No, I am not offering any funny comments on the subject. I am actually seeking advice.

I live in a normally pretty quiet neighborhood. Lately, however, I've been subjected to a lot of loud obnoxious music. It is mainly loud base, the kind that goes right through you. It appears to be coming from a house one street over from me (small area) and usually goes on for hours. It started today around 1:00pm (it is now almost 6:00pm) and it's yet to stop even for a minute.

Believe me, I am the last person to complain but this really !@#$% gets me mad. I am not sure what to do. Do I go confront person/persons causing all the ruckus and ask them to turn it down? Do I call the cops? Do you guys have any suggestions? What are the general laws against noise pollution?

What gets me too is that people living right next door to that noise put up with it.

Just go over there and turn down the music,
if he says no ask him what kind of music he hates....if he says rap...go to your house and blast some rap.... my dad taught me that trick when we use to live at our old house :-)

Best thing to do is ask them to please stop If that don't work then call the cops

I agree with the other.
Go ask them to turn it down and if they don’t call the cops.
I don’t know the exact laws but I do know that where I live if you dog barks for more then 15min straight you can be fined for disturbing the peace.

Hi Martin

Before you go asking this person to turn down his /her music think first. What do you know about this person ? Some folks don't react to well to being told to stop doing something. It could become more of a problem than you want. This does not mean that you need to put up with this. Many cities have ordinances that cover loud noise. My advise to you would be to call the police. Advise them that this has been going on, somtimes for hours.
Good luck
Harry

Call the cops..... then they won't really know Whom to retaliate against...... Some people are to apt to do that anymore

I now live in a very quite building, except when the guy downstairs goes on a bender, then he plays his choice of music to entertain the neighborhood. This use to bother me, when I was working the old rotating shifts, but now working midnights I'm gone when he starts.... But I found the easiest way was to simply call the super, and tell him, since he knows the guy all his life, he just calls him and tells him to turn it off, go to bed and sleep it off.

Back in my younger days I live in a rather noisy neighborhood, boom boxes blasting at all hours usually with music I had no interest in, so when it started, I simple moved my much larger speakers into the living room windows, and blasted out Patties Cline, Willy Nelson, Conway Twitty, and John Williams, with a little Beethoven thrown in for good measure. The neighbors finally realized my speakers and amp was larger than theirs, and quite returned to the block. I never had to say a word, or get excited.

I do not know anything about these people. I've only seen them hanging out on their back deck grilling and drinking beer.

I guess I best call the cops next time. As much as I would like to take things into my own hands, I could be starting more than I can handle.

Grumpy, I like your idea about the speakers in the window, but I am afraid that if I do that I will be the one making all the noise.Then the police might come after me instead

Thanks guys for your suggestions.

Marty, forget the cops. They don't care about people playing loud music. Here's what you do.........
Write a note and tape it to the neighbors front door (sometime around 2:00am should do). The note should say:

You are ONE......
We are MANY!
No more loud music.....PERIOD!

If the loud music persists after this, just pick up the phone and call the Office of Home Land Security. Tell the guy on the other end that your neighbor has been going around the neighborhood making strange and "disturbing" comments about wanting to overthrow the government and has bragged about making bombs in his basement.

After that, it'll be up to "Bubba" in the next cell to control the guys volume. :-)

Don't get mad....
Get even, and be as low down and sneaky as you can about it.

Hermon

Marty, I think you'll have to rely on a town by-law regulating noise. A quick search of the MGL site doesn't immediately turn up anything. Unfortunately, most ordinances have limited noise to hours well beyond 6:00 pm. However, with the advent of over-amped car stereos, this has been changing, though usually the by-laws are aimed specifically at cars.. As much as revenge scenarios might feel rewarding, you only put yourself at risk. Best thing to do is call the police, next, determin if hte offenders are tenants or home owners, If tenants, contact the landlord for support. A direct confrontation could be hazardous.

Martin,

Been there, done that.........................what I did was to go to them and ask them to turn the music down (I was not the only neighbor that had this issue). They did THAT time. The next time, I called the police and lodged a complaint. Unfortunately, nothing happened that time. The next, next time, my next door neighbor called.....they showed up (police) and we (as a neighborhood) have not had that problem since. We're a "tight" group, the good, considerate folks that is...we usually will do things like this in tandem. Find another neighbor that feels the same and have them call. Once the police get more than one call, they usually respond (at least here).

HTH,

Mike (++) (++)

Martin,

Been there, done that.........................what I did was to go to them and ask them to turn the music down (I was not the only neighbor that had this issue). They did THAT time. The next time, I called the police and lodged a complaint. Unfortunately, nothing happened that time. The next, next time, my next door neighbor called.....they showed up (police) and we (as a neighborhood) have not had that problem since. We're a "tight" group, the good, considerate folks that is...we usually will do things like this in tandem. Find another neighbor that feels the same and have them call. Once the police get more than one call, they usually respond (at least here).

