We've just purchased our first home, and our worst nightmare has come true: Our neighbours play their bass-intensive music all night and all day.
Aside from calling the cops (or the bikies - they're too busy attending to other Ozbargainer issues), I want to know if anyone has used secondary/double glazing in their house to drown out noise? And if so, rough costs you paid, and if it worked. The music itself isn't (usually) invasively loud, it's the bass that's driving us mental.
Report it to ASIO saying that you heard something like a sound of big bang in the middle of night. Problem solved
PS. Joke advise
hmmm..there might been a better solution….
since this is your new home, when you do your housewarming party hire a party DJ with few friends or invite ozbargainers to come, play the same music as they play with the volume loud, then invite them along…during the party just ask them nicely to turn the bass down next time they play…
then everyone get to drink beer and happy
One time had some pacific islanders with a tendency to have all weekend parties - music would start early Saturday and wouldn't finish until Sunday evening. We and other neighbours complained so often that they got an official warning, and they finally stopped.
Later had another neighbour loudly playing music at 4am back when I did shift work and really needed the sleep. I'm not a very nice person when I'm exhausted and someone is stopping me sleeping. Let's just say that I didn't deal with that situation with much class, but they definitely got the message and didn't do it again.
Fuseboxes are generally easy to access. You'd be suprised how many fuses you can pull and and swap around before people notice.
A few well timed switch offs at random intervals in a day will worry the (profanity) out of them.
Bikies.
When's your next holiday? Play the same music at full volume and leave.
sniff sniff
Hmmmm, smells a hell of a lot like wacky tobaccy burning over there.
Better call the cops so they can go see if everyone is ok!
I have a neighbour who plays ripper guitar (every now and then, during the day only); ripper classics at that. Love to grab a cuppa and chill to some live Led Zep…
You though, have a different kind of problem…
If they play it all night you should play some loud music early morning, especially on weekends!
Nothing worse for them than not being able to sleep in due to loud music…
We have a neighbour who lives a couple of houses away that burns their chimney 24/7. It can get so bad sometimes that you can see the smoke literally descending on the backyard and remember these people don't live next door they are a few houses away. During the day when its at its worse you can't use the backyard, the smell stinks any washing on the line and you can't open the windows. Unfortunately when it comes to chimneys there isn't much you can do. There are just some people in this world that don't respect their neighbours.
Yeah or they want to live like new age hippies and only use wood fires for heating or 'don't believe in screens' so the younger kids are always outside and often loud cause they're just kids and also because they get bored eventually just kicking a soccer ball around between two of them or jumping on the same old trampoline
Watch the Aussie movie The King is Dead. Now they really were the neighbors from hell! They come up with a good plan….won't spoil it though.
police. also prob a rental try to find out the agent and mention shut windows, weird smells, comings and goings at all hours, some neighbours complaining of having power/utilities siphoned, and loud music. but esp police when the bass is pumping, becoz u know I'm all about that bass, no treble
I know what youre going through, Ive had several neighbours like that. One would play music at full volume all day and night, at another house we had neighbours whod go to the pub just about evey night until it closed and then start partying at midnight even on weeknights and wake the whole neighborhood up, playing music so loud picture frames in my house would vibrate against the wall until 3am.
My advice is to ignore suggestions about playing nice. These kinds of people know theyre disturbing others, they just dont care and have no respect. Approaching them will just get your car keyed or something when you have to take it further. Which you will.
Fact is, you are legally protected from this. Noise laws are in place. Use them. A lot of councils have a system already in place to deal with noice complaints, check your councils website. If they dont, you are well within your rights to call the police. That might not stop them straight away but after a few police calls theyll be told next time it will be a big fine. That will stop them. If even that fails, you can take out a noise abatement order.
You dont have to live like that. I know how much it ruins your life, andI'll never put up with it again.
Neither the council nor the police are here to help innocent people. They basically won't give a damn. When we had a noisy neighbour issue, the police didn't do anything and after months of complaining to the council and making a diary of the incidents, they finally sent an assesor round to listen to the noise. He couldn't hear anything……. Then we noticed his hearing aid!
The council then threatened to fine us if we didn't stop complaining!
We both work full time and lack of sleep was becoming an issue. Eventually we had to move out.
That's how messed up the system is.
Then we noticed his hearing aid!
hahaha hilarious
what if the assessor was actually your neighbour!?
Mindblown!
I hate how the 'system' favours the troublemakers and people who do the right thing suffer.
Going through this hell myself in a rental.
We are in a townhouse with a shared internal wall - you can see where this is going…
Non-stop thumping, bumping and smacking on the walls. It's been about six months now and I'm at my wits end. We've complained to them in person numerous times, via letter in the mail box and a ton of complaints to the agent. They go quiet each time for about a week, and then its back to normal.
What are they doing? Is it living or bedroom?
I honestly have no idea. They have a young kid who I think is the source of most the noise. But literally it's like someone is standing on the other side of the wall and thumping it with their hand.
horrible. Hope your situation improves
Just buy their house out, and evict them!
If not, you can use the soft tactics. Bring them a nice place for dinner, have wines and enjoy the night.
