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Was I wrong?

Calaber

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The post about a derelict car being reported and the comments from some forum members regarding communication between neighbours got me thinking about a little incident between my neighbour and myself today.

I am currently renovating a box trailer. Plenty of rust, so lots of cutting, welding and hammering. This has been going on for about five days, on an off.

Today, I had been welding some new frame metal in with an electric welder. I had been hammering off the slag and grinding back the welds for neatness. Probably been at it for about two hours, when the neighbour comes into the garage. At the time, it was about 1pm. He was angry and complained that he was currently on night shift and couldn't sleep because of the noise I was making. I asked him how I was to know he was working at night, as I seldom saw him at any time during the day. I said that it was a mid-week day and the middle of the day and I was trying to do the work at the time when most people would be at work, or could not legally object to the noise.

The argument ensued for about five minutes and nothing was resolved. He wanted me to stop and I told him that I couldn't as the job is only half finished, the trailer is completely dismantled and I had to complete it. He also complained that I had been making noise for weeks in the back yard. True, because I am having a swimming pool installed and have been digging out the yard and cutting pavers for some days. But not for the past two weeks or more as the paving is finished.

So, was I wrong to not accede to his wishes? I have nearly completed all the noisy work and will try to minimise the noise whenever I work on the thing, but trailers are big hollow steel vessels and working on them is noisy, so some noise will piss him off, no matter what.

My house is a typical suburban home, brick veneer, and the work is being carried out in the garage, which is at the front of the house. His bedroom is on the opposite side of his house from my garage, probably about 30 metres away.

What would you guys do?
 

wildss

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id have told him to suck my balls he went and got a night shift job so its his bad luck.
 

TrEnNaVY

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**** him if its during the day then u r doin the right thing mate
 
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gopher

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if i was him i'd start making heaps of noise in the middle of the night before or after my shift.

i think for the sake of peace you may have to come up with some sort of compromise with him
 

jules

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try to come to an agreement - maybe only make noise during certain daylight hours if it works for you. you gotta remember that neighbours can also make life hard for you and it may be you who needs a favour or consideration at some point.

but that aside, he can't really force you to stay quiet during the day.
 

kingrat502

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i reckon you were doing nothing wrong,i had the same problem when flush my ski boat out,had big run in with neighbours,so now we give them heaps,burnouts,loud music,we go out of our way to make there life misrable,,
 

danja

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You can understand where the neighbour is coming from, I hate it when I'm trying to sleep in on the weekend and someone starts cutting their lawn at 7am.

All that said though, no Calaber, you did the right thing. 1pm is about the most reasonable time to make noise, as you say most people are at work, and if you can't do it at 1 in the afternoon, when CAN you?

You can't always please everyone, if the guy can't handle noise during the day maybe night shifts aren't for him? Better yet, buy a pair of earplugs :p
 
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Your well and truly within your rights to tell him to build a bridge.

So, no, you did not do the wrong thing but you also didn't do the right thing which would have been to organise a compromise of some description. Life is a bit of give and take and plenty of shades of gray after all.

That being said, I would have told him to go jump and thrown him a coupla pair of disposable ear plugs. (they work wonders and you can easily sleep with them in)
 

BANKS

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Get him to give you times that you can make noise and don’t abide by them.

Buy a black board and a metal rake...

Get the kids a trampoline and 5L of red cordial...

You can see where this is going lol

But seriously when is a good time, what are his expectations of you?

Actually, tell him he can borrow the trailer if he leaves you alone while you build it lol
 
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