Woman had ‘no idea’ TV was keeping neighbour awake despite blasting noise around house

The woman said she felt mortified after realising the noise from her TV was ‘too loud’ as she had no idea, but people suggested she should have known, given how she was using the device

When you live in a mid-terrace house it’s not always easy to tell if you’re making too much noise. But people think one woman should have known better after her neighbour complained about her noisy TV. The problem arose after the homeowner turned the volume up on her TV one evening, while her neighbour was trying to sleep.

You see, she had been playing the TV downstairs loud enough so that she could hear it upstairs. Unfortunately, this meant that her neighbour could hear it too. And given it had gone 11pm, the neighbour found the noise was preventing her from going to sleep.

To her credit, the TV user said she had “no idea” and that she felt mortified when she discovered her mistake. But many said she should have realised before anything needed to be said, when she shared her embarrassment on Mumsnet.

Sharing a post to the website’s “Am I being unreasonable?” forum, the woman revealed she felt “mortified” about the situation. Explaining the problem, she wrote: “My new next door neighbour came round at 11.15 in her pyjamas to tell me that my TV was so loud it kept her awake.”

She added: “I genuinely had no idea. I had the radio on through the TV, which is downstairs, whilst I was working upstairs, and I turned it up so I could hear it. I’ve done this before but the previous neighbour never said anything so I was not aware it was a problem. I live in a mid terrace and the TV is on the wall that joins to her house.”

Her post concluded: “She also told me it was loud last week (this I’m not sure about, as I only watched it one evening and I was sitting in front of it). She only moved in on Wednesday! I feel a total fool. It really wasn’t THAT loud but obviously too loud for her.”

In response, commenters shared their surprise that the woman had thought the TV would not have been heard by her neighbour. One person wrote: “You were playing the radio through your TV downstairs loud enough to hear it upstairs? Of course it was too loud if you live in a mid-terrace. Be more considerate, good for her for saying something.”

A second agreed: “That must have been ridiculously loud. And someone else said: “If you could hear it upstairs from playing downstairs clearly then of course they are going to hear it as well as you can. Maybe previous neighbours were hard of hearing.”

But another commenter tried to reassure the woman, writing: “You don’t need to be mortified, but now you’re aware just be conscious of your neighbour.

“Playing the radio loud enough to hear it upstairs next to a shared wall at 11pm does sound a bit extreme – can you play it through your phone instead?” they added. Meanwhile, a different person advised using headphones to listen to the radio “late at night”.

Do you agree? Let us know in the comments below.