I must admit I play loud music but usually when there's an open house across the road because there are 2 houses next to each other going for auction soon and we know the land has planning permission for an apartment building.

One other thing I have done after asking the neighbours to shut their bloody dog up is to play a plectron alert, which does the trick every time.

Try it, it works !!

Wouldn't that be classed as cruel and unusual punishment?

Thanks for the responses. I've been mulling it over myself and I've decided that I am going to stick my oar in. Council's closed for the weekend but I'll ring on Monday and see what I can do for the old bloke.

Bottom line is - it's shit when you feel completely powerless in a situation - and from the look on his face, that's exactly how he felt.

I would report it. When someone complained about our neighbour's dogs barking all day long when they first moved in (which they did), we had a letter through from the council asking us whether we found it a problem. This letter went to all the neighbours in the immediate vicinity. The dog owners received the complaint but had no idea who had submitted it (they did later find out ).

Anyhoo, the point is that the complaint would probably be conveyed to these girls anonymously.

i've read the first few replies to this thread.

I would report them. Whether he was a pommie or not!
Look after the oldies, as they get walked over too much.

I've had noisy neighbours too - three of them

It is really horrible to have to live with it, and they always seem to get away with it too If you complain the problem usually gets worse until the point comes where you have to get out of it.

As much as we'd like to think the authorities will help, they very rarely do and the noise gets worse. In one of the houses we lived in the neighbour even got people around to help her victimise us

Graffiti started appearing all over our conservatory windows, they started setting off bangers outside the kids bedroom windows, the tyres on G's car were let down a few times.

On top of that she started having parties every weekend or she would leave the radio on full blast and go to work. Her 12 year old son would come home from school with his 8 year old brother (no babysitter ) and he would start kicking the football at the front wall or turn the music on.

It was a nightmare, and we had to live with it for over 2 years! the council came but never did anything despite being there when they were in the middle of a party and started throwing stones at our windows, and chanting 'f* off' at the top of their voices. They also threw 5 bangers at my then 1 year old dauthers bedroom window.

They left a noise moniter thing in our house for 2 days - nothing happened because she went away that weekend - funny that eh!?

We later found out she had a friend on the council who had told her we had put in a complaint.

I got my own back though, the guys we sold to were pretty good mates of mine - he had a lot of football hooligan friends, and she had a BIG family, mostly Hells Angels she moved out after 2 months

Sometimes revenge is sweet

Does the old geezer have a hearing aid battery he can remove?

Tricky one that.
Obviously you want to help the old boy, bu it couldback fire.
A few years ago Ireported the neighbours of my parents to the RSPCA.They had a really cute little dog (and I love dogs), but they reularly used to beat the sh*t out of it with sticks and clubs.We could hear it crying and yelping with pain from within my mums lounge. Once they finished beating it they locked it in cupboard for days on end.
Well I could bare it no longer, spitefull bastads, so I shopped them.
However they retalited by victimising my parents, throwing sh*t at their door,screamin abuse throgh the letterbox, and made my parens life hell.
They didnt know exactly who shopped them....but they just guessd!

This is my point as well - in an ideal world we should stand up for ourselves and sometimes those more vulnerable than us.

Why should someone get away with treating another person like that?

Well when my friends Mum complained on behalf of her daughter (my friend) about her neighbours, my friends life became hell and still is.

The log book of events, the council involvement have made things worse for my friend and she is trying to move.

They had guessed who it was that shopped them and now my pal is paying the price.

Such a difficult one and to truly understand it you have to be in the persons shoes to understand.

I guess it depends on the country, the authority and the success rate in evicting such people.

We had very noisy neighbours in London, he used to beat the shit out of his girlfriend, the police would never come when called so we stayed out of it in the end and they eventually bought a house together and moved on.

I feel sorry for anyone in this position, my heart goes out to them but as I have been the victim of neighbourhood bullying, I know that speaking for myself, I would be scared/reluctant to act without considerable thought for the consequences.