HTH,

Mike (++) (++)

I had the problem in the last neighborhood I lived in. Jerk offs would blast the rap music from their car parked in front of their house. One day it just got to be too much. I went over and screamed in the kid's face "Turn the f_ _ _ _ _ _ _ music down!" After that, I would hear him coming down the street, but once he got to my block the music stopped. Sometimes you got to act like an ass to deal with an ass.

I've got the same problem. When it gets so loud we can't hear our tv, we call the cops and just request a ride through the neighborhood. The noise ordinance in my town has something to do with how far away from a structure you can hear the music....blah, blah....... When the cops ride through and hear it, they make them turn it down and it's usually quiet for the next few days.

Patrick

Marty,
If there are no specific noise ordinances,you also must be obnoxious enough to create some.Can you find some gregorian chants to burn onto a CD?
Borrow a large boom box,and pay a neighborhood kid to sit outside the offender's property,playing the chants loudly.

Marty,

You have to ask yourself if you really want to go to war with these people. Any more a face to face is not a good idea. Seriously, that is how bad it has gotten.
My neighbors have been a thorn for years. Their drug addled son (27-30 years old) was throwing things (fans, CDs, etc) out of the second story window of their house and hitting my new sun room. I told him to knock if off and called the law. After the father gets home the police showed up. I explained to the police officer that I thought the father had taken care of the problem. That night someone beat dents in the wife’s 2005 Trailblazer with a bat. Police could not do anything because we did not have any witnesses. Some people have nothing to loose. My neighbors have three cars, only one of which runs and has a rag for a gas cap. They are getting ready to let the bank take their house. They have been in and out of jail numerous times.
Some people are just worthless (Self Edited Here).



Shaun

To start with I allways recomend people to ask politely.

Its easer to start that way than start being harsch.

Check what the local policies are and then walk over to the neighbour and calmly explain your problem. No exaggerations or harsch words. If he doubts your problem invite him to feel the base for himself in your home.

If that doesnt help, quote the law in this matter.

If none of the above helps, start calling the cops.

Most times the problem is settled in the first step if presented the right way.

Should your neighgours be HA, Skinheads, Drugdealers, Gang Bangers etc, skip the first three steps and proceed directly to step 4: Relocation.

Give it time Marty, it won't be long before someone else hears it and steals it.

Hi Marty,

Sorry to hear about your neighbourhood problems... my sympathies as I went through this a few months ago...

I live literally right next to a highway... if I said it was 50 meters I'd probably be wrong... the folks renting the house between myself and the highway started playing the doof-doof-doof music at exceptionally high volumes... probably to drown out the noise of the highway... unfortunately it was played for 24 hours a day 7 days a week... and so loudly that we could hear it over the noise of the highway and through the double glazing at the back of the house...

Anyway, to cut a long story short... a well placed phone call, followed by an email (at their request for a written complaint) to the estate agents letting the place lowered the volume of the music except for the occassional (and acceptable) weekend party...

My advice to you would be to find out if the people are renting, and then contact either the owner or the agent letting the place. Or perhaps the owners have gone away on vacation and left their kids behind... then contact the parents...

Won't turn the music down - there is only one solution;

Remington 870 - leave none alive

Believe it or not, I had exactly this happen one time. I kept getting called out to the same house over and over again over a three day period. The people were really shocked when the 870 went off and the boom box really went "BOOM" one last time.
(that was in the day that we could get away with alot more as rural deputies.

Ah, the good times

Thanks guys for many good ideas. Some are more extreme than others :-) but nevertheless they are all good.

I guess for now I will stick with calling the cops and take it from there.

A little OT here (but it applies indirectly I guess)

We have a straightaway on our street that is about 3/4mi long. One of the guys who lived down the street loved to race his car down the street. Mind you, this is a very quiet neighborhood, and there were a fair number of children outside when dingleberry was doing this. Anyways, one evening we were all sitting around when the fire department came flying down the street. Naturally, we went out to see what all the ruckus was about. Turns out this guy decided to smoke while syphoning gas and dropped the butt into the bucket of gas, which ignited, fed into the car, and blew up the car and severely burned him (see the T-72 vs Javelin thread to get an idea what the car looked like).

Anyways, we no longer have any problems with him racing on our street (it's been about 10yrs now).

Hey Jeff,

That must be some seriously bad karma my friend. I guess what goes around comes around.

Hi mate,

Well, seems like you and I have a similair problem. They guys who live next door (18 and 22 years old) and their friends make a lot and lot of noise.

However, talking to them or their parents is of no use. We tried it a dozen times, for 7 years already, but they just don't have enough brains to understand they annoy/iritate people nearby.

The police can't do anything about it (or they're just too lazy). Same goes for the city (how do you call it...the local authorities or something like that)

We really don't know what to do anymore. So any good advice is appreciated here as well.

I considered the molotov cocktail already but our house is connected to their house so it won't work.

Martin