It sounds like you’ve all the hard work in life done between work and rearing the children and now it’s time that you relax and want to live a quiet life and rightly so. You are trying to enjoy your retirement and that’s how I envisage my own if I’m lucky enough to make it, God willing. There are too big issues here that are really standing out to me, and they are, you suffering from anxiety because of this and this keeping you up at night, I’d imagine that the anxiety is adding to the lack of sleep. So, we need to do something but calling the Gardai won’t be our first stop and hopefully a step you won’t be taking.
From your letter it sounds like you and your neighbours don’t know each other at all and might not have even met at this stage and I think this is a great starting point. You live next to each other and it’s not like they have moved in for the weekend, this is long-term, so you need to get on. if you are a baker bake something and go over to them with it, if you don’t bake, buy something nice in the shop. The main thing here is that you are being pro-active and a good neighbour and what you’re doing is welcoming them into the neighbourhood. This makes a good first impression, can you imagine that you sent a letter (I know someone who approached a situation like this in that way) or called the Garda anonymously?
Now your husband is as deaf as a post and this whole thing doesn’t bother him, but that doesn’t make things any better for you. You are the one who is anxious not him. It doesn’t bother him now, but if it’s going to keep bothering you, you will start bothering him until it does bother him, and we don’t want that to become another issue, so he needs to be in on this from now on.
So, before you go in next door you need to have this conversation with him. I know it sounds like a lot of moving parts but your peace of mind it at stake here. The more together you are going over the first time, the stronger the hand you have. What you don’t want is your husband to say, ‘sure it doesn’t bother me at all’. You may as well move away altogether if that happens, so school him well before you go in.
While you’re in next door get to know the new neighbours first before you drop a few hints that you and your husband go to bed early and so on. You must understand too that the kids will be playing, its what they do but I think you could say ‘look the noise of the ball hopping of the wall bothers me and I do suffer from anxiety, but if it could stop before 7pm I’d be happy with that’.
Now, when it comes to loud music there are laws when it comes to that, but I there are no laws in Ireland to say they can’t park on the public road in front of your house. Hopefully though the conversation will go well, and they will cop on to what has been going on. See, years ago you could just let a shout at them to stop and that would be it, and I’d imagine that you have been temped, but this day is over. It’s them that might call the Gardai on you! People do seem to have a good few friends over when they move in first and that might die away.
That’s the way I’d approach this issue and it’s a pain that you have to do it when all you want is a peaceful life, but it won’t change if you sit idle. I don’t want to get into what to do next if it all blows up and there is a stand-off. I want to see how this goes first. A lot of times these situations come down to a lack or no communication at all. You are being the bigger person here by getting the ball rolling. Parents, as we know have busy lives and might not have gotten around to say hello properly to their new neighbours, they might even find it refreshing that you have make the first move.
