I have no problem with the stuff that goes boom then there is a pretty display. I have a huge problem with the stuff that goes BOOM and rattles the windows. It’s loud noise. Unnecessary noise.
An asshole somewhere in our neighborhood has been setting off M80s since Friday Noon.
I got about 4 hours of sleep last night because of the damn fireworks. Anything bigger than a sparkler or one of those little whistling things is illegal here but lots and lots and lots of people acquire the big mortars and whatever else they can get their hands on that makes a huge racket and fire them off all night with reckless abandon. And of course since the 4th was on a Monday it meant people were shooting off the big stuff all fucking weekend which meant my dog and cats spent three days hiding under the bed and/or cowering in the corner of the living room trembling while I didn’t get any sleep. Assholes.
I finally drifted off to sleep last night fantasizing about the local constabulary while on patrol finding a couple of random douchebags who are shooting those things off and arresting them on the spot. No warning, no tickets, no pleasant neighborhood Officer Friendly giving some sage advice to the seemingly ignorant gosh-officer-I-didn’t-know-these-things-my-brother-gave-me-and-I-totally-didn’t-buy-honest-were-illegal asshole. Handcuffs, Miranda warning, back of the patrol car for trip to county lockup. Do it where the neighbors can watch (or better yet, where a neighbor can film it and post the vid to Facebook). Do that twice in random places across town and between nextdoor . com, Facebook neighborhood groups, and all the busybodies with police scanners/apps who post everything they hear to the aforementioned social media word of a couple of arrests for illegal firework use would spread immediately to the whole town and, hopefully, all the assholes who think it’s fun to scare animals, trigger PTSD in veterans, and keep us working stiffs up late against our will would cease their douchebaggery at once.
But that’s a dream that will never happen.
Next year July 4th is on a Tuesday which means my stupid town will probably do the fireworks on the weekend before, because why not. Which will give the assholes an excuse to shoot them off for 4 days instead of three. I’m seriously considering taking the week off and finding an Air B&B as far in the middle of nowhere as possible and hiding out just avoid the noise.
I live 3 miles as the crow flies from an Indian reservation that has many fireworks stands. Between us is a valley that amplifies the noise from the fireworks. It has sounded like a war zone in this area for the past month. The past few nights have been the worst with all the locals firing off the supposedly illegal stuff they bought at the reservation. Our poor dog has been a mess the past 3 nights despite a calming jacket and pills from the vet. We normally spend the 4th at my FIL’s place because he lives in an area that had a fireworks ban. But the city council rescinded the ban last year, the city was sued for violating someone’s 1st amendment rights by banning fireworks. The citizens said it was done as a money grab for additional sales tax revenue.
We’re usually at our lake house on the fourth. Only five houses on the lake, all of us long time friends, so we have an informal agreement that limits fireworks to fountains and roman candles. Keeps it quiet but you can usually enjoy the colorful stuff.
The dog I have now is the only pet I’ve had in a long time that totally ignores the noise, doesn’t bother her a bit. She also ignores the doorbell or if someone knocks. If that happens, she goes to her dog bed and waits to see who comes in.
When I did have pets that got scared, I’d close all the doors, windows and curtains and turn on the air and fans. Then we would stay inside and do something like watch movies so they could lay on the floor or couch with us.
It’s been somewhat recent that they started shooting off the really loud fireworks. It wouldn’t bother me if they set a decibel limit on private sales.
there use to be someone in my neighborhood who would shoot of seriously loud fireworks at 2am. The kind that would make you jump even if you saw it fire into the air. He seems to have moved over to another neighborhood as I can hear them in the far far distance.
Even though they set them off for 3-4 days they all collectively stopped around midnight.
In last year’s thread (linked earlier) I was torqued off because, perhaps due to the feeling COVID is done, my area went stark raving mad and shot stuff off for a solid week, and the whole weekend was insanely loud and frequent.
This year, things were a LOT more sane in general with just occasional pops during the weekend until the night of the 4th. But DAMN someone within a block of me was setting off the BIG mortars shaking the windows repeatedly for about an hour from 9-10pm. But at least it was only the one night that was bad, and it ended by about 11pm. Since I had to be in the office today.
Bluetooth enabled sleep mask plus OTC sleep aid ftw!
Remember when during the COVID fireworks of 2020 people legitimately thought all the fireworks were actually a secret Alt-Right conspiracy plot?
I was honestly wondering last night if the people setting them off had jobs they needed to go to on July 5. (Although I suspect the people setting them off in the wee hours of the morning were likely teenagers, so no, they probably didn’t).
