Having something of the same set up in my neighborhood, I completely understand how you can be at the mercy of the leaf blower (or the goddamned yap-yap dog) and yet not even be able to pinpoint the exact location of the noise! (said yap-yap dog). It is also hard to leave your party (especially if you are hostess) to ask him to STFU. I do think some attempt should have been made.
My next door neighbor mows his lawn twice a week, no matter the need. And then the leaf blower comes out (it is fun to watch him do this on windy days–he doesn’t seem to realize that Mother Nature is one great big leafblower…) and then the hedge trimmer… He is aged boy and likes his toys. And as soon as he is done, two doors down neighbor starts his tractor up… I think males of a certain age (yes, a broad brush, but I live in a neighborhood where it’s the men who are making all this noise–I’d be just as hard on women doing it) just like to make noise. But I will say that most people seem to be immune to background noise these days. I cannot stand to have TVs on “just for company” or Muzak competing with “Retail Store TV” like they have in the grocery stores now at the checkout AND the gas station. And to be in a department store that has Muzak and be near the Junior Dept which has its own music is hell.
We used to have two doors down neighbors who had a HUGE outdoor party every year. They went door to door the day before to warn us of the noise (hired band) and all the cars (one way street, no sidewalks). That was courteous.
I felt very bad last year when I only had this one weekend to dig a dry creek bed for this one part of my lawn that is very close to the next door neighbor’s (other side–we LIKE these folks) driveway the same day they had a huge family party for some christening or birthday. I didn’t have a radio on–I just felt bad that I was in sight, sweaty and filthy for their family do. YMMV. (I did apologize to them afterwards. If they had told me, I would have made other arrangements).
I can’t stand the noise and I, too, consider noise pollution.
The obvious thing to do would be to pull out the trust shotgun and fire a number of shots into the ground right next to the fence. Odds are he’d notice that.
Dog crap on my lawn is one of those things that has to be dealt with, and sometimes it is just easier to flip it over the fence into your yard. If you don’t like dog crap in your yard, then that’s your problem, not mine. Dog crap happens; if you are one of those people who is hypersensitive about dog crap, that’s too fucking bad.
Any party originally set up as such (especially if it’s formal) would be extremely difficult to move, I believe.
I don’t really mind early-morning yard workers during the week, when most people have to get up anyway, but, good grief! Before 10 on a weekend morning is just plain rude/thoughtless!
Noise is absolutely a form of pollution, but then again, so are four stroke gasoline engines, and the noisemakers don’t seem to care about that, either.
I once said I’d never move into a gated community. I recently revoked that and said that I would move into the first gated community that banned the use of power lawn equipment in favor of xeriscaping first, then judicious landscaping second, then push mowers and manual trimmers of all sorts third.
Wait a minute - you live on the other side of Ralph - my neighbor to the south? The guy is somewhere near 90, and I really hope I am able to get up and about like that when I am anywhere near his age. But MAN, I wish he would get another hobby than yard maintenance with power tools. It is crazy, how often I’ll walk home and think to myself, “He mowed his lawn AGAIN? It was already shorter than mine!” My wife bears the brunt of it, tho, as she is home much more often than I. Tho he does it during the day, he moves so slowly that it can take a couple of hours to mow the entire lawn. The best is coming soon, when he puts his leaf blower on suck mode and picks up the leaves as they fall, one-by-one!
As I said before, this just really seems to be one of those areas in which people differ. So many times I will find the chore of shoveling snow tempered by the peacefulness, broken only by the scrape of my shovel. Then some guy a block down cranks up his snowblower . . . Neither of us is necessarily right or wrong, just different.
I like the sound of lawn-mowers, hedge-clippers and other such noisy gardening appliances - they tell me that we have a bit of sun shining and I should get out in the fresh air for a while.
In the specific case of snowblowers, I’d be inclined to cut people slack, considering the number of people suffer heart attacks each year from shoveling snow.
That was me, only with a belt sander and a huge piece of furniture I was re-finishing.
No neighbors were in their yards when I started, but about an hour into the job, my one neighbor popped her head over the fence to ask “How much longer?” I had no idea guests had arrived and they were having a BBQ and dinner outdoors. My job wasn’t a priority, so I quit for the day to let them have their dinner in piece.
We don’t use loud stuff much though. We use a push mower and a rake.
I like the sound, usually. Little noises distract me more than almost anything, and I’d rather have one constant thing to tune out than lots of intermittent ones. Sitting out side with the neighbor trimming his hedges, and I won’t get pulled out of my book by the car doors slamming, the kids shouting, dogs barking, or what have you.
But, if someone’s throwing a party, or it’s before 8 or after 9 then shut the stuff off. Of course, one would have to know about the party…
I’m gonna nitpick and say that 9am is about as long as it’s reasonable to expect people to hold off on the lawn-mowing and other motorized yard tools. In the summer, I want to be DONE with the yardwork by about 10:30am, because it’s usually just too damned hot and muggy after that.
Would be nice if there was some maximum noise level for these things - and I’m thinking of standards that would apply to their manufacture, rather than local noise ordinances. Because no matter how much noise the neighbor’s 2-stroke weed-whacker is making, I’m not calling the cops out to deal with a noise issue. Even in my rather well-behaved exurb, I’m sure they’ve got better things to do.
What I don’t understand is why lawn equipment is so damned loud in the first place. It would be easy to design an effective muffler for a 4-stroke mower, but the available ones are little better than no muffler at all. And a tuned pipe on a 23cc Weed Whacker would both make it quieter and more powerful.
But that would add, like 5 bucks to the cost or something ! The horrors!
Thank the gods, I think in another 10 years or so battery technology will have reached the point that household weed wackers, blowers and lawn mowers will often be battery powered.
That, and/or in urban/suburban areas internal combustion engine powered household devices will be banned because of the emmisions. I bet you could drive around all day in a modern car and put out less pollution than a weed wacker that was run for a short period of time (note, CO2 is not considered, but other nasties are).
It takes me about 4 hours once a week to mow/etc my 1+ acre of lawn. If my neighbor were having a party and asked me to postpone mowