Neighbours from hell

I have spent a lot of time on this site in the past few days and have decided to pose this question to you to see what you come up with. I read the Samoa thread and thought you all to be very diplomatic in your approcahes so I'm hoping you can help me here. This is the dilemma:

We have neighbours on one side of us who are just awful. They are only young, I would say mid 30's and have 2 just as awful children(though I am not blaming the children here). The problem is, the parents scream at each other all day long. This of course makes the children do the same. They are 2 & 3. We are in the middle of summer here and have to have the windows closed all day so that we don't have to listen to it. The children screech, scream and cry non stop as do the parents (95% of the time they scream at the kids). Because of the noise and the fact that Peugeot was abused before I adopted him, if he is outside playing or sleeping or just being a cat, he bolts inside with a distressed look on his face and won't leave my side. He gets to the point sometimes where he will only play outside if I am with him. How do I tell these people they are affecting all of us without starting a dispute? We have just signed another 12 month lease here and love this place and do not want to have to leave for them.

Hope you have some suggestions. I'm sure you will. :tounge2:

You could call the police when the domestic is taking place. I am not sure what the laws are in Australia, but where I am, I would call them. Will it make them stop? Probably not. And unless one of them has physically hurt the other or the kids, chances are nobody is going jail, either. It sucks...it really does!

Are you in an apartment or something? If you are and these people are in the same complex, I would tell management that they had better be doing something about the noise issue or you will consider your lease to be null and void (most leases state that you are guaranteed a quiet environment).

I have been there/done that with neighbors, but again...it all depends on your laws, etc. Maybe calling the police (anonymously, of course) will scare them enough to knock their crap off. But you are right in not approaching them yourself. You don't know what these people might do to you (bodily harm, threats, etc) and just might make living there worse than what it already is.

Do you have protective services in Australia? You might want to let them know what those kids are subjected to, as well. ANYTHING might be worth a chance if it is that annoying!

I would do the same, but then again, I'd want to stay out of it. Do these neighbors of yours like animals, particularily cats? That would be my main concern, especially if you let him roam around. I dont know, it's a tough situation to be in. How do others feel?

Thanks for the response!

We live in a semi-detached house. We are not attcatched to them. We do have laws to protect kids here, however, I don't think they are being abused, I think they are just subjected to REALLY bad parenting. I suggested to my boyfriend we call the police, or child protection, but as they are not being abused, I don't think they would do anything. They often ask us if we hear them and we tell them yes and they apologise and then do nothing about it. Our landlord is our other neighbour. He also has kids and all you ever hear from them is joy and laughter which I love to hear. Peugeot will even investigate when he hears them. I think he likes it too!

Not sure about the cat liking thing. They have chased the boy out of their garden a couple of times, but it was nothing bad and now he doesn't go there much. We have a large garden and he tends to stick to that. He is not allowed out after dark, so at least I don't have to worry about him then.

See, and that was the thing I was thinking, too.....there is no evidence of abuse so they won't do anything. Same thing with the police, but the police don't KNOW until they get there. That is the difference (at least here). They will come out on a domestic disturbance (can you tell I did the 911 thing for a long time!?! lol). At least if they make an appearance it might make these people think...and every time they started their crap, I would call. But see, I am one of these people that INSISTS on my peace and quiet. I don't like to live next to hood rats.

Other than that....I really don't think there is anything you can do to get them to stop.....just adjust your life accordingly. Get Air conditioning, move out, keep the cat inside or supervised outside, etc.

From personal family experience (this happened in the US), it is hard to prove child abuse, no matter how stupid that seems. My Dad's next door neighbor regularly beat her kids (we could hear it through the walls), but she was "smart" and beat them through their diapers. Although Dad called the police and Social Services several times to report the abuse, they couldn't do anything because they could find no physical (i.e. bruises) proof of the abuse.

I think you'd have a much better chance with the landlords. My rental company responds to complaints of noise and disturbance very quickly, and they will kick out anyone who causes an unpleasant living environment for the other tenants.

I wish you good luck in your situation!

Christy

Yes, I would talk to the landlords about it...if they are nice people they may do something about it, or they may ask the people to please keep their loud yelling down because it is disturbing others.

Thanks for the help guys. Unfortunately, they own their house so there is no landlord intervention available. We will not move because why should we have to? Giving into them means they win. This is a great house for us and Peugeot and our landlord loves Peugeot too so we need to stay where he is welcome. There are not alot of rental properties that accept pets in Sydney.

Happy New Year

What about contacting your local Council? In the UK, we have noise abatement by-laws - if you have the same, your local Council could proscecute them if they break the by-laws.

Sounds like a headache, seems we've all dealt with noisy neighbors one time or another. Definitley try the local council, but if they do something, your neighbors might try to 'get back' at the neighborhood, as mine did...

I have a neighbor to my right who had large white rocks around the perimeter of his property spaced a few meters apart, for decoration I assume. The neighborhood contacted the city council and complained that it was a risk to the neighborhood kids to have large rocks like that so close to the road where they play and ride bikes (we live on a dead end road). This neighbor, after removing the rocks, decided to complain to council that there are many illegal apartments in the area and it's doubled the amount of vehicles coming down the road and all these extra people are not good for a family orientated community. So the CRD came in and looked around (we had to remove our stove prior to them entering) and decided it wasn't a suite and that we were borders that shared a kitchen upstairs. They left and we put back out the stove. It was really annoying but the community got what it wanted and he got to vent on the community. He still reports stupid things to the city council, like neighbors who abuse their dogs, which they don't, and such.

So for us, it was worth it.