Noisy Neighbors?

[Kathy]

Any suggestions on handling neighbors that are noisy beyond the normal time frame?

I'm sure this isn't something I've had to deal with alone.

Last year a group of boys moved into the house behind us. This is a quiet neighborhood and although our town has two large universities, the students don't live in this neighborhood. Until 4 of them signed a lease and I think 10 of them moved in.

They started with parties every night, starting about the time we went to bed. We had to call the police. Soon the parties dwindled down to 2 or 3 per week. Still, we had to call the police. I worried for the safety of our dogs if they got mad at me for calling....

Finally, in December, they moved out. The landlord must have gotten a call from the police because they moved out before their lease was up.

It made me realise that since I've never had to deal with this, I might not have followed the proper way to notify authorities. I found out later I could have filed a complaint with the city attorney's office since the police would drive over and "warn" the young men. It could have been handled earlier if I had called the right place.

Have you dealt with noisy neighbors? Are there different ways to handle the situation? And how do you handle the situation without making a messy relationship with your neighbors at the same time?

[penguin2005]

I don't have noisy neighbors. But I have had problems with a yellow lab running loose. The people behind us just do not get that their dog needs to be chained up when it is outside.
We first moved in and that dog came over into my yard and scared the bejevits out of my girls. Then the next time it bit my little fox terrier. Both times I called the cops and all they did was tell the guy to chain it up. I should have called more people and made a bigger stink about it. I don't want to see the dog put down. But cmon it is a full sized lab and my girls are scared of big dogs. Plus I know that my town has a leash law. It went into affect the week my dd was born.
I do have a neighbor that works in his garage no matter what time it is at night. I don' t know what he is doing, but it is usualy loud. Plus his light from the garage comes right in my bedroom window.

[pednurse]

I've had occasional problems with noisy neighbors in the different places we've lived. Luckily most of the time it's been resolved by just mentioning nicely to them that the kids have gone to bed but can't get to sleep (most of the time they haven't realized how late or how loud they were being). The only exception is the neighbors to the south. Because of the corner lot, their backyard & pool are righ next to the side of our house with DD's room. They have teenage boys (need I say more?) that get louder if you try to talk reasonably. So, since it's just during the summer, and usually after DD is asleep (and is luckily now a deep sleeper) we've just let it go (they'll be out of the house in a year or so). We also have a large university here in town, but luckily we've never had to deal with noisy students moving into our neighborhood. If that were the case, I would have pushed much harder to deal with the noise issue.
The neighbors on the other side of us were an issue with their big dog that was allowed to run loose. He "supposedly" had one of those collars that would zap him if he crossed the underground wires they used as a "fence" but it didn't stop him. I ended up calling animal control (instead of the police) twice......once after he charged at my kids in my front yard, and the second time after I found him inside my fenced back yard (he had evidently squeezed through a small opening under the gate). After the second incident the dog has been relegated to their fenced back yard or their garage, not allowed out in their front yard. The animal control people told them if there was a 3rd incident, then the dog would be removed from their possession. Having been bitten twice by dogs as a child, there was no way I was going to go any route but to call animal control and get it taken care of swiftly......all dogs are not gentle with others even if they are gentle with their owners (I found that out with my own dogbite experiences).

[Ms Big Butt]

We had a teen a couple of houses down who had an alarm on his car. I think he had it set too sensitive cuz it seemed to go off with even a stiff breeze :( It went off a LOT in the middle of the nite, and would go thru the entire cycles of various noises at least one time before someone would turn it off. I complained about it to my hubby a couple of times, but he works nites, so it didn't bother him at all.

One nite, hubby was home from work and the car alarm went off in the middle of the nite. He picked up the phone, called 911, and reported that the car was being broken into. Soon, a patrol car showed up at the neighbor's house... we never had a problem with that alarm again :bliss:

[ertech05]

I usually end up waiting till 10 pm or after and I resort to calling the sheriff's dept..
We did have one neighbor that would play his music loud and my hubby would tell me to "just ignore" it...
Its easier for him to tune thigs out like that..I jsut done have the patience..

