floor flat, problems, then you can again approach the leaseholder and let them know about the situation.
For more information on UK properties and the market in general, please visit http://www.themovechannel.co.uk/
-ENDS-
Notes to editors:
TheMoveChannel.com is a property website that was founded in 1999 as an online resource for buying, selling and learning about property. It now receives as many as 300,000 visits per month and advertises over 50,000 properties in nearly 90 countries, which are listed by over 500 partner organisations.
For further information, please contact:
Dan Johnson
Managing Director
www.themovechannel.co.uk
0207 952 7650
