Inconsiderate neighbors

[BarkingGhostar]

I understand getting pent up in the age of this pandemic, but blasting music to the entire neighborhood at 10PM at night isn't the way to let off steam. This is another one of those cases where the county refuses to enforce HOA covenants. As a result, probably 1 in 5 of the homes in my neighborhood have renters in them. And renters, from what I've seen over the years, could care less about the upkeep of the property, how they interact, or not, with their fellow neighbors, and act as if they can do whatever they want.

And so last night I was watching something in my basement. Now, I finished my basement and it is a better job that the tract builder would have done when compared to the rest of the house--especially in terms of insulation. So, I am sitting there watching someone on the TV and I feel like I'm having a stroke because I'm hearing something else. I thought maybe the wife upstairs chose to put some music on and chose not to compete with it and turned off the TV. Its not the wife and music. I go upstairs and hear load blaring music coming from outside, off the rear of my house. I can't see the source, but I can damn well hear it.

I go out the front door, around the front porch to one side of my house and identify the offending culprit. Some yahoo 200 yards off and on the other side of a large silver oak tree puts a wireless speaker on their deck, but they themselves chose to not be on the deck and just blaring music to the neighborhood. And in the age of pandemcy I didn't want to be closing the social distancing and just called the non-emergency number of the police. Ten minutes later two squad cars show up at my house,as requested, and I pointed out the house, which I really didn't have to. Music went off three minutes later.

When this was happening, I had flashbacks of apartment life. The last apartment complex I lived in I got two people evicted for blasting their party music at 3AM in the morning and constantly calling the police on them when they refused my personal requests ahead of time. I finally gave in to the wife and we bought a house. Seems 20 years was the music-blasting moratorium. Now had this been during the day, or even on the weekend, I would have let it go until say, 2AM or so, but the middle of the week? And why blast music from the deck when you are not on the effing deck? Its as if they intentionally wanted to annoy people.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Pellet guns are cheap, just sayin'.

 

[lxskllr]

My right hand neighbors are annoying. Nothing super bad, but a steady drip of irritation. Their picnic table is currently halfway on my property, per usual. I don't care much, but since it's them, it irritates me a lot more. I'm always tempted to bring my work gear home, lay out the property line, then collect my half of the table with my chainsaw.

 

[BoomerD]

First, it's not the county's job to enforce the HOA rules...that's a civil matter, however, most places have noise ordinances that prohibit loud noise after 10 pm. (which it seems you found out by calling.) Nice that they showed up at your house first...now they know who the snitch is......

 

[thestrangebrew1]

This is why we moved to a less dense neighborhood than our last place. Last place were tract homes and cookie cutters, with at least half the houses being rentals. Yards were trashed, loose dogs, mostly chihuahuas running around the neighborhood in packs, and the streets always had a lot of cars parked in front of them, some of them obviously weren't driven in months because they had cobwebs around them.

We had roosters adjacent to us, loud music blaring at any given time and dogs constantly barking. Now we live on the edge of town, in a subdivision with larger lots so neighbors are more spread out. Pretty much the only thing that bothers us now is we're on a street that is one of the only outlets to get out of the neighborhood, so people tend to speed in front. That, and our road is shite, and there's an open field upwind so we get a ton of dust and constantly fighting weeds every year. We love it though.

 

[Captante]

I understand getting pent up in the age of this pandemic, but blasting music to the entire neighborhood at 10PM at night isn't the way to let off steam. This is another one of those cases where the county refuses to enforce HOA covenants. As a result, probably 1 in 5 of the homes in my neighborhood have renters in them. And renters, from what I've seen over the years, could care less about the upkeep of the property, how they interact, or not, with their fellow neighbors, and act as if they can do whatever they want.

And so last night I was watching something in my basement. Now, I finished my basement and it is a better job that the tract builder would have done when compared to the rest of the house--especially in terms of insulation. So, I am sitting there watching someone on the TV and I feel like I'm having a stroke because I'm hearing something else. I thought maybe the wife upstairs chose to put some music on and chose not to compete with it and turned off the TV. Its not the wife and music. I go upstairs and hear load blaring music coming from outside, off the rear of my house. I can't see the source, but I can damn well hear it.

I go out the front door, around the front porch to one side of my house and identify the offending culprit. Some yahoo 200 yards off and on the other side of a large silver oak tree puts a wireless speaker on their deck, but they themselves chose to not be on the deck and just blaring music to the neighborhood. And in the age of pandemcy I didn't want to be closing the social distancing and just called the non-emergency number of the police. Ten minutes later two squad cars show up at my house,as requested, and I pointed out the house, which I really didn't have to. Music went off three minutes later.

