What are
your rights when it comes to noise
in your neighborhood? Believe
it or not, your noisy neighbors have more actual rights than you
do. State and local courts have placed the burden of proof
on the victim and have set the bar so high that in most cases
noise problems are rarely, if ever, solved.
Study
after conclusive study finds that neighborhood noise is one of
the leading causes of stress. Noise pollution has proven negative
effects on our health and our sleep patterns and can be responsible
for injuries and illnesses.
If this has
been so overwhelmingly proven then why are we at a loss to resolve
this situation and why is it getting worse?
What
to do About:
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The solutions
are difficult.
Some individuals
and businesses feel they have a right or the freedom to use a
common resource in any way they see fit. Perhaps these people
are mistakenly extending their own private property rights?. Perhaps
they do not realize what most of us learned on the school yard
years ago: "that my right to swing my fist ends at your nose."
Or, perhaps they do not recognize the soundness of the parallel
claim "that your right to create noise ends at my ear."
In any case, these people are acting as bullies, claiming rights
and freedoms that are not theirs while degrading resources that
are ours.
People
simply do not believe they are the cause of a problem. You'll
hear folks say "it's not so bad..." when it is
so bad. If you take all the "not so bad's" in your life
and add them up they turn into one heck of a pretty BIG
BAD. Police and other authorities understand how difficult
it can be for a homeowner to admit that their lifestyle or habits
are annoying to the neighborhood. But here's a good test:
- Walk
to your property line then turn back to your house and take
10 steps forward. If you can still hear the noise from your
home - even if you think Pink Floyd is the greatest band
of all time or that your puppy is simply squealing for joy,
you're making too much noise. It's a lot like Trespassing.
If you're not on your property you're trespassing. If you
can hear your noise, your radio, your dog, your stereo,
your hobby machine shop or even your telephone answering
machine, you're trespassing on someone else's privacy.
Here's a
pretty common scenario: you come home from work, put the dog out,
put the TV on and get on the phone. Your kids come home and the
dog barks wanting to come in or simply because he wants to be
part of the attention. Meanwhile, your children are running around
playing, watching the TV, wrestling with each other and generally
making "normal" noise. So, you up the ante - turn up
the radio so you can hear it better, talk louder on the phone
and your kids, not to be outdone, do the same. To you, these are
all the common normal noises of your home life. But to others,
those outside who can hear all this.... Ah, there's the key -
"those outside who can hear all this".
Good neighbors
keep their noise to themselves.
Simply because
your neighbors do not complain to you directly does not mean they're
not negatively affected. It simply means they may be afraid and
are living a life of hell - thanks
to you. Maybe they've tried talking to you with no positive result
or maybe they have the mistaken notion that this is the way it
has to be. It does not. There is a right to enjoyment of
one's property without avoidable degradation.
Treat others
gently and quietly and the world, starting with your neighborhood,
will be a better place. Wait for your kids to come home, put the
dog outside and take the noise test once a month, just to be sure
you're being a good neighbor. If you can hear it - you're too
loud.
Problems
still persist.
We all have
the recalcitrant neighbor(s), the one who simply does not get
it. The person who lives his life in such an insular manner he
never thinks about the effects of his life on others or worse,
due to deeply rooted insecurity he will "yell out" with
everything he has in order to feel "fulfilled". His
noise is his security because it wraps him in a comfortable and
predictable environment. But it's hell on others. What to do?
There are
many responses but here's what does not
work:
- Firebombs
- Why?
The Fire Department will come and only generate more
noise. Then, when they're done the construction crew
will come to repair the damage - and they start at 7
AM and can legally work, banging, drilling and cutting
stone until 10PM, 6 nights a week for a month. This
is to be avoided at all costs.
- Threats
- Why?
Threats only make the insecure more insecure and with
that an increase in the amount of noise they will generate
in order to feel safe and fulfilled.
- Louder
Noises in Retaliation
- Why?
Because you'll run into the neighbor with the Rocket
Powered Chipper Shredder™ that he will
place on your property line and run during dinner time
- while he and his wife go away to eat. And, it's perfectly
legal for him to do this.
- Shooting
the Noisy Neighbor
- Why?
State Prison is not
a quiet place and Bruno likes attention at odd hours
of the night. You'll never get any sleep.
- Taking
an Ax to the Power Line
- Why?
He's likely got a generator he got for Y2K and will
put that on the property line and run it during dinner
just to piss you off. (Also, see the part about prison.)
So, what
can you do? In this section of the Kent Forum we'll try to help
you solve the problem.
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