Living next to a noisy neighbour is one thing, but living next to a noisy boiler is arguably worse. One resident has been left at her wit's end as her neighbour's boiler regularly keeps her awake at night, despite their efforts to help.
The problem is so extreme she struggles to get more than two hours of shut-eye a night - and the lack of sleep is starting to take a toll on her mental health. She had come to an agreement with the previous tenants, meaning the appliance was turned off between 11pm and 6am. But she's not been as successful with the new neighbours, and when the boiler runs through the night she feels like "it's torture."
Posting to Mumsnet in the hope of receiving some much-needed advice, the unlucky neighbour explained she can't sleep because of the boiler's cycles. "It keeps me constantly awake and I'm getting rather distressed by it. I nod off then am woken up - every 20 minutes," she wrote.
To make matters worse, there's nowhere she can escape to. "There's not another room I can go to as it affects the whole house apart from the bathroom. The boiler sits on our party wall," explained the sleepless resident.
She added that she has tried everything from ear plugs to listening to white noise, but the vibrations cut through it all. Unfortunately, her neighbour rents the home, and the landlord does not think there is an issue.
"The tenants have tried, but quite rightly don't want to be commanded when they have their heating on or not. It only stops if they turn their heating off through the night," her post continued.
She added: "It's starting to affect my mental health really and my work as I'm catching 2 hours sleep max." Unfortunately, commenters could not offer simple solutions.
One suggested: "You could talk to a boiler installer and see whether they have experienced some similar problem in the past and whether they managed to fix it." A second thought: "It could well be that it is placed next to some sort of building support so the vibration couples in more strongly."
But another pointed out: "Unfortunately for you there won’t be anything they will have to do, they have a right to have heating and hot water provided by their boiler as and when they require it."
Replying to advice, the woman revealed she would be happy to pay for investigation work, but her offer has not yet been accepted.
"I honestly wouldn't mind if it stops at say 11pm but when it's on all night it's torture. I've offered to pay to investigate THEIR boiler but they haven't taken me up on it so far," she wrote. "Not sure how much more reasonable I can be. Don't want to start up with the council but may need to."
