Inflicted by TWAGs?

Are you living somewhere inflicted by tossers, wankers, arseholes, or godsends (TWAGs)? Four options likely to be heard when conducting a survey about neighbours. Whether you live in a palatial detached castle, or hunker down in the most kafkaesque blocks of flats many call home, horror stories abound when it comes to living by neighbours and the squabble-some descents into feuds.

Before i get totally carried away, it would be highly negligent of me to ignore those occasions which are scattered like hens teeth amongst swill, where we live by neighbours who are godsends of enlightenment.

When neighbours feud there is a high probability that noise will be somewhere in the top three of probable causes. For the most part this is down to the way buildings have been designed and constructed over the centuries, either from the observance of shoddy building practices and the need of making a quick buck, or from the use of shoddy materials again for the same reason, or when they were built who knew, or the management/freeholders of a building have failed to ensure that the covenants of leases pertaining to flooring are actually enforced; which they are generally quite loathe to do, until they're kicking and screaming in the flames of legal redress.

So why this particular piece? My usually quiet (except for the ‘if it has a hinge it must be made for slamming’) neighbours, decided it was a good idea to throw a party. Nothing wrong there you might say. True, apart from the fact that they didn’t bother to invite me, which is understandable and fair enough. Nor did they bother to drop a scribbled note saying as such, on the back of some junkmail they’d received and couldn’t be bothered to throw away, through the still functioning letterbox.

The party started. Surprisingly the first three hours were tolerable. If the party had remained close to that for the rest of the evening, it would have been enjoyable night for all concerned. At some point after the third hour, the booze and happy makers had reached their zenith, as noise levels finally breached the 65 decibels mark causing the screen on the monitoring app to turn yellow.

The noise from the party continued to rise. I was reluctant to increase my headset’s volume, as that might have resulted in hearing damage. Instead i removed it and switched the computer's speakers on. The aim was not to fully drown out the unwanted external sound, but allow me to hear what i was listening to without the potential degredation of hearing. Initially, i couldn’t hear the sound from the speakers with any clarity (noise from the party), so i whacked up the volume slider until the sound output ranged from 45 to 50 decibels. I’m sure many of you with an interest in the more technical aspects of sound, must be shaking your heads and wondering have i lost the plot. For reference, the level for background music and normal conversion in a room is stated as 60 decibels. So my four 8 x 10… cm speakers, pumping out 50 decibels, could be viewed as being well within reasonable levels. 

Sadly, due to the paper-bag nature of the dwellings the volume from the speakers was sufficient to reach their ears. The reaction was almost instant. An increase in stamping, especially by a female guest at the party, who seemed to take exceptional umbrage at the 45 - 50 decibels levels drifting towards her ears. There was a ratcheting of door slams. Objects being dropped on the floor. All mixed with general laughter and momentous hilarity.

Noise levels from the party started peaking at 73 decibels, just 9 decibels short of the all time great of 81 decibels, which was secured by the previous tenants. The screen on the app turned fluorescent red.

So how did the noise generated by the party compare to a gang of motorcyclists driving by? At approximately 10:09 am the following day, one such gang obliged. The bikers managed to zoom by at roughly 63.9 decibels, 10 decibels softer than the peak of the party, which is actually quite a feat.

What about the four words which started this fervid piece? It was whilst reading a press release of a survey from Slater & Gordon Lawyers, where two thirds of respondents said they were living by nuisance neighbours, and the overheard frayed heated words that regularly take place in the cheek by jowl cities, we lovingly call home. The following graph is a breakdown of the most pressing neighbourly concerns.

Source: data from Slater & Gordon Lawyers

I should count myself lucky, i only have the first and last ones… although, pets (and humans, if the attached toilet paper was any indication) defecating underneath windows, and footballs being thrown/kicked against windows, might just be included in the second and fourth… dammit!

Not sure when that survey was done except recently. So how have things changed over the years? In 2011, jill insley wrote a piece in the guardians money blog called “Everybody needs good neighbours … but few seem to have them.” The issues reviewed at the time found that three in five people were annoyed by loud voices or arguments, blaring music and tv’s. A quarter were irritated by door slamming. Another quarter by noisy pets. And one in five by hearing their neighbours having sex. Let me see, loud voices - check, door slamming - check, pets - check, neighbours having- god dammit, not again!

Neighbours of noise or simply noise averse?

When you briefly experience the wonderful peace and alacrity of quietness (don’t worry i’ll return to form shortly), it’s worth bearing in mind that unless you’re in a retreat - which is bored into the side of a mountain - that peace is just the minute gap before the next oncoming tide of a skyscraper-sized noise tsunami; especially when it involves fillies just out from uni and moving into their first flat together.

