Semi-detached neighbors having extremely loud sex even after we've politely asked them to keep it down, is there anything we can do?

Posted by Nice-Agent3109@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 496 comments

Hi all,

Long story short we moved into this semi-detached 1930s house as renters, we were on good terms with the neighbors but we realized immediately that our wall-sharing neighbors have screaming sex often enough for it to disturb my sleep.

We moved into the smaller bedroom (not adjacent to theirs) -- which involved us having to return some furniture we bought as it wouldn't fit-- and bought a noise machine, but this doesn't really help. One night we were watching a fairly loud movie in the downstairs living room and had to turn the movie up because we could hear them from their bedroom, which was the breaking point for me.

My partner sent a fairly diplomatic text letting her know that the walls were thin and we were being frequently woken up by bedroom noises late at night and politely asking if they could keep it down during nighttime. Her response was basically:

  1. To say she would never dream of complaining to us about daily noise (drilling, moving furniture, etc)

  2. That they, unlike us, are home owners and they ""almost lost themselves saving up for a deposit ""

  3. A paragraph explaining that old houses aren't soundproof (I lived in a terraced Victorian flat for 5 years surrounded by students, so I'm not unfamiliar with what levels of sex noises to expect)

  4. Something along the lines of they're planning on starting a family and babies are noisy so we should buy earplugs.

Since then the noise quietened for a bit, but is back to keeping me up at night. I don't want to get a bad relationship with them, but to be honest I am so frustrated every time I hear them because I think it's just plain inconsiderate to know you're someone who has screaming sex and decide to buy a semi-detached aged property - it makes me think what were to happen if we had children who had to listen to that! But I will be frank and say the extent (screaming) of the noises and the lack of conscientiousness make me more angry than the sleep disturbance in and of itself. So is it a me problem? It doesn't bother my partner nearly as much but he's usually already asleep.

Is there anything I can do further? I know the responses from similar posts are along the lines of "applaud when they finish" or "play really loud embarrassing music while they're doing it", but I don't particularly want to take that route, as honestly I get anxious and stressed about it every night before bed as it is, and I also can't wear earplugs as I have very narrow ear canals and they're really prone to blocking and getting sore.

Any advice would be great - even if the advice is just "go to bed earlier to avoid the noise". Or if anyone has any helpful anecdotes I'd be much appreciated.

Thank you