Family won't pause loud construction to accommodate pregnant neighbors. AITA? UPDATED.
When this family is determined to do construction on their house during the day and are faced with pushback from a desperate pregnant woman and her BF, they ask Reddit:
"AITA for not delaying our rebuild for our pregnant neighbors?"
We are planning on doing a major rebuild on our old row house and finalized everything around 2 weeks ago, we are excited as it has taken us nearly 1.5 years to get here. We texted our neighbors this weekend to let them know construction would start at the end of the month for approximately 3-4 months.
We are not extremely close with the neighbors but always pleasant. One neighbor came by to talk to us after we sent the text and expressed disappointed in the timing because his girlfriend is pregnant and due next week.
We ourselves were never told of her pregnancy until December and that she was due sometime in February. He also asked about our rebuild on his own and my partner mentioned it might happen sometime in April which was our original start date.
We told him how sorry we were for the timing but obviously it wasn't intentional. 10 minutes after he left we received a text asking if we were available to talk the next day about possible solutions and if we could delay the rebuild by 3-4 months.
We agreed to meet but told him delaying was not possible because we already have another place lined up for us to live in, contractor agreement, etc.
Needless to say the meeting was not ideal. The girlfriend cried the entire time while apologizing for crying and hormones. She said she has not cried as much as she has in the past 24 hours as she has in the past 2 years.
She’s worried how this will affect the baby because she's stressed now. She couldn't believe that we just sent them a text message with only a month in advance and that we should have come talk to them in person as this was the first she was hearing about this. Did we even put ourselves in their shoes?
They have nowhere else to go. They are concerned with how this affects their own sleep because the baby will be up at night they need to sleep during the day and they won’t be able to with construction.
If we did the rebuild 3 months later then it would at least be summer and they could go outside to escape the noise. They also kept repeating what if we just say “No this can’t happen”.
We obviously feel for them as new parents expecting a baby and we all live in old row houses so I get how noisy and distributive it will be.
We told them we would get them a build schedule so they could see what days would be noisiest and they want us to ask the contractor if their can be quiet hours from 12-3. I don’t think that is realistic and don’t know what else we could do to amend the situation. AITA?
Let's see what readers thought.
amandabeny writes:
NTA. But please do not let this stress you out. Get them a couple really nice sound machines if you feel the need to make amends.
But keep in mind pregnancy hormones making you cry are REAL and completely insane. I once cried while couch shopping - because I saw a couch that game in the amazing green that I loved and I KNEW my husband wouldn’t go for it even though I never asked him, and I was just bawling on the show couch when he found me.
(I typed this, as I sit on a 10 year old green couch that I will love for my entire life). And then I cried more because I KNEW I was unreasonable and made people feel bad.
sassypiehole7 writes:
It's a baby. It's going to make noise all on it's own. It can now make as much noise as it likes without disturbing you next door and without it's parents being worried about it doing so.
This is a massive overreaction from your neighbours. I would suggest you stop being quite so accommodating and concentrate instead on your own plans and carrying them forward. NTA.
alertspare4 writes:
Lol NTA. I’ve had two children and the entitlement is crazy. And pregnancy hormones are real but miss thing sounds ridiculous. Plus a baby newborn actually sleeps through all kinds of noice. It would disturb them more a few month down the line.
I could Vakuum and play loud music while my newborn napped, now that he’s 5month loud noises start waking him up.
They’ll get used to the noise quick too and unless they are offering to pay for the pushing back of schedule ,contractors, your accommodations and some extra for the inconvience, they have a rude awakening happening that the world does not revolve around them.
Good that they learn early that also outside no one gives a crap if you have a baby .People yell in the streets, construction is happening everywhere and cars are loud ect. Absolutely sucks for them but they’ll deal.
seadrama76b writes:
NTA - they are not entitled to a silent block just because they will have a newborn baby?? this genuinely makes no sense to me as i don't know anyone who gets to dictate when their neighbors do construction because they have a baby? they are ridiculously entitled and you didn't even owe them any notice to begin with.
tbh, while i feel like your intention was noble and neighborly, all it did was cause unnecessary drama because it's not like you ever planned to delay construction based off what they would say to you.
So there was really no point in even approaching them. construction is going on quite literally everywhere these days so it's unreasonable for them to think they can call the shots on whether it's okay to do or not.
Also, there are construction noise bylaws... it's not like you will have a crew working in the middle of the night making a bunch of noise.
dependentsign67 writes:
NTA I don’t know where you’re located, but where I am there’s a huge shortage of construction workers and it’s incredibly difficult to get things scheduled. There’s no WAY I’d risk losing my slot just because the neighbors had a baby; they’re being incredibly unreasonable.
Babies will sleep through all kinds of stuff and the parents can get earplugs for themselves and trade off with their own nap times. I would definitely suggest talking to your contractor and preparing him though, because they’re inevitably going to be coming over constantly to complain. And maybe stock up on earplugs you can give them when it happens.
Then, OP offers this update.
Update: Thank you everyone for your responses and insights, much appreciated! We do share a wall with them and part of the rebuild includes insulating the entire house.
We found out work will go on from 8-4pm each day with a 30 minute break for lunch at 12. The builder is fine to give an overview of what will be done and when. After that, I think we have done our best to assist them during this time.