We had a few nights of blissful reprieve from the middle-aged fraternity party next door. Blissful, this whole notion of sleeping through the night (or, at least, in our case, only being awoken by our sleepwalking children — Will falling out of bed or Kate bonking herself against the crib as she throws herself around).
Then, Wednesday night (or, really, Thursday morning), we — as in Paul, Kate, and I… followed quickly by Will — woke up to the sound of loud music, drums, microphone, and amplified singing at 2:00am. Yes, you read that right. Band practice at 2a.m. — 6 feet from your sleeping neighbors. To fill out the picture, he had been playing loud music most (maybe every) night until about 10:30-11 (Wednesday night included) — and we were okay with it. We’re not being stringent to the law, we’re being pretty darn flexible (all things considered) and are just asking for the slightest bit of consideration during OBVIOUS sleep hours. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a serious pain when it’s cranked up during nap-time, but noise can also be nice and we can live with it every once in awhile. But daily? And at wee hours of the morning?!?!? How is this reasonable?
So we called the dispatch, who happened to have taken our calls before. Again, she heard the music over the phone and heartedly commiserated with us. The police came around 3am. This time, neighbor & co. (there were guests) answered the door, delivered a heated discussion, and (as we are to understand it from the police) rebuked: “my 5-year old sleeps through it.” An interesting observation, but the fact is that the said 5-year old is 40+ feet away from the instruments and amplifiers, through several walls and a floor, whereas we are at best 6-8 feet away, through one poorly insulated wall and another completely uninsulated wall. (There maybe other questions there, too, but I am trying very hard to not be incinerary. We really want to end this amicably.)
The lack of sleep, stress over the situation, and almost daily assaults have made us Zombie people. I’m WAY behind. We’ve stopped morning walks for want of more sleep, the kids are cranky (and I’m concerned their health defenses are wearing down and they will catch one of the bugs flying around — making them miss one of the fantastic events coming up), and we feel completely beat up. Maybe being Zombified is in with it being a few weeks to Halloween and all, but we are totally over it.
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For the purposes of documentation, this is the local law:
It shall be unlawful between the hours of 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10:00 a.m. on the subsequent morning or between the hours of 10:30 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday and 10:00 a.m. the subsequent morning to operate or play in a dwelling occupying a parcel or lot of land or to operate or play anywhere on a parcel or lot of land contiguous or adjacent to another parcel or lot of land occupied by a neighboring dwelling any radio, television, phonograph, loudspeaker, sound-ampli-fication equipment orsimilar device which produces or reproduces sound in such a manner as to be plainly audible at a distance of one foot from any exterior wall of the neighboring dwelling or at a distance beyond the boundary between the parcels or lots, whichever is the lesser distance from the point where the sound is produced or reproduced. (emphasis added)
The fact that we can hear music (drums, amplifier, microphone… hello!?) INSIDE our house, across our house, and from the street in front of our house makes it pretty clear there are serious noise violations occurring. So I don’t think we’re being out of bounds here.
Support, suggestions, and ideas are appreciated. As is caffeine.
Laura | 19-Oct-07 at 11:26 am | Permalink
My prayers are with you and your family. Isn’t that how you are supposed to respond in this situation?
Clearly, they are unreasonable. If they are the rightful owners, I don’t know what you can do other than call the police. Do you have any lawyer friends?
shokufeh | 19-Oct-07 at 1:54 pm | Permalink
This guy sounds crazy. I cannot imagine testing whether my five year old would sleep through these things at 2 am. And having no consideration for the neighbors?! Bizarre behavior for a pretty densely populated block.
Amy Lee | 19-Oct-07 at 5:18 pm | Permalink
I know two wrongs to make a right, but this royal jerk has got to sleep at some point, perhaps during the day? Don’t you have some home projects that involve heavy equipment and power drills? There’s got to be something you need a jackhammer for, right? Seriously, I think you all are being WAY tolerant and flexible – I commend you for your patience to this point, but hope for your sanity this gets resolved soon…Hey, I know, treat him like the 3-year old he is and challenge him to the silent game!
Leigh C. | 19-Oct-07 at 6:23 pm | Permalink
Keep documenting, keep agitating. At least the cops and the dispatcher KNOW that these folks are a problem.
Aside from lining your home’s walls with stuffed tires, then building new walls on top of those, I really am at a loss. Maybe voodoo is called for at this point…
rcs | 20-Oct-07 at 12:49 pm | Permalink
Find out when HE sleeps and stage your own band practice 🙂
Poists | 20-Oct-07 at 9:30 pm | Permalink
If he’s a band practicing AND he has any type of studio OR actually plays live gigs anywhere for money get the police on him.
We faced this issue here in La la land for a very long time before the magic word was said to the police…STUIO. This puts the noise violation in another category and the police where there in a heart beat.
We did the polite neighbor thing by going over and telling them to please be quiet. WE asked politely if they would at least turn it down by 11pm figuring it was acceptable for them to party until that point. We even had the owner OVER to our house at midnight to demonstrate the noise level INSIDE our house. All to no avail.
Hit the guy in the wallet or with police. Just my opinion.
Andrew Kottenstette | 20-Oct-07 at 10:45 pm | Permalink
Hmmm.
This is so weird.
Middle-age fraternity party, huh?
I remember the quote Winston Churchill gets pulled a lot sort of applying: “If you aren’t a liberal when you are young, you haven’t got a heart. If you aren’t conservative when you are old, you haven’t got a brain.”
When I spent some years in the very musical city of Austin, Texas it was a point of honor that if your act couldn’t carry without amplification you ought to just give it up. “The medium is the message” critique and all that. To that effect all the good ones whom felt the need to practice at 2 AM did so, to the best of my knowledge, quite quietly. All the others got arrested or fined.
If they were serious musicians they would have a better place to practice, or a place where they could charge money to let people listen at any hour day or night where it was allowed.
That just goes without saying.
In the end this has nothing to do with talent, or even music. It merely has to do with people being good citizens and neighbors. When talking runs out, all that’s left is the law being enforced.