Hi all

I just wanted to know whether any of you have been in a similar situation and what you did about it...

We live in a relatively small one bedroom flat. The rooms are in a row, no rooms behind the front of the place...nowhere to hide from noise from across the road sadly!

Our neighbours across the road are absolute jerks (and that's putting it nicely ). God knows how many of them are living there - they are all young guys who look to be 20-25. Problem is, they like to have parties pretty much every weekend (sometimes both weekend nights ) and that means that because they are directly across from us, we get their bass reverberating through our flat and no way to block out the sound. We can also often hear drunken shouting, always fun.

I'm just starting this thread because it's happening yet again...it's a Saturday night, so yes, parties are likely to happen but it's driving me up the wall! They also had a party on Thursday and no amount of cotton stuffed in my ears could prevent me hearing the bass and I ended up in tears complaining to my OH.

We're exhausted with calling noise-control because when we do, it's the standard call them with the complaint, call back after 15 minutes if it's still occurring and then they take a matter of hours to get out to the jerks house. It doesn't help that the music often starts and stops so they perhaps think we're just moaning over nothing.

I would go over there and ask them to turn it down, but I highly suspect that they would just laugh in my face and shut the door. My other worry is that they may be dealing drugs, as a couple of the guys have BMWs and seem way to young to afford them. That and there are always cars stopping outside for short periods of time, someone running in then coming out maybe 5 minutes later and driving off again. I just don't know what type of person may open the door if OH or I were to go across.

Sorry for the essay, just wanted to explain in detail. Any suggestions? It's going to be hard enough to sleep soon as it is, with a big belly, and bass coming through the wall just doesn't help

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far

i wouldnt go over there. phone the cops!!!

I don't know the laws in New Zealand but we recently had a similar problem with our next door neighbors. I called the cops and they went to the wrong address first of all, so by the time that was sorted and they finally arrived two hours later, the party had wound down (this was at 7 am, by the way, it had started at 1am). Anyway, I was informed that the cops here can't actually do anything, like issue a fine or citation, or arrest them, nothing. Nothing at all. All they can do is look intimidating, and even if the partygoers tell them ''no'' right to their face when they ask them to quiet down, there's nothing they can do but get in their car and leave.

Apparently the environmental council here are the ones who enforce noise ordnance laws, and that involves calling them (they're only open 9 to 5 on the weekdays, much good that does me at 1 in the morning during a party), and then they bring out machines and measure the decibel level outside to see if it exceeds their noise pollution limits. Its unlikely it does because it's something we mostly hear from inside the walls of our house as the walls are thin.

So all in all, I can just say I really commiserate with you and wish I could offer more helpful advice, but I'm in the same boat! Maybe call around and see what rights you have and what CAN be done and go from there.

Go around to your other neighbours and get them to sign a petition to have them evicted because of noise pollution? My friends mum did this and it worked..

I dont know about new zealand but I phoned environmental health who helped and they got moved out x