Heavy footfalls, high heels, stomping around, lots of ‘mates over’ are now de rigueur.  Which wouldn’t normally be a problem except in those (i.e., this) flat/house conversions, which once had luscious carpet covering the bareness but which greedy landlords ripped out, leaving exposed floorboards that people flock and ‘coo’ over, admiring the fact that they ‘look so pretty’, ignoring what doesn’t lay beneath.

Naturally provisions exist in leases precisely to alleviate this problem (generally), except when the vast majority of people are either unaware the problem their usually simple everyday noise is creating exists, or the issue is not brought to their attention; as opposed to any wilful or malicious intent.

So when you bring it to their attention, verbally and or formally, and the noise continues, you begin to wonder whether there’s more going on than an element of unawareness.  Perhaps it’s simply the case they don’t give a damn and further actions are nothing less than wilful maliciousness. 

A tedious probability?  As iterated to in the title; is it neighbours who are been noisy or am i just been overly sensitive?

Figures indicate that at least 95,000 (after doing a bit of research my previous use of 2 mn appears wildly wide of the uk mark and it should have been covering the  eu) people, have an issue with noise and noisy neighbours, severe and pressing enough that after spending years of battling, grinds them into moving for the sake of their health.  Because as satisfying as fighting your corner is, every now and then there comes a time when you ponder why you’re still bashing your head against a brick wall.  Then as dizziness caused by exsanguination starts to take its toll, you realise the two-steps towards resolution you thought you were making, actually turns out to be you moving backwards, at a rapid rate of knots.  It’s just the flashing change of scenery which has confused you.

I’m one of those stubborn folk – something which happens when you live next to an increasingly noisy venue, and next to a stand with an increasing number of buses utilising the stand without drivers switching off their engines, and now with added noisy neighbour icing; that you either throw your hands in the air, give up and move on, or fiercely dig your heels in (as opposed to down - as the current clippity-clopping neighbours above are prone to do) and say enough really is enough. 

Everything (on paper at least) says this shouldn’t be happening.  So why have other leaseholders simply let things slide?  Because it’s easier than putting up a struggle.  Especially when it seems to be an on-going struggle with seemingly no end in sight. 

Yet, one resident who has dug his heels in over a compactor placed against the party wall (somehow allowed by the council) has managed to have it removed.  Yes, an industrial sized rubbish compactor that members of staff at the venue and its operators took extreme pleasure in assuring caused as much physically noise as possible – bar bashing it into the wall, was placed within touching distance of flats, and neither they nor the council could understand that residents had a problem with it.

When it comes to the care of resident’s hearing and ability to get a decent nights sleep, it seems conservative run boroughs (from the evidence so far) appear to stand miles above labour or liberal run boroughs – which is odd, considering how much we’re constantly bombarded with the message that labour councils are for the people – which i suppose they are, except when it comes to residents managing to obtain a good nights sleep.

Now the problem with many british flats, homes and apartments is that way too many of them were built at a time when it was the genteel thing to generally not carry on unless you lived in the slums - where that sort of behaviour was expected.  Over the years slum areas were destroyed and re-built with better looking but still (by today's sound standards) crummy sound considerations, where anything over and beyond the sound of brushing your teeth’s magnified to a point where simon bates would be using a pile-driver and not a knife.

In today's world, many in the west would like to think we’re remarkably  civilised, yet reality shows the law of the jungle and a dog-eat-dog mentality is in force, well, and flourishing greater than ever.

For those of a mind to know more, noise action week is rapidly approaching.

Dutch Pig Poo

Ah that time of year, when easterly winds have at us and drag the farming air from the Netherlands and northern Europe across the UK.

So for the next day or so, the smells won't be you or your neighbour, but the after-effects of farming cultivation.  Having serious second thoughts about country living.

PT cough jackers and the Norovirus

Oh, things are looking bad!

Two differing neighbours have so far been laid low by the dreaded 24 - 48hr norovirus and its associated symptoms: heartily throwing up, experiencing severe diarrhea whilst vehemently refusing the offer of a full English breakfast. I ask you, how could anyone refuse?

But they have been sensible, staying in, and eschewing all contact with the outside world, even gone to the extreme of taking a couple of days off work!

In this day and age, when taking more than 30 seconds for a toilet break automatically makes you the number one office "slacker", most people will vainly struggle into their workplace. Thus continuing the effective spread of the virus. Unless, they work from home.

