Attached houses

I'm currently in a basement flat at the end of a row of terraced houses, which are about 200 years old. I haven't heard a thing from the people living on the other side of the lounge/bedroom walls since we moved in 5 months ago, but I do hear the people above us... their floors (our ceilings) creak every time they walk around and I often hear them watching TV, chatting or playing the guitar in their living room.

Same here! Basement flat and every noise the neighbours above make, I hear. They have a very active 8 year old who likes to jump and fall on the floor from chairs and such (I've been at theirs when he did things like this). It's horrible and I'm having to tell my landlord that our electrics are all messed up on the ceiling because of this. If we could afford it, detached it would be!

We live in a middle terrace, built circa 1906 and only occasionally hear the neighbours on one side.  Can't say the same for the family on the other (she screams at her kids a lot and shuts their front door quite forcefully). My in-laws live in an end terrace built in I think the 30s and you never hear their neighbour.  I think it's just down to the individual house and how it was made really, you can't generalize that all terraces and semis are noisy and all detatched houses aren't.  I used to live in Arizona and could hear my neighbours all the time even when the windows were shut!

We've installed Sempatap thermal insulation in our house to deal with some condensation & mold issues from http://www.mgcltd.co.uk/ and I find it's lessened outside noise a bit too.  It's not hard to do yourself, basically it's like super super thick wallpaper.  Something like that may help.

Population density of England: 1000 per sq mile (even higher in south east England)

Only 373 per sq mile in Cornwall ... we live in a detached house.

My advice to the OP - move! 

Depends on my neighbours. I live in a mid-terrace built around 1905. One saide I don't hear from but thats's the wall with both our fireplaces on so additional distance. The other side though, some neighbours I've heard nothing from. The latest, a couple of girls in their mid-20's....sometimes on a Friday evening I can hear their chattering above our TV! One Friday they probably didn't stop til 5 in the morning!

Our UK house is mid-terrace -- stone-built 1870's. For some reason, the neighbour noise bothers DH more than it ever did me. What bothered me more is that you only have two exposures (walls with windows) so you can never get a good breeze through the bedrooms. I think most people look on terraces/semis as more energy saving because you have fewer external walls to lose heat.

We're now looking for a bungalow (preferably detached) but hard to find in locations within walking distance of the shops.

Hi

As semi mentioned, the reason for alot of terraced and semi detached houses goes back to the industrial age when workers would be drafted into towns with factories and manufacturing employers and plant nearby. Terraced houses were relatively easy to build and while streets could be put up quite quickly. Over the decades, and modern life's requirements, land price rises etc etc all mean that whilst many UK families would love to move and have a little more space, nowadays pricing means it's either not possible or very difficult to commit to large mortgages etc etc.

Some of the older more solidly built houses with brick internal and dividing walls are better at keeping sounds of neighbours out or minimised, but it depends on the construction and just how noisy the neighbours actually are!

As a general rule of thumb, certainly for the South East of the UK, any property with perhaps anything in excess of 1300-1500 Sq ft of living space will be certainly up in the £400-550,000 range in purchase price. Various areas of the North are also comparable to those figures. So really, if you want more 'space' and a detached home, you will have to really commit to a large purchase price! more rural or surburban properties also exist where you get more choice with detached properties, but they too, are relatively highly priced as well

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I lived in several apartments that were part of row houses in Brooklyn and rarely noticed the side to side neighbors' noise. I like row houses, personally, since it allows you to have a house but still have density, which I love in a neighborhood. The sprawl of where I grew up in NJ isn't something I'd wish on anywhere and it's caused mostly by detached houses. You can't have it both ways, and personally, I'd prefer a walkable place to live with easily accessible public transport that makes a car optional.

We bought a detached house last year.  It is quite small, and if we had bought a semi or a terraced we would have ended up with more space.
However, when the 10 year old has a temper tantrum she can scream for England-and they tend to go on for a while as well. 
We live about a mile and a half from the train station/town centre.  It takes about 25 minutes to walk.  There is  the bus as well if we are being lazy. 

My in-laws have a semi-detached and they had great neighbors for 20+ years and now they here drunken fights, karaoke...amongst other things until 4am almost every single night.  I would end up in jail for kicking their door in and punching them in the face (especially with 2 small kids).  That's what sucks about houses, flats, etc here...you could never hear anything from your neighbors for years and then WHAM!

I really hate the size of houses here and that they are all attached (we happen to live in a decent size detached ourselves).  I get the reason for it but I definitely miss the big US houses and huge yards.

Until I moved to the attached house I am in now, I have always lived in apartments or flats so I am used to other people around me.

Our neighbours are very quiet, elderly people and we are the "noisy" ones.  When we first moved in, one of our neighbours, whose wife is very poorly, complained about us opening and closing doors at night - we weren't slamming, just opening and closing the bathroom door, etc.

He has also complained about DH watching films at night so DH put tapestries all around the TV room to dampen the noise when we he watches TV or plays with his XBOX.

Our tenancy agreement also doesn't allow us to perform any noise-making activities - e.g. Hoovering, using the washing machine, after 9PM, which is a pain because I work all day and could use the time to get chores done. (When I lived in Brooklyn, "quiet time" was after 11PM on weekdays. Sometimes I didn't get home from work till 9.)