[wingriderprincess]

I'm dealing with a pop up camper peeking over the top of my fence in my back yard. We have a family of four, her sister and her five kids in one house so the grandparents moved into a pop up camper.... let's see.... this makes 12 people. We have ordinences saying you can not live in a camper but we can't seem to get it enforced. The kicker?? My dh is a police officer. You would think he would have a little pull somewhere at city hall :signlol: The city codes officer says he needs proof someone is living there..... uh... there are extension cords running from the house to the camper along with a cable for tv. And he wants what kind of proof? If he would come out at night, he would see the lights, hear the tv, ect. arg.... :soapbox:

[MaddiesMommy]

Our neighbors next door can be quite loud. Our driveways here are very long. So their driveway matches up with one of our DD's bedroom windows and one of our bedroom windows. They have their own 2 teenagers and a 9 year old son allowed to run loose all hours of the day or night (the youngest has been doing that since we moved in when he was 4 years old... and yes, we have called Child Protective Services on the family a couple of times for different things regarding their youngest child).
But besides their own three, they have numerous other teens always there or maybe even living there. They don't seem to go to school or anything so I don't have much hope that they'll be gome in a few years. Mom and dad scream curse words at each other when they fight that my 6 year old gets to hear.
We've talked to them a few times and sometimes it works. Sometimes we just left it alone, hoping they'd go to bed or quiet down or something. The dad at least doesn't trn his motorcycle on right by DD's window at night anymore. That used to really piss me off. It would scare her to death!!
Please keep offering advice because I'd love to know how we could better handle this.

[Kate]

I have a noisy upstairs neighbor. I've been here for a month and I've already had to call twice and report her. It's like she is hammering for hours. Either that or she is beating down some chicken! If I stand on my couch and touch the ceiling, I can feel it shaking! On top of that, she likes to walk around her place in highheels and I can hear it when she's in the kitchen and bathroom! *omg*

[clogaholic]

There are some noisy kids behind us but they usually settle down around 10 or 11 pm. And it's usually just on weekends. But what got me upset a while back was some teenage boys ( abour 5 or 6 ) who seemed to think that it was a good idea to wait until 10 or so and ring the doorbell and run away. They did this several nights in a row and then stopped. Then started again a couple of weeks later. Several of us got together and waited for them. Hehehe.... after a talk about parents, police etc it hasn't happened since.

[lilorphann]

I have not had to deal with any of the above mentioned but I have been heavily involved in politics and city hall and will say that the rules regarding noise are like the other rules and will change daily depending on who you are and how much political punch you have where you live! Where I live it is hard to get anything enforced due to all the "good ole boys" running city hall!!!

[Autumn Moon]

When my (townhouse) neighbours moved into a bigger home and rented to a "nice couple with a 9 YO boy" I thought things would be okay. What ended up happening was that the Mom moved some stuff into the masterbedroom buther 2 older sons (18 & 20) moved in and started dealing drugs out of the home. She didn't actually move in with her younger son. It was party central 24/7 from then on. The music would be so loud that the hangers in my closet would rattle (and they are all thick plastic).
Dishes rattled and a mirror tile fell off the wall.

The only thing that worked was to call the police. And I had to inform dispatch that I would continue to call every 15 minutes until someone showed up. There was one time I called and the dispatcher could actually hear the music and the talking in the yard...and it was 3AM.

For the noisy upstairs neighbour, in a different place I lived in, the kids would drag chairs across the floor and it made that really horrid scraping/squeaking sound. I went upstairs with little self-stick felt pads and told the neighbour that this might help save her floors from marks of the chairs. For the one that walks around in high heels, I would mention to her that it is really irritating and invite her downstairs to listen while someone she knows walks around her place in shoes.
I am currently in a basement suite and I have mentioned the "please no shoes" when they have people come over.

Autumn