Living in a Northern Virginia Townhouse has been hell on earth! (Reston: middle-class, apartment)

[selling home]

After living in nice single-family detached homes back in Wisconsin for much of my adult life I moved to Fairfax VA and into a townhouse. Unlike Wisconsin where a middle-class person can afford a very nice single-family detached home on a big lot, here in Northern VA it is hard to get a neighborhood home like that unless you are willing to pay over $650,000. So I bought a townhouse.

As soon as I moved into my townhouse I knew I made a terrible mistake. The neighbors on both sides of me made lots of noise. Both had two large dogs that they put out on the deck two feet from my sofa. The dogs barked day and night and were so loud I thought they were in my home. The kids on either side ran up and down the wood stairs all the time and the sound of shoes against the wood stairs was clearly heard in our home. In addition, the sounds of loud talking, music, television, and constant fighting invaded our home.

My wife and I went to our neighbors for relief but got nowhere. I tried animal control for the dogs and got nowhere. We spent $500K on a townhouse and our life was a living hell and we could do nothing about it. We are selling now at a loss due to closing costs.

Yes, I know the townhouse you live in is stone quiet with incredible soundproofing but that does not help our living hell. So telling me that your townhouse experience is great serves no purpose other than putting salt in our wounds!

Am I the only person who had a bad experience in one of those cheaply built Northern VA Townhomes?

[Bigfoot424]

The reason why we lasted one year in a townhome back in 83. We moved to a small rambler SFH with an acre then 5 years ago moved to a farming community in the Shenandoah Valley. Our neighbors are cows. I feel your pain.

[graceC]

I wish you had rented first before buying but I know that's useless now.

We rented a town house in NoVA for a year when we first moved here over a decade ago. The town house supposedly had a 2-ft concrete 'firewall' for soundproofing and fire safety but we could hear everything on both sides.

My neighbor's wife had a habit of vacuuming at 9pm every night, right around the time when we're just getting ready for bed, so of course we had to wait until she's done before we could sleep. We could hear the banging of doors, their going up and down stairs, etc. Before the year was over, we knew there was no way we would be happy living in a town house.

You can find an older SFH in Northern VA under 650K, but it may take a while for your to find it.

[selling home]

Originally Posted by graceC

I wish you had rented first before buying but I know that's useless now.

You can find an older SFH in Northern VA under 650K, but it may take a while for you to find it.

Yes, there are single-family detached homes under $650K in Northern VA but they are in tired-looking neighborhoods without any updates to the homes, tons of cars parked on the streets, and with bad schools. Or they are way down Interstate 66 or I-95 with crazy long commutes to my job in Washington DC. Life was so much more affordable and nicer in Madison Wisconsin where I lived for most of my life.

[LakeLifePA]

Why I bought a single family home. I live in an amazing neighborhood in Herndon and paid $440k 6 years ago. Our home is worth $520k+ now, and life is good. There are affordable options in N/VA, but you have to be willing to have a bit of a commute which in my opinion is very bearable with Metro always as an option for me with the Wheile/Reston stop 5 miles from my house.

[columbusboy8]

One of NOVA's best kept "secret's" is the Montclair (Dumfries) and Lake Ridge developments, where a very nice single family home can be bought in the $500-$575K range. With commutes into DC of less than an hour via HOV lanes.

[NOVA_guy]

Welcome to life living inside or outside any major and expensive city. You have to make compromises unfortunately.

Sorry you had to go through that. It truly sucks when you have inconsiderate neighbors.

[pcity]

If you asked this person why they're selling their home, I wonder if they would respond "because I'm Retired Now"

[EmiSky]

I’ve been having similar issues with my neighbors since the had a baby. Now the child is almost 3 and I hear him running up and down the stairs all the time. And it’s really bad when they have people over, especially other kids. So much running around and screaming it’s unbearable. It’s so bad that I will be moving soon. Due to COVID-19, I’ve been able to telework full time and looks like even when things go back to “normal” I will be able to telework full-time. So, I will actually be moving to a New England coastal town to be closer to my family. I was originally looking for a single family house here, but I don’t want to pay so much $$ here, especially because I’m about 10 years from retirement and I don’t want stay in NOVA when I retire.

But yes, you’re not alone and there are many of us who feel your pain. I would never want to live in a TH again. The first one I lived in wasn’t so bad. This one, is terrible. And I doubt the new TH are built any better. I don’t think many of them are soundproof.

[ICS67]

I can sympathize, although in my case it was apartment living. For five years in the 1980s I rented in a very nice condo building in the District on upper Connecticut Avenue. My bedroom backed up to the bedroom of the apartment next to mine, which was rented by a very attractive young woman. On a number of occasions I was jolted out of a sound sleep in the wee hours of the morning by the sound of her engaged in...well, let's call it "horizontal exercise". A friend who was visiting me actually even heard it two rooms over where he was sleeping and at first thought it was a wounded raccoon in the adjoining woods.

At a loss on what to do about "Mona", as I inevitably nicknamed her, I wrote a letter to the Washington Post's Miss Manners explaining my dilemma and asking which was the better solution: to slip an application to a nunnery under Mona's door, or to directly confront her and ask her to bury her head in a pillow next time.

Can't understand why I never got a response back from Miss Manners.