I also have to be careful not to do things like opening and closing cupboard doors too loudly because the neighbour will complain.

Or if we are out on the weekend and come home very late, we have to be careful about how loudly we open and close the front door and how much noise we make coming up the stairs, etc. (It sounds like DH and I are teenagers - we are in our 40s.)

When I have lived in flats/apartments in both the US and the UK I have only ever complained if people were making noise - and I mean real noise, like hammering for hours or blasting music so loud my walls shook - after midnight on a weeknight. (If I thought someone was in danger, I would call the police, but that's different.)

I also think that there is a big difference between noise on the side of you and noise that is pounding over your head.

Our neighbours on both sides never seem to make a peep.  The only thing I ever hear is sometimes the light switch being turned on in the bathroom if I happen to be in my bathroom at the same time.

Maybe I am so used to hearing other people that I don't notice little noises.

In fact, when I am home alone, I find the fact that I don't hear other human voices or other people walking around to be creepy.

Our neighbours are very quiet, elderly people and we are the "noisy" ones.  When we first moved in, one of our neighbours, whose wife is very poorly, complained about us opening and closing doors at night - we weren't slamming, just opening and closing the bathroom door, etc.

He has also complained about DH watching films at night so DH put tapestries all around the TV room to dampen the noise when we he watches TV or plays with his XBOX.

Our tenancy agreement also doesn't allow us to perform any noise-making activities - e.g. Hoovering, using the washing machine, after 9PM, which is a pain because I work all day and could use the time to get chores done. (When I lived in Brooklyn, "quiet time" was after 11PM on weekdays. Sometimes I didn't get home from work till 9.)

I also have to be careful not to do things like opening and closing cupboard doors too loudly because the neighbour will complain.

Or if we are out on the weekend and come home very late, we have to be careful about how loudly we open and close the front door and how much noise we make coming up the stairs, etc. (It sounds like DH and I are teenagers - we are in our 40s.)

Oh my.  That's...really over the top, IMO.  I understand the wife's illness perhaps exacerbates the situation, but still.  It's one thing to complain about nighttime door slamming and "excessive" noise that's not day to day life.  But the simple opening of bathroom and cupboard doors?  That seems utterly unreasonable to me.  We're not loud people at all, so I don't say this to justify my own actions, but expecting total silence when living in within view of other humans is just...ridiculous.  Good grief. 

wow!

Sweetpeach, I agree with ophinky ! that's just ridiculous! who and how is the 'excessive noise' monitored exactly? and to think, you're paying money for this place!

I'd suggest perhaps asking the neighbours to get soundproofing installed if normal perfectly acceptable 'noise' levels from you are disturbing them. As you've taken steps to minimise what i'd say is considered normal noise levels you've done your bit. If they still complain, don't change your habits, carry on as you are. At that point, speak to the local council and voluntarily put up one of those noise meters which tracks how much noise in made in Decibels, and the time of day etc. I'm pretty sure there's a standard the council have which is then deemed to be 'excessive noise' if it goes over certain thresholds. You can then show them that and at that point it's up to them if they want to stay or they can move.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect doors opening and closing normally, light switches, footsteps and the occasional bout of normal volume music in shared buildings and apartment blocks. I agree with the sort of threashold times of like 9pm and 11pm.

Although you shouldn't have to, perhaps look at getting the gaming headphones which have multiple drive units inside to help re-create surround sound - they are good for this sort of thing to keep noise levels at zero in the room you are in, yet all the sound is in the headphones!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

In the flat in London (actually a maisonnette) internal noise was at acceptable levels, except when the idiot next door would start hammering. The worst noise came from outside as one neighbour would stand outside and bellow up to his wife. Incapable of speaking in a normal tone. Although it was a quiet side street, we had congregations of young men (with flash cars) opposite the flats nearly every evening. Talking and shouting and with the car radio going. Very disturbing in the warmer weather when you wanted the windows open.
Worse yet, was the smell of tobacco smoke in the downstairs loo -- either from next door or downstairs. 

Oh my.  That's...really over the top, IMO.  I understand the wife's illness perhaps exacerbates the situation, but still.  It's one thing to complain about nighttime door slamming and "excessive" noise that's not day to day life.  But the simple opening of bathroom and cupboard doors?  That seems utterly unreasonable to me.  We're not loud people at all, so I don't say this to justify my own actions, but expecting total silence when living in within view of other humans is just...ridiculous.  Good grief.  

I posted about this when I first moved in. He is in other respects, a very nice, generous man (will always do you a favour if you ask) so we make allowances for it.

He hasn't complained since we added the tapestries and have been careful about making too much noise. Sorry if I gave the impression that he was still complaining.

I haven't lived in a detached house anywhere (US or UK) since I moved out at 18.  So I guess I'm used to the noise.  Amazingly enough, my last flat was less noisy than our semi-detached house...but that may be because 5 kids live next door now and we had only adults around us in our flat (plus I think the soundproofing was better in the flat).  There are times it drives me mad (like when the high pitched sounding mom screams at her kids who are always out of control), but it's not that bad.  I just think of it as a price of living in a city when you don't have millions to spend (which was true of the other two cities I lived in - Boston & DC).