Image may contain: High Rise, Metropolis, Vehicle, Transportation, Neighborhood, Street, City, Building, Town, Urban, Human, Person, Road

We spoke to Sussex students living next to man who said student noise could make him kill someone

They say the comments have made them feel ‘uneasy’

| UPDATED

Students in Brighton have recently been the focus of a row over noise. David Mead, 61, recently publicly criticised students, who he called "drunken vagrants" and "toxic shits" for keeping him up at night with loud noise and parties.

Mr Mead had previously said: "I think I'll have to sell up and leave Brighton as I don't want to end up in the police station by killing someone in the street." Mead reportedly spent £7,000 soundproofing his house against students' noise.

We spoke to one of the students living next door to Mr Mead, to see what they thought of these comments. When asked how they felt about the situation, one resident said: "I feel like anyone would feel – unsafe and on-edge if they found out their neighbour had threatened their lives!"

David Mead told The Sussex Tab: "If everybody respected their neighbours there wouldn't be an issue. In other towns students are told they have to get on with their neighbours. I doubt that happens here." He also spoke generally about the students in his area and described their behaviour as "beyond belief".

The students, who have lived in the house since September last year, said they'd had "zero complaints from other neighbours" – including no complaints from a house next door with small children.

They said: "We are mainly third year students so noise is never too loud and people are in their rooms by around 10/11 pm." The one time they did throw a party, they claim to have made sure to send a letter out to Mr Mead and all the surrounding neighbours notifying them and providing contact details.

However, despite the comments from Mead, the students say they don't have a problem with Mr Mead personally, saying: "We genuinely do not mind this person at all, we all completely feel sorry that he has had such an issue with noise over the years."

Image may contain: Human, Person, Asphalt, Tarmac, Highway, Freeway, Road

In fact they attribute this problem to a "deeper-rooted issue" of student housing which is forcing them to live in conditions that put them at odds with neighbours. The price of rent in Brighton rises every year so it is becoming hard for students to find affordable housing. This is forcing students to pack themselves into houses with a lot of other students, undoubtedly generating more noise.

Speaking to students in Brighton about this issue, they told The Sussex Tab: "There is a clear student housing crisis and landlords exploit us massively, it's not our fault we get put into houses of six so we can afford to live and study at university."

Other students have reported having to deal with hostile neighbours who react aggressively to them. One student, Hannah Boon, reported having a neighbour regularly scream insults and obscenities out of a window at her housemates. She attributed it to the neighbour transferring their anger from past students, saying: "I think that's what we had, he was so stressed out by old students he was immediately hostile to us." Another says her neighbour plays fox-mating sounds loudly whenever he thinks they are making too much noise.