Another neighbor question

[Guest]

I was trying to quietly listen to 2 new cds on my back porch yesterday. I have speakers all over the house, so music's never loud. However, my neighbor was blasting a boom box while working in his yard yesterday, so I couldn't hear my new cds (property line is about 50' away from my porch)! I had to turn up my stereo and bring the kitchen speakers closer to the porch to hear my own music. When I was outside swimming, I could hear his music all too well. I had company over later, and just turned mine up enough so that we could hear mine. Amusingly, when his wife got home, she must have told him to turn it down as it got quite quiet.

I did resolve to get porch speakers so that I can quietly listen while out there and have been researching speakers and wire. I may also get speakers for the pool if I like the porch ones. I have enough speakers and a powerful enough system to blast the neighbors away, but would not do that; my previous house was a town house and I found lots of speakers used quietly worked well with close neighbors. I get along OK with this family but my house was vacant for a couple of years and I think that they're kind of used to having the area to themselves. They built several structures on county land next to theirs -- big sense of entitlement.

What do you do with neighbors who blast music?

Sue

 

[Tdog]

1. Ask them kindly to respect your wishes and point out that you never disturb their sound environment. :blah:

2. If that doesn't work, report them to the police. Be aware though, if you report them to the police, they will more than likely be looking for revenge and look at any excuse to report you .

3. Blast them away with a more powerful system. (my favorite with obvious ramifications)

4. Get friendly with them :?

 

[greggsteven]

We have had our pool for 1 month now. Yesterday we got some of the wind from Gustav here in Houston coming out of the north. About 15 knots, anyway, my neighbor has a crepe myrtle in full bloom. Yes, my pool and skimmers were filled with 100's of red flowers. My wife came out and thought I filled the pool with flowers for a romantic swim. Yeh right. The more I clean the more fly in.
What do pool owners do when the trees start to drop leaves in the fall? This is irritating.

 

[Guest]

In your case, you should have told her that yes, you installed those pretty flowers in the pool just for her!

Can you trim the tree / bush if it overhangs your property? I recently bought my house and told the neighbors on both sides that they're free to trim whatever they'd like on any of my trees that overhang their property. They told me to do the same. I did trim some of theirs and mine that were on the property line, but I have more to do this Fall. That's something I would talk to the neighbors about, and point out that the flowers are causing a problem. You can trim Crape Myrtles pretty hard and they'll do fine. I have some and googled it recently. They're pretty, but if they're tall, the flowers can be a pain in August. If you don't already have a tall solid fence, consider one.

I have a pruner that I got at Lowes that's on a pole. Have also been looking at an electric chain saw that they have on a pole. That would make quick work of my (and your) Crape Myrtles.

 

[Guest]

1. Ask them kindly to respect your wishes and point out that you never disturb their sound environment. :blah:

2. If that doesn't work, report them to the police. Be aware though, if you report them to the police, they will more than likely be looking for revenge and look at any excuse to report you .

3. Blast them away with a more powerful system. (my favorite with obvious ramifications)

4. Get friendly with them :?

1) I didn't do this as I hate to, but it's probably what should be done. Maybe he didn't realize that cranking it up could be annoying to some people. (No one else in the 'hood was home due to the holiday.) I did think of a good way of stating it, something like : "Could you please lower the volume -- I think your kids must have turned it way up."

2) - not going there! Better to keep things as friendly as possible.

3) I felt like doing this, but I behaved! I didn't want to be rude, so I turned mine up just enough so that I could hear it over their noise.

4) We're friendly enough, but they seem to be a little over-reaching. I'm new here, but they're not real popular in the 'hood due to the entitlement 'tude.

 

[Tdog]

Ya, I have a similar neighbor. Fortunately, they are across the street and not in my backyard. They think that they are the only ones that live on the block and that everyone owes them something. It's really annoying to listen to them cut up firewood with a portable saw mill in their driveway! Or when they are constantly screaming at their kids (great parenting). Or when he is screaming into his cell phone at 7 am because his buddy is late to pick him up for work...

But I ramble. I don't really know if there is anything we can do with unneighborly neighbors except tolerate them. You could put them on this website: http://www.rottenneighbor.com/

May help cut the stress a little...