Now, I am a great proponent of public transportation. Use it on a regular basis, travelling up and down the country. Swear by it. When it works!

But there is nothing worse than been on an empty (it does happen on occasion) tube train, or a normal train, when it pulls into a station and someone enters the exact same carriage. Not sure if it is a homing instinct the chronically ill have as part of their genes, or that some memes have taken control, forcing them to sit directly opposite and start coughing all over me; doing their weepy impressions of frog swallowing fly's, mouths wide open, all the way down to their stomachs. But it sure feels like it.

So I end up been fully sprayed with whatever this years version of influenza happens to be! And as the little pests take the option of hurtling across the carriage and down into my passageways, I just know that in a couple of days time, it will be me doing those very same weepy impressions.

Makes me hanker after the Tokyoites very healthy respect for mask wearing when in ill-health, or if anyone else around them is ill, or if they are an anime character!

Noisy neighbours from the hellish side?

One of the many problems with London; which scores so highly on the many 'things you hate most about your city' surveys is, that hardy annual: Neighbouritis. Yes a made up nonce word of Neighbour (British spelling) and courtesy of old Grecian – a time when men were men and up for doing it - 'itis', but better than saying Neighbour-from-hell- who-drives-your- grandmother-to-an-early-grave!

Unless you live in a nice secluded area, i.e. wealthy and rich, then it's more than likely you will have come up against the perennial problem of Neighbour-noise-ism! Yes how many times have you felt like killing your fellow neighbour or at least hoping they get run over by the number 36 bus as it hurtles its way down the High Street, just because the bass sound on their latest purchased - although nowadays downloaded or streamed - techno track, or they have somehow taken with a strange but firm grasp some twisted bit of logic that they should be the ones on X-Factor and not the current crop of munters, is driving you insane.

All those greedy sods who turned old houses into nasty noise traps, that governments really didn't bother doing anything about to legally ensure people didn't get on each others nerves, are now long gone and dead. But, hopefully, their off-spring are living under the same tortuous circumstances as the rest of us.

Most of the old properties had wall-to-wall carpet covered flooring, which when based on a family of six plus, living over three floors was fine. But then the prospectors moved in and converted said three storey houses into at least six small poky flats, sometimes, even more. If living in London and on, or below the poverty line, there is a 90% probability during your moving life, that you will be subject – especially if living below someone else – to unacceptable noise levels and at logger-heads over the best courses of action to take.

Sometimes this will be nothing more than the pair of you just turning up the noise. Sadly it will be to such levels, that neither of you will be able to think properly, let alone properly hear what you're listening to or what the other is listening to.

But that feeling of satisfaction will be wonderful, if short lived. Both of you will feel wonderful thinking that you've pissed the other off, not realising that it's only really your hearing that's been damaged. But you exchange pleasantries when briefly meeting, saying all's well with the world, secretly wondering why the other doesn't have a life threatening allergy to peanuts, so you can offer a peanut tainted cup at the next village jamboree.

And life goes on, for days on end it's nice and quiet – as they have gone away on holiday without telling you! Sometimes you just have to sit there spending the hours idly, playing with the volume button. On other occasions you just decide to go out for a walk or just to meet friends, eventually returning home slightly the worse for alcohol, put the stereo on and wake up in the morning with music blasting out and a sour note pushed through the letter box expressing extreme displeasure, bordering contempt.

Looking into the anti-social noise laws, including that of leases, most have some provision with regard for this, yet hardly anything seems to be done about it. Environmental health will only do something after 22:30hrs! Leases say noise – likely to disrupt fellow neighbours - should cease after 23:00hrs, and before then, that people should have consideration for their fellow flat dwellers.

Sadly even when letters are sent out reminding inhabitants of their contractual obligations, scant notice is given to them and things go on as usual.

So what recourse is there available to those under noise-siege? At this moment in time, it's a long hard slog through, ineffective management companies, useless housing associations, non-caring councils, solicitors, lawyers, courts etc. Which if you want a really quick result isn't much in the way of comfort, but will be of benefit once you've reached the end of the tunnel; well until the next person moves in.

The following is an excerpt from an environmental services website, and do take note of the last paragraph...

What is noise nuisance?

Our service aims to tackle unreasonable noise disturbance and reduce its impact on the quality of people's lives in the borough...

The general consensus – as unsatisfactory as it is - seems to be... just whack your own noise levels up; so you can hear what it is you're listening to. Either that or suffer the stress and frustration of living with an inconsiderate, arsehole, of a neighbour... on the otherhand, where's that bus!