Neighbours playing drums

Would just like some advice on this. Anyone had to cope with this before?

Basically, am living in a Duplex apartment and next door set up is a bit strange. They're not there that much - he's english I think. Keep to themselves which is fine by me. Recently started hearing drumkit being played (with brushes) during the day. Now...I'm not really picky about noise in general but to start with I think having a drum kit in Duplex apartments with crappy walls is a bit rich.
Anyway...saturday night next door is having a party. Again...absolutely no problem with this. Everyone has parties and has the right to have them too. At 4am they start playing the drumkit (with sticks this time). It felt like it was being played right next to me. I banged on the wall a few times but they didn't hear or just ignored. I really thought this was taking the piss. They'd totally woken me up and couldn't get back to sleep until seven when they went to bed.
I'm not the type of neighbour to go next door and start complaining. I hate that kinda hassle. Plus, we've only said hello to them once and our balconies are right next to each other so kinda hard to avoid each other sometimes.

Anyone else dealt with this before?

I'm letting this slide this time. It was a party...they were probably drunk. It was a saturday night too. But in general the noise level from drums (even with brushes) is too loud. Yesterday I had my balcony door open as did they. Your man started playing the drumkit again so I turned my TV up full blast. He stopped. I think they got my message.
However...drunk or not, anyone who starts playing drums at 4am hasn't got an awful lot of cop on in my opinion.

I guess I'm trying to be preemptive here. I don't want this to become an issue but would also rather not hassle them about it. If needs be I'll go to the management company and complain anonymously.

I have been there with the drums!! Have a neighbour whose kids, one after the other, played drums from 7am to 11 at night. Tried talking, inviting them in to hear the volume in our home with our kids in bed, tried getting other neighbours to complain. Our only option was to bring them to court which we didin't do becuase of the ill feeling it would cause. The result was 10 years of noise which they didnt give a hoot about. Wish you better luck cos I know too well the hell that kind of noise can have - no peace anywhere in your own home.

Tom
You must have the patience of a saint, or my tolerance levels needs checking. My deatached next door neighbours recently installed a wooden floor, father in law was doing it over the space of about 4 weeks. One night they lost run of themselves and where using a big deWalt saw around 11pm at night, they had the windows open in the house. I was promptly out of bed asking them to keep it down or close the windows. Having a 1 year old wake up to that would have caused a less polite response from my end. If a mgmt company are involved get then on the case, if not look up the 'noise legislation' and start using it!

I used to play drums with a rubber matt of each drum, crap sound but allowed technique practise etc. Only played when I knew neighbours were out for the day!

Thanks for the advice Stobear.

I don't want to be running to the management company straight away on this one...although I'm tempted to.
I might ring them and ask them what their policy would be on this matter though.

If I thought these were nice people I might try approaching them. However...and to be honest by the way I don't really care if they read this or not...I've heard from other people in the neighbourhood already "Oh...you live next door to them. They seem a bit odd don't they".
They had some friends staying over too. Another couple. The guy had a really big bike with him. Again, english reg (so I'm guessing they were just visiting). Pretty cool actually. I like big bikes. But he insisted on sitting out front on it yesterday for about 30 minutes just revving the sh*t out of the engine. These are not intelligent, neighbourly people in my opinion.

I would deffo go in and tell him about the 4 am noise. He was probably too pissed to remember. As you say you're on half decent terms so just go in and say 'Listen I dont mind you having a party and all that but starting the drums at 4 am was a bit much' Dont threaten anything about management co till you see what this approach does. After that dont even threaten him about the MC just go directly to them.

That's decent advice Elcato and the logical thing to do. However, my problem with this is two fold. Firstly, I've never knocked at their door. I've never said more than hello to either of them. They close their door when we're on the balcony. Not very neighbourly people...again, I've no problem with that. Their business.
But if I say it to him and he doesn't stop and I complain he'll know it was me. And it means I'd have to watch my p's and q's very carefully if I were having a party.
The thing is it's a young area and people have parties on saturday nights sometimes. The guy across the way had a party in his back garden about a month ago with a PA system!!! Didn't mind that at all. People singing their hearts out til 7am. No problem. Beer and music and people. Quite acceptable. But drums...that I have a problem with.

My take on it though is this. This guy has a full set of drums. He's brought them in knowing the sound quality...knowing there's people both below him and to the side of him. He's not gonna want to stop playing them. he either doesn't care or he's not very smart. That's why I'm being cautious I guess. I'd rather make a complaint (if needs be) anonymously.

Maybe this point of view is wrong though. I'm open to being corrected.

Gabriel,

This previous thread and the key post on Noise etc. might be helpful.

The search option throws up these also.

Hope things work out for you in the end as there's nothing worse than putting up with noise/losing your nights sleep, been there also with rented house next door.

Also had this problem when the lady next door bought junior a set of drums he was banging away every night until after 9pm which drove us mad thank God she was reasonable and we let her in to sample the noise level and she deemed it too much after I had a polite word, his drums are now in a community center and he goes there after school a few times a week to play.
Have a word be polite but to the point that level of noise is unacceptable you paid enough money for your pad you should have your comfort.
If I didn't get any satisfaction I was going to put a for sale sign up.

Good Luck

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Just to follow up on this I've been onto the management company who've confirmed that this is not allowed in the complex and are willing to drop them a line if I want to address the matter.

I've asked them to hold off though and give my neighbours the benefit of the doubt for now.