When this was happening, I had flashbacks of apartment life. The last apartment complex I lived in I got two people evicted for blasting their party music at 3AM in the morning and constantly calling the police on them when they refused my personal requests ahead of time. I finally gave in to the wife and we bought a house. Seems 20 years was the music-blasting moratorium. Now had this been during the day, or even on the weekend, I would have let it go until say, 2AM or so, but the middle of the week? And why blast music from the deck when you are not on the effing deck? Its as if they intentionally wanted to annoy people.

I'm currently a renter and I don't do any of that stuff?


In fact aside from the occasional act of random douchebaggery I'm a pretty good neighbor!

Chihuahuas running around the neighborhood in packs

Oh dear God ... protect your ankles !!!

 

[snoopy7548]

Yeah, asshole neighbors are the worst. I have a neighbor who was in a band and would have practice in his ground-level basement which has very little insulation, not even giving a single heads-up. It was so loud it vibrated my windows. This went on for years until my complaining eventually got to them, and I guess his band-mates were fed up with not being able to be assholes, so they broke up. Not a peep since, though he is now in the process of finishing his basement.

Some people are either inconsiderate or just plain assholes. Some people may not know any better and after the first talk/warning, will change their habits, but others will just keep on doing it.

My next house will definitely be in a more spread-out area.

 

[BoomerD]

Where we live now...moved here 18 months ago, we have pretty decent neighbors. The worst things about my neighbors are:

1. Our little street kind of parallels an arterial that's posted 30 mph...folks race up/down our little road that's posted 20 mph at 35-40+.
2. A couple of my "immediate" neighbors have dogs that bark almost incessantly. Not little yap dogs...one is German shepherd with a BIG deep bark, the other is an Australian shepherd that barks at EVERYTHING.

Otherwise, it's nice and quiet here...just don't badmouth the deer herds...they all seem to think of them as pets...while I look at them as food.

 

[Sgt. York]

It sounds to me like the system worked exactly as it is supposed to. Sometimes neighbors, renters or not, fuck up and need a reminder from the local constabulary. Reason for outrage not found and OP should climb down off his pedestal before he falls on his head.

 

[OccamsToothbrush]

First, it's not the county's job to enforce the HOA rules...that's a civil matter, however, most places have noise ordinances that prohibit loud noise after 10 pm.

Most places have noise ordinances that are in effect 24/7 and most have better things to do than enforce them. In my city, noise complaints are a very very very low priority, unless somebody is tuning up jet engines in their garage the police won't respond to a complaint.

My neighborhood is 98% good on noise. For a couple of years there was one house that was next to mine that was rented out and it had a pool. The tenants were younger and they were the party house of their circle of friends, loud music EVERY DAY. Talked to them, didn't work. Talked to police, didn't work. The only thing left to do was to fight fire with fire. Talked to the neighbor on the other side and he hated them as much as I did. So the next time they had a party I brought out my stereo and he brought out his, we set our speakers right next to the fence and blasted them. They went completely apeshit, screaming at us for ruining their party, etc. We told them that the way they felt about our music was how we felt about theirs and they seriously didn't understand that. Childish numbskulls that they were, they cranked theirs even higher and all it did was drive all their guests indoors. But they wouldn't turn theirs off that day, they just had to make a point. To whom I don't know. Next day we left a note taped to their front door to the effect that we could do that do them every single day and they'd never be able to use the pool again. That was the end, they learned and never did that shit anymore. Two years ago they moved out and the house sold to a permanent owner. Much better situation, guy is invested in the neighborhood and has a stake in not fucking it up.

 

[Azraele]

My neighbors were annoying long before the pandemic. Between the loud music and the loud dogs....

 

[mrblotto]

Shouldn't you also complain to the HOA?

I mean, you're paying them to do their jobs right? You need to hold the HOA accountable. Otherwise, you (and maybe every other resident there) are just giving them free money in exchange for no enforcement.

 

[repoman0]

I bought my first place about 2.5 years ago and for some reason thought it’d be a good idea to buy a condo unit that was the bottom floor of an old two family house. Those were the worst neighbors .. dumb kids literally stomping everywhere above us, obnoxious husband running with terrible foot slapping form on his treadmill in the basement at 6am (and still never getting into shape...), parents living in the room above ours for months on end occasionally prayer chanting of some kind and always staying up until 3am. We didn’t even last two years before moving into the current single family place next town over. We’re super close to the city so only have 0.1 acres and pretty close neighbors, but they are all friendly and quiet ... no problems with anyone so far. I can’t imagine working from home for the last two months with those monsters above.

But still, if this work from home shit carries over, and sounds like it will at both my and fiancee’s jobs, I will move to 5 acres in the forest 45 minutes to an hour away and just have a nice long drive into work once or twice a week. Forested acres of course so I don’t have lawn problems like that guy in the other thread.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

First, it's not the county's job to enforce the HOA rules...that's a civil matter, however, most places have noise ordinances that prohibit loud noise after 10 pm. (which it seems you found out by calling.) Nice that they showed up at your house first...now they know who the snitch is......

