I can understand being upset if this was happening at 6 AM on a Sunday morning or something - but it can easily take three hours to do a thorough job of cleaning your yard. Mow the lawn, use the weedwacker around the areas you can’t get to, and then blow the debris into the woods - or whatever. I’m not going to spread my yardwork over three days because you don’t like the noise - it’s summer and it’s perfectly reasonable for people to work on their house.
Now, if you’re holding a dinner party at the same time and it’s clearly obvious to me that you’re doing so - well, then you can be annoyed. But in general - it’s my yard, and if I want to use yard equipment on it, that’s what I’m going to do…
Totally agreed. The only way the neighbor is being a jerk is if was deliberately running it longer than needed in order to disrupt the party, and that doesn’t sound like the case. In my neighborhood, the fences are tall enough that I might not be aware if they were holding a prty, particualrly if it started after I began my work, and thus couldn’t hear them. If they came over and asked me to wait, I would, but otherwise, I’m going about my business.
IMO, if you “want” to use yard equipment in your yard at a time that you know it will disturb your neighbor’s gathering, then you are a dick.
Not saying you don’t have the right to do whatever is legally permitted on your property. Just saying civil people living in a society are aware of the impacts their actions have on others, and when at all possible, do not unnecessarily disturb their neighbors.
You know what bugs me more than loud lawncare equipment? Passive aggressive people who would rather suffer quietly (and make their guests suffer) than politely ask their neighbor if he could stop making so much noise.
That’s pretty much it. Big sigh of relief when he finally shut it down, then disbelief as he started up a new noise-maker a few minutes later.
Due to the layout of our properties, fences and streets, asking him to stop would have meant leaving my guests, getting into my car (impossible since it was blocked in by guest’s cars) and driving several blocks in a big u-shape due to one-way streets. Then knocking on his door (which he would not hear due to him being in his back yard). In other words, not an option. Hard to explain.
Anyhoo, as I was saying, it was the reaction of my co-workers that was jaw-dropping. The blank sheeplike “duhhh-what”? attitude…:rolleyes:
Man, you are right - that IS hard to explain. I’m trying (and failing) to figure out some situation like that where you would have to travel that far to talk to your neighbor, yet you are close enough to know his schedule and to be that annoyed by his equipment. Other possibilities include borrowing a guest’s car, hopping on a bike, hopping over the fence, getting his attention from your yard , a phone call . . .
But more to your co-workers - I believe the majority of people today are so used to using power tools for the most simple of tasks, that they do not understand that others may strongly prefer silence and find the sound of those tools annoying. Unfortunately, I believe the only solution is to move further into the country.
Here’s another some-may-think silly thing - folk are so happy to have all kinds of lights outside their homes, that they do not understand that some folk might prefer fewer. Again, only solution is to remove yourself as far as possible from as many people as possible.
Different people have different expectations concerning noise levels in their neighborhoods. For some, noise from various yard machines blends into the background noise, as it did for me in the last neighborhood I lived in. (Everybody there spent at least part of their Sunday doing lawn maintenance on tiny 1/4-acre postage stamps.)
Others are hypersensitive to yard machines, especially the two-stroke motors that you tend to find in weed whackers and backpack blowers - those tend to sound more like angry hummingbirds than 4-strokes.
In short, your neighbor might not have realized that this pissed you off, and your co-workers might not have realized how peeved you’d get, perhaps because they don’t really think yard machine noise is all that irritating.
I found it made me a lot more comfortable when I had a talk with my next-door neighbor (the one with the cats, for those who read that pit thread) about the notion that if I do anything to piss him off, he needs to come tell me. I’m way too inconsiderate to rely on my own sense of what might tick off the neighbors, so now that both he and I understand that, all is good.
I thought I’d really pissed him off when I started up that jackhammer at 8 AM that one morning. But he said it didn’t bother him.
Not sure why it’s so hard to fathom. To get to the house that backs up to mine I’d have to walk about a block and a half. Not a big deal in and of itself but the OP states she was having a formal dinner party for which I would imagine she was dressed formally. I agree that the ideal solution to the problem would be to find a way to make the neighbor aware of her displeasure but I can see how she felt her options were somewhat limited.
Yard work is one of those things that must be done. To do it, you sometimes have to use noisy machines. I, personally, will feel zero guilt about this. If you have a special situation, such as a formal dinner, I can not guarantee that I will remember it. That’s your deal, not mine. If I’m making too much noise, simply come ask me to stop for the time being. I’ll be happy to comply, because I’m a decent neighbor. If you’re one of those wackos who gets hypersensitive about any kind of noise, however, that’s too fucking bad.
Well, this touches on something that I believe folks can legitimately disagree on - and in which I acknowledge I am clearly in the minority. IMO, most reasonably fit people could maintain most urban and many suburban lots with a lot fewer motorized tools than they use.
I consider noise to be a form of pollution, minimizing it is one of my considerations when making many home purchases, and I am aware and try to minimize the noise I inflict on others. People are wired differently.
I’ve had this experience. Twice now I’ve hard workmen in my shared-wall home, and each time they’ve noted that the wall which runs in between us and the neighbors appears to have been added later. I tell them that we laid on sheets of soundproofing drywall there because we have very noisy neighbors who play their TV and their stereo extremely loudly. The workmen each time were young, twenty-something men who looked like hard partiers, and I got a similar blank sheeplike “duuhhhhhh” look from them. It’s almost like it was the first time that they ever considered that extremely high volume might annoy other people.
When I lived in Texas, the sound of leafblowers being used on nonexistent sidewalk detritus by perfectly legal immigrants would blast over 200 feet, up a story and through my closed office windows, several times a week (and since this was southern Texas, leafblowing season lasts all year round). I could have made a field trip down there to ask them to quit, except for the language barrier and the fact that they couldn’t have heard me even if I’d screamed at them in Spanish with those things going and the fact that nobody had any auditory hair cells left due to lack of ear protection, never mind the assumption that they would have happily stopped using the leafblowers and done hand sweeping instead, as if.
I agree that you should have politely gone over and asked the guy if he wouldn’t mind stopping for awhile. Bringing the beer along for him would have been a nice touch, as mentioned.
Was there any way you could have moved the party inside?