Does the council class DIY as Construction

[Jeremy Harris]

FWIW we had a noise complaint, and the planning officer made it clear that me working on the house on my own was "construction" as far as the condition in our planning consent was concerned (as it happens it wasn't me working late that caused the complaint, but they assumed it was because of the time).

[Onoff]

Reckon I might have to do a neighbourly bottle run when I get the cess pool emptied...and maybe some pot pourri...

 

[ultramods]

I am away this weekend and the next 2 which is why I was trying to get it finished this week. 

 

From now on I will take days off work to finish any work or do it on Saturday morning. 

 

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

On 19/04/2019 at 20:14, ultramods said:

I could understand that if I was making noise a lot, but as I said this was a one - off for a few days.

 

 

Sound is a recognized torture technique just a few hours can be effective, ask the CIA. After a couple of days and a few thousand thunks it is a no relevance that you view the job as a one-off.

 

You say you were nearly finished when they sought confrontation but again you fail to perceive the world from their side. As they sat at home for hours getting progressively more wound up each time you fired the gun how were they meant to use psychic powers and conclude just another 300 nails to go?

 

The teenage drummer is not an equivalent source of annoyance because the local community will know through experience that he gets bored after 30 minutes and does not get out of bed before noon so they will be able to time-box the irritation and cope with it.  Your noise was irregular unlike drumming and not quantifiable in duration because you did not communicate beforehand. 

Edited May 6, 2019 by epsilonGreedy

[Ferdinand]

6 hours ago, Onoff said:

Reckon I might have to do a neighbourly bottle run when I get the cess pool emptied...and maybe some pot pourri...

 

 

Change of diet should do it.

[lizzie]

tbh I sympathise with neighbour and empathise with your wish to get on with the job.  

 

We were lucky our only near neighbour was the one that sold us the land so he had the benefit of the £’s to ease the pain of construction at the bottom of his garden.  We had the usual working time and day restrictions in our planning, on the odd occasion we wanted to work outside the hours we always asked if it was ok and we told him what work we planned. Never had a problem.  If I had been a next door neighbour without the benefit of the ££’s I would have been pretty p****d off having had to put up with usual work hours to then find outsde hours noisy work going on.

[daiking]

If it makes any difference to this, the bank holiday gardening “see you next tuesdays” started at 8:30 this morning.

 

But what sort of prick would phone the council about it?

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, daiking said:

If it makes any difference to this, the bank holiday gardening “see you next tuesdays” started at 8:30 this morning.

 

But what sort of prick would phone the council about it?

 

One who did not want to talk directly, which is always understandable. We are on tenterhooks wrt neighbour relations - they may be too.

 

Or someone who a) did not know the rules and wanted chapter and verse, or b) wanted to harass you.

 

I had a case where complaints to the Council every year were used as a form of harassment. Difficult to deal with if there is no 'vexatious' filter; in place - "we have to respond". 

F 

Edited May 6, 2019 by Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

56 minutes ago, daiking said:

[...]

But what sort of prick would phone the council about it?

 

Someone who lacks the confidence and social skills to manage conflict. 

I used to deal with noisy neighbour complaints among students in Halls of Residence and close non-student neighbours . One way I dealt with it was to suggest the complainant invite the noisy person to hear what it was like to be on the receiving end of the noise along the lines of :  ' Walk a mile in someone else's shoes ' 

 

It worked - sometimes. 

[daiking]

Dragging yourself out of bed to wander round the streets in your Jim-jams like a demented victor meldrew is not much of a way to spend your bank holiday is it?

 

There’s always someone making a racket. 

[ultramods]

My Victor Meldrew was out questioning the ground workers on the first day that they started digging up the road to connect into the sewer. They had to close the road, however the street is a crescent so everyone can still get in and out of the street fine, just might take some people a whole 30-60 seconds longer.

 

Also he lets his sound play the drums yesterday on a bank holiday, when I am assuming by his own rules everyone wants wants silence.

[newhome]

34 minutes ago, ultramods said:

Also he lets his son play the drums yesterday on a bank holiday, when I am assuming by his own rules everyone wants wants silence.

 

Something you can point out to him later if he complains. Shows how shockingly poor the sound insulation in their house is if you can head the drums from inside the house across the street. 

[ultramods]

2 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

Something you can point out to him later if he complains. Shows how shockingly poor the sound insulation in their house is if you can head the drums from inside the house across the street. 

 

 I pointed it out to him when he complained initially, even although I didn't know the drumming was coming from his house.

 

The son is playing them in the garage, which will be even more poorly insulated than the house as the garage door is non insulated.

[Vijay]

I guess one is seen as a domestic noise and the other is building work noise

[redtop]

just reading through the replies it looks to me like you have two choices; 1. decide to try and keep him happy and restrict work hours accordingly. 2. decide he's wrong and work on as you want but be ready to restrict hours if you get a letter.  SO if you take the latter approach prob best to do the work as quick as possible, by the time you get the letter you will be done :-) Interestingly we had a restriction on construction traffic to Oct to Mar only, due to being in a holiday area.  But i wanted to get groundworks done so i could get straight onto foundations beg of Oct.  I took a risk, spoke to all neighbors, got everyone on board and managed to get groundworks done quickly without a complaint.  Had to buy landlady a drink as wagons were parked outside her pub. If i had received a council visit i would have said it wasnt construction as it was groundworks; i would have probably lost the argument but just was hoping work would be done before anyone complained lol.  Anyhow, got away with it and actually locals would rather the 'dirty' work was done when the weather was dry to avoid mud running down the road (tarmac on entrance drive going in this weekend).  Also we have done the entrance way first so the rest of the work will be further back in the site away from public view.

 

Still it can spoil an otherwise good day when someone complains, i try to not let it bother me but it does