My neighbor just got new wind chimes; they are annoying & annoyingly loud, & at least in the past couple of (windy) days, have been playing virtually nonstop. I could hear them two stories up, with the windows closed, over the freight-train-like noise of the 30ish MPH winds last night.
However, when I looked at them up close, they are memorial wind chimes.
I am on good terms with my neighbors & if they didn’t have that extra piece of engraved wood I would absolutely say something to her. But (there’s always a but, right) she’s grieving & this is how she is choosing to memorialize him.
Can I say something now? Should I wait a month or two (I expect it to only get worse once open-window weather comes)? Should I suck it up as my discomfort pales in comparison to losing a child?
What say you, Dopers?
I’d give it a month. It’s even louder for them I bet, though right now it’s undoubtedly low on the list of things that annoy them compared to their son’s suicide. Another few weeks may change that and they’ll take steps to mute the noise.
Most likely you’re not the only neighbor bothered and someone else may take the bullet for you and complain.
You’re absolutely entitled to quiet enjoyment of your residence but their perspective right now is very different.
I like some wind chimes, but there’s quiet and tasteful, and then there’s loud and clang-y.
Perhaps the conversation could be along the lines of asking her to move them to a more sheltered location, where they are more protected from the elements. IOW, not so likely to make so much noise. This might be a good time to have that conversation, while the weather is bad. You are a concerned neighbor, trying to help her protect her precious memories from the elements.
I happen to own the world’s only acceptable wind chimes. It (for it is only a single bell) will only make a sound when the wind gets up to about force 5 (25 mph) or more, and even then chime will ring only intermittently and not very loud at that. I love it. It’s a one of kind made by an artist friend of mine and I treasure it.
Wrong. Your neighbor hears it and thinks she is going nuts. Then she mutes the TV to try to hear it, and nothing. As soon as the TV sound comes back on, WHAT IS THAT EFFING NOISE?!?!?!
Talk to the neighbor. They don’t know that you know they’re a memorial, and if they’re bothering you, they’re bothering other people too. Imagine how they would feel if someone else stole or vandalized them?
I vote for the time to say something is NOW. I suspect your neighbor doesn’t know how loud the chimes are in your house. She may not care, but she may be able to put the chimes someplace less annoying to you.
The only wind chimes I own are the clay ones that I bought in Hawaii. I have them mounted on the wall in my enclosed patio. They’re strictly for looks, and never ever make a sound. The only good wind chimes are quiet wind chimes.
You could go with the approach that you’re a very light sleeper and the wind chimes keep waking you up. Ask if they could silence them in the evening. They’ll either take them down immediately or do something to silence them in the evening and then eventually get tired of that and take them down altogether.
I live in a Southern California city. I got yer city noise 24 hours a day. Close to a small airport with a helicopter school and a flight school. And we hear it throughout the day, well into the night. Two jokers down the street from me got old cars they work on all the time, but they never work on their mufflers. Next door neighbor has a pretty little cerulean blue, late model Porsche that he decided to put loud pipes on just because cerulean blue Porsches absolutely scream BAD-ASS DUDE! I hear the freeway cooking up trouble around 4AM. Dogs are barking day and night. Do you get the picture? I have a pretty harmonically tuned, whatever that means, wind chime that soothes my soul. It’s pretty and sometimes clinks out a real tune. If Mr. Bad-Ass Pipes on a cerulean blue Porsche wants to complain about my pretty noise, he might end up harmonically blowing it out his ass. Just sayin’.
I was in a store the other day and saw a set of wind chimes to use when you REALLY want to piss off the neighbors. The things were ten feet long and six inches in diameter, and rang out loudly in the bass range.
In the OP, I say that I’m on good terms with my neighbors; I’d like to keep it that way.
They look kind of like these, with his name & stuff on the danglely wood piece. That piece catches the most wind, but that’s where the memorial info is so even a pair of scissors ruins them being a memorial (while simultaneously making them somewhat quieter). Hopefully it’ll warm up a bit (like above freezing) & I’ll seet them outside, coming or going.
