Ask UK

We heard a bang one morning. Thought nothing of it until armed police climbed over our back wall and strolled through our garden. We let them in. They seemed very pleased with themselves, and made remarks about the state of our house (uncalled for, but when a policeman with a gun cracks a 'joke', you fucking laugh).

Anyway apparently our neighbour discharged a pistol and someone called the police. They breached his door and locked him up. We've heard nothing since then, and the area has significantly yuppied up.

My upstairs neighbours have their TV running 24/7.

My downstairs neighbors were a couple that would occasionally argue and I would hear the lady crying. Seemed kinda sad but not really my business. Well one day he moved out. The lady catches me outside and tells me that he was abusing her, lawyers are involved and he's not allowed near the property. She wanted me to let her know if I saw him around. This couple...were my landlords. The property management company was in her name and the house itself was in his name. It's been an awkward time since.

The people above me seem to rearrange their furniture every single night at 3am. IDKWTF is going on up there, but it's loud.

The family next door used to have furious, thunderous rows all the time, until the couple got divorced and the dad moved out; now it's all very harmonious.

In my old house I once heard the woman having sex with someone who definitely wasn't her partner (as he was very definitely out at work at the time). That relationship ended before I moved house!

I'm deaf as a post, so when I watch TV I have a tendency to watch it too loud; apologies to my neighbours for that. But actually I don't watch a lot of telly these days, so they mostly dodge that bullet.

Back twenty years, one side, somebody playing the guitar badly. The other, "Andy" being shouted through the letterbox on regular occasions. Downstairs, loud sex (couldn't hear it from my place, but out in the corridor it was very obvious). Over the road, murder.

I moved out shortly after that incident.

Had a neighbour who would shout and cheer at the telly when the footie was on, as if he was actually there at the match, or at least in company. He wasn't. Watched it alone. I found the whole thing kind of sad, and annoying.

Meanwhile, my neighbours heard about 30 seconds of me shouting shit & fuck in the garden the other day, as I missed a step, broke a metatarsal and rolled my ankle.

Current place: basically nothing. It's an old house with thick joining walls. It's great The only time we hear anything at all is when they poke the fire, since this is on the joining wall.

Previous place: we had a neighbour who clearly had some issues with noise on one side. We are naturally quiet people, with no kids or pets or anything, and we don't have the TV on loud but she would start pounding on the wall when, for example, we were emptying the dish washer and putting stuff back in the cupboards at 9-10am, or a dozen other normal activities at normal times of the day. Meanwhile, we had someone on the other side who was working from home some of the time and we'd get him shouting down the phone most of the day at times (my wife got most of this, since she was at home most days) and watch loud sport stuff in the evenings.

The peak, though, was when Mr work-from-home was doing some renovation work in a bedroom. Either removing plaster or knocking a wall through or something involving hours of extremely loud hammering. Well, that came straight through to us and clearly Ms sensitive-to-noise could hear it as well, so that set her pounding on the wall, presumably thinking that it was us. There was a day when we were just sitting there listening to deafening hammering on one side and pounding on the other. At least my wife had some noise-cancelling headphones.

It was a nice place otherwise, but I'm very happy that we moved.

GOD DAMNIT YOU SELFISH PIECE OF SHIT. I ALREADY SPENT THOUSANDS.

I don't care, that's not my problem!!!

YOU CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS TO ME

Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?!

(I wonder all the time what the thousands were for)

The worst in my old place was when he got drunk one Summer night (when all the windows were open) and played The Entertainer over and over again for hours. Not quite Guantanamo but everyone was up, prowling around going "should we go round and ring the bell?" We didn't. Years later one of their daughters came up to me in the pub and said: "we can hear you when you laugh". So perhaps I'm the nightmare neighbour.

Further evidence for that is that the woman below me hates me and has left a note asking me not to slam the door when I go to the pub and to stop dragging furniture around - I don't do either. I'm tempted to show her this, but she might think I was taking the piss. I might well be.