Are you fed up with nuisance neighbours?

Interesting though probably not preresentative survey of neighbours relations in the country as it was online which is likely to attract answers and participants who have had a problem. Could the CA please take a more positive approach to promoting neighbourliness?

I am not convinced that a survey of 2000 adults would be enough to give useful information for a county never mind the whole of the UK. It shows there is a problem but I think most of us knew about that.

Thanks Patrick for the swift response.

It was rather the questions, and how “nuisance” and “problem” are defined that are of interest. One mans nuisance ……

It is interestig that older people to suffer less, it may be a social effect and seniors are more understanding , or possible those that respond live in seaate areas. Surveys can be very interesting in construction. Look at:

” Among 18 to 24-year-olds, 33% had encountered a problem in the past year, with the figure being 17% for those aged 65 and over. ”

It says “A” problem,. So are we counting a single incident to lead to a paragraph :
” Loud arguing, doors slamming, TV blaring or heavy stomping? Or how about dumped rubbish, overflowing bins, untidy gardens or anti-social behaviour? Have you suffered from a nuisance neighbour?”

To quote a Which? Connect example the question was something like what type of road is most of you driving on? The possible andswers being Motorway, Trunk, Urban and rural I think it was.

Now the instant one sees it you think do you mean by time or by distance travelled. There was no guide as to what was meant.

Another question was as always ” Do YOU [ you as household or person not defined] buy bedding plants/seeds? ” I never buy them my wife does. Therefore the results could correctly record I do not but that incorrectly my garden never has bedding plants/ seeds bought for it.

So yes surveys are a minefield and seing the original questions and guidance to respondents makes a lot of difference to how much you believe them.

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments. It’s really important for us at Which? that our data is robust and reliable. Here’s a bit of info on our approach:

For UK wide polls, we usually survey 2000 people as this is the gold standard for public opinion polling. Statistically, we can be confident of the results of the survey to within 2% (that is the maximum margin of error at a 95% confidence interval – if you’re interested in the stats).

We also ensure that our sample is representative of all people (18+) across the UK. This means that in each geographical region we set quotas to ensure we get the right number of men, women, different age groups and socio-economic groups. After setting quotas the data is also weighted to ensure it is exactly representative of the population.

By setting quotas it ensures we do not just get people who may be likely to answer online surveys, but, in addition to this, Populus use various sampling and quality measures to ensure they survey people who don’t usually do online surveys. This means that we get all different types of people – not just people on a survey panel.

Finally, people do not know the subject of the survey before they take part and so we do not attract participants, for example, who have experienced a problem. In fact, often in the surveys, different topics are covered throughout one survey.

In terms of the questions, this survey was predominantly multiple choice questions. The two main ones were firstly a question asking people if they are now, or have in the last three years, been annoyed by their neighbours behaviour (with choices ranging from now, to in the last 12 months, to never). The second question asked what their neighbours had done in the last 12 months to annoy them (with lots of options and an open ended option available).

Our data suggests that many people have experienced problems and we want to ensure (where that is the case) that we can offer people advice about how to deal with it. Many people in our survey told us their first step was talking calmly to their neighbours to try to resolve it.

I hope that helps.

Hi that is helpful, but the questions assume that the problems which occur, as they do in all life, are not balanced by any good things happening between neighbours; the day to day helping, taking in parcels, bit of chat, looking after pets when away etc. It is only half of the story. See our http://www.agefriendlystreets.org campaign for inspiration.