At the same time, mention you enjoy the night with them and will have a good sleep tonight cause you are drunk and won't be able to hear loud noises from the neighbourhood. You can mention you become alcoholic to deal with the noise problem and before you moved, you don't drink this much. Now you got a whole cellar of wine. Then from time to time, send them a bottle of wine, (subtle way of reminding them, they make you an alcoholic and sleepless night).
Are you joking? do you want to move next to me?
Is the house wired with a smart meter?
If so, Electricity Company can remotely turn power on or off
Scour internet and see if smart meter has been reverse-engineered.
Remotely power-off house as you see fit :)
This is why I've always argued homes should have a trial period. Too big of an investment to find out u have bad neighbours.
Guy at my workplace found out his neighbors are psychopaths, they would threaten him for no reason.
All the comments saying police and council should/can help are laughable.
Neither avenue will result in anything of substance.
Taking to the neighbours, including threatening them trying to reason with them is also a waste of time, these people would not doing this if they had any consideration for others.
I have had noise issues with my neighbours for several years. We have many neighbours who feel the same way we do.
The only way is to engage a lawyer and take them to court, issuing a cease and desist order for their noise.
This will be expensive and disruptive and stressful.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but just sharing my experiences.
F'ing hell, downvoted for sharing my experiences. This is all true. If you don't want the truth what do you want? A smart arse comment about bikies?
Nah, down voted for the option of going straight to a lawyer without using other options first.
Just go talk to them about it.
Have you found a solution to your problem yet? Which area of Berwick? Chase estate?
I too have a neighbour like this, he likes play shooting games and watch combat movies with his sub woofer. I can feel my walls shake like a bomb just thrown outside of my house.
look up the address online and see if it pops up on domain or real estate and see if it was leased. if it was leased i would send an email to the real estate agent leasing it and make a complaint. worst case you wait a few months and they wont renew their lease. but make a complaint every week so they get annoyed.
I see there are a few suggestions of using white noise. Do you download a white noise soundtrack or use a machine? How loud do you play it?
Had this issue, on a Sunday morning… live in a townhouse complex… he was 7 townhouses down…
He was downstairs having breakfast while his heavy bass music was playing from upstairs.
Told him off in a stern voice.
If you have a friend who is scary sounding/looking get him to go tell the guy to "turn the fing music off as he is sleeping"
Edit: I'm not scary looking, just have a low aggressive voice
We had a similar problem and a few neighbours spoke to them to no avail. In fact the lady asked my husband if he wanted sex for money when he spoke with her. Ice addicted. We had to call the police numerous times as we heard domestic violence yelling and furniture throwing too. Anyway we spoke to Owners corp and the land lord and it eventually got sorted out as they were doing illegal things and were evicted/died/disappeared. It was a long drawn out process as we lost a lot of sleep over it due to their lifestyle. We even had people banging on our door asking for drugs. I feel for you.
For example. In the ACT. The Environment Protection Agency for noise pollution takes care of these issues. You register a complaint they will investigate and attempt to get a Validated Noise Reading. They can serve enforceable notices 'Noise Abatement'if the offender does not fix the issue. The EPA can fine them.
Get a Super Bass Sound System, use a microphone to receive their bass, amplify it, introduce a time delay, and get it back at them. It will stop them playing because they get confused by the delayed bass.
Had new neighbours move in next doors that were just like yours. After numerous attempts at politely asking them to turn down the volume I took a more drastic action.
I have a 40hz hum sound file which I left playing full volume on repeat with the speakers facing their house while I left for work. Came home to a letter on my door from them asking ME to turn down whatever is making that noise as it was driving them insane.
It is literally impossible to concentrate/sleep when you're hearing this hum; it is at that perfect frequency to disrupt whatever you're doing. Thank god I only had to do that once. Never had any loud music problems from them ever again.
Found the sound file if you want to give it a shot.
Nah, say "Sorry, the arsehole alarm went off, must have been one nearby recently". Gotta assert dominance.
If they have WIFI, get a wifi cracker, and simply log onto their network, and wipe their PC's of music (and maybe accidentally format C:/ while you're in there). Or just infect the crap out of their PC.
lol, if only it was that easy
@cassidy02, Go and chat to them. Invite them over for tea/coffee and have an offline social interaction. I would imagine exactly how you would like to be treated. If that fails, try again, chat to them. If that fails, speak to other neighbours. Then chat to noisy neighbours again(dont tell them yous poke to other neighbours, they will think you are starting a campaign against them). Then if that dont work, tell them you have tried to be decent. Then seek out other avenues, but at least you have done everything a civil person could do. But most importantly, record it all all times. Phone, Google glasses, whatever, get in on tape….. And if it gets out of hand in any way, call A Current Affair and give them your tapes. Show them for the fools thay are….
I had a problem with the neighbours when I was living at my grandfather's home, some Chinese people were running a small daycare centre with about 4-6 kids out of their home, problem was the babies were being dropped off at 6am and they were always screaming for atleast 15 minutes after their mothers dropped them off. I didn't want any trouble so I just put up with it.
I bet you wouldn't support your other neighbours in their dispute with this either.
I might have if someone else was having problems, just the bedroom was very close to were the children were, perhaps 5-10 meters. My grandfather was half deaf so it didn't worry him.
So you had a problem but because no one else did the dirty work for you. you just took it.
$2000 for a single pane!! Jeeeesusssss