ETA:
Maybe my memory isn’t working because I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night because of the fireworks, but no, I don’t remember that at all.
I don’t like them but I can tolerate them. My three rescue cats learned over the years that the noise was not in the house and they are pretty chill about it. Though during the worst of it last night, they all got a little antsy. But what pisses me off is how it affects the two neighborhood cats I feed. Over the weekend they each managed to get one meal a day. But yesterday, kids down the block played with firecrackers all. day. long. Neither cat came out of hiding. It breaks my heart when I know they are hungry and scared. I fed them extra today and hopefully they will get a bit more before tonight’s festivities.
No. You’re not the only person. Come Memorial Day weekend, every other post on my neighborhood group here in Chicago is neighbors complaining about the noise. Like non-stop complaining.
I personally don’t notice. I don’t care. I’m also lucky in that I have a dog that doesn’t seem to care (though I have seen dogs deathly afraid of the noise, and it is heart-breaking.) I could happily do without, but, being honest, it’s all just background noise to me. I don’t even notice it most of the time, and yesterday actually seemed to be a quieter 4th than normal, with fireworks done by 11 p.m., my kids loved the show, and then the storms rolled in at about midnight/1 a.m.
I don’t like home fireworks. I don’t like professional fireworks. I don’t like any fireworks. They bore me, and I’d rather be doing something else.
So last night my daughter said, “I’d really like to go and see fireworks this evening.” I didn’t want to go, seeing how my alarm was set for 4:50 AM the next morning. But I didn’t want to disappoint her, so we went. We drove 20 miles in to town, and the parking was nuts. We ended up parking quite a distance away and walking. Fireworks started at 10 PM. Got home around 11:30 PM. I knew I’d be dead the next day with so little sleep, so ended up taking a half day (charged 4 hours to vacation). A total waste of time for me, but I did it for her.
Do they have any black cats, roman candles, or screaming mimis?
Lady fingers, fuzz buttles, snicker bombs, church burners, finger blasters, gut busters, zippity do das, or crap flappers?
You guys were lucky your town actually was able to have a fireworks show on July 4. I’ve been hearing news stories about how many towns had to hold their shows on a different date, because there aren’t enough licensed pyrotechnics experts to go around.
This:
Let’s do a lot more of this. And less of the stuff that triggers pets and vets (veterans).
I had to give my dog one of these each evening:
They work(ed) really well for him.
Single-malt Scotch works equally well for me 
Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I find them pretty cool. I’m a reformed preteen pryo but the thought of lighting a wick today is terrifying. However, I did enjoy the huge, car-alarm-triggering blasts from the other side of my alley while I was out grilling last night. And after the food was done, I wandered over to the smallish (one city block) park next street over. There were hundreds of people out there with some very heavy duty stuff. I don’t actively participate or know anyone there but there’s a certain exhilaration to being present during huge explosions. Off in the distance, it’s a constant rumble for some hours at night; a cacophony in the truest sense.
I didn’t go this year but I’ve been to the Chicago lakefront (up near Touhy) during peak 4th party time. It’s like a movie set: thousands of people are out, all ages, all walks of life, all sorts of interesting smells: lake, cooking food, wood smoke, gunpowder, cannabis, fragrances, you name it. When the wind is low, the smoke just hangs and it’s sort of creepy. The cops pretty much hang back and let it all happen before lazily breaking up the crowd and clearing the beach around 10pm, I think.
This isn’t to discount the legitimately negative opinions others have; they just don’t affect me. I don’t have pets, we’re not a particularly dry region for fires, I’m able to get to sleep for work today, etc. For me, it’s just a fun, urban experience that makes me glad I live where I do. I’ll bet a lot of neighbors hate the block party which we had recently and in which I play a role. I acknowledge it’s a pain in the ass for some and, at the same time, I also enjoy it.
It isn’t just dogs who get upset, it is also all wildlife, livestock … for that reason I hate them. My horse gets the freak-out runs and leaves diarrhea all over her paddock in the night. Thanks guys.
Whisker-dos … whisker don’t
… always cracks me up.
Even if I didn’t mind them personally–and I do, as my apartment isn’t very soundproof–I’d mind them for the reasons Ulfreida gave. Also, last night at 2 a.m., someone set off a giant mortar about 15 feet from my bedroom window. You have nerves of steel if that wouldn’t startle you awake. Scared the daylights out of me. I can only imagine how it’d affect a veteran with PTSD.