I am well aware of the county's sound ordinance and especially pleased to be aware that mine isn't just at night. Gwinnett County's sound ordinance is 24x7. I was never intending to hide myself. Had I not want to risk the COVID19, or get shot, I would have gone over there. If I wanted to hide the fact I could have called the county sheriff and they would have handled it anonymously.

I will say that this neighborhood was a quiet neighborhood, until last night. See how one person can fuck over 108 other homeowners? BTW, just before 11AM today that same person turned up the outside speaker again, seemingly as loud as it goes. He did this for five minutes and then turned it off and left the house. A-holes will be a-holes.

Maybe I need to see this this wireless speaker can be adulterated in some form or fashion.

 

[lxskllr]

Maybe it's bluetooth. You can hook into it, and play porn sounds.

 

[shortylickens]

My right hand neighbors are annoying. Nothing super bad, but a steady drip of irritation. Their picnic table is currently halfway on my property, per usual. I don't care much, but since it's them, it irritates me a lot more. I'm always tempted to bring my work gear home, lay out the property line, then collect my half of the table with my chainsaw.

My right hand neighbors are normally pleasant, but I hope I never have to go up against them for any reason. They all have dont tread on me bumper stickers and confederate flag license plates and normally a bunch of window stickers touting the virtues of Donald Trump and Alex Jones and people who love god, guns, and good old fashioned manners.
Those kinds of Americans are often looking for an excuse to do something nasty. I'm white, male, straight, and terrified of them. I can only imagine what other neighbors think.

People behind me are basically nice except for one serious problem: They leave their dog outside all day regardless of weather. And rarely with a water dish and never with a food dish. Been going on for years, according to other neighbors.
Before you ask, I've already called every agency in the state. No one will do anything. The local police said they might stop by for a visit if the dogs are ever getting beat with a stick AND I have evidence, like video.
Oh, and they just added a second dog during the quarantine, he stays outside all day too. The new one barks constantly and I may have to do something about it.

 

[Captante]

Maybe I need to see this this wireless speaker can be adulterated in some form or fashion

Could start by stuffing it full of clay or maybe some kind of sticky hole-filling stuff that will cut the decibel output a bit?

EDIT: If that doesn't work you can resort to more extreme measures!

*(Just kidding ... no need to send in Homeland Security! )

I'm white, male, straight

So what are you worried about?


(Really sucks that symbols of freedom like "Don't tread on me" instead immediately conjure up images of the Uni-bomber and Timothy McVeigh these days.)

 

[BoomerD]

My right hand neighbors are normally pleasant, but I hope I never have to go up against them for any reason. They all have dont tread on me bumper stickers and confederate flag license plates and normally a bunch of window stickers touting the virtues of Donald Trump and Alex Jones and people who love god, guns, and good old fashioned manners.
Those kinds of Americans are often looking for an excuse to do something nasty. I'm white, male, straight, and terrified of them. I can only imagine what other neighbors think.

People behind me are basically nice except for one serious problem: They leave their dog outside all day regardless of weather. And rarely with a water dish and never with a food dish. Been going on for years, according to other neighbors.
Before you ask, I've already called every agency in the state. No one will do anything. The local police said they might stop by for a visit if the dogs are ever getting beat with a stick AND I have evidence, like video.
Oh, and they just added a second dog during the quarantine, he stays outside all day too. The new one barks constantly and I may have to do something about it.

Shorty, if worse comes to worst...you can always shoot up their parking lot or driveway...

 

[pete6032]

Why would you expect public law enforcement to enforce a private contractual agreement made between home owners?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Zip tie an air horn so it's active and drop it on their roof with a drone.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Why would you expect public law enforcement to enforce a private contractual agreement made between home owners?

Because the county endorsed HOA contracts in the first place?

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Zip tie an air horn so it's active and drop it on their roof with a drone.

I thought about the drone initiative, but from a RasPi onto the roof above the deck area. Have it play redneck country music--I am sure this would drive them nuts.

 

[pete6032]

Because the county endorsed HOA contracts in the first place?

Police are not there to enforce HOA contracts. Police exist to enforce state and local law. As long as you or your neighbor are not violating state or local law, the police cannot do anything about it. You cannot call the police and have someone arrested for painting their house red if the HOA contract says you can only paint it beige.

 

[snoopy7548]

^ That guy.

Should have complained to the HOA as your neighbors were violating the HOA's noise ordinance. HOA would have (likely, or hopefully) done something about it as that's what you pay them for.

 

[KeithP]

If the HOA is refusing to enforce its rules you shouldn't have to pay HOA dues. You need to write some sort of letter and get as many neighbors as possible to sign it saying that. If you can get people to pitch in a little money, have a lawyer draft the letter and write it on his stationery. Then the HOA will know you mean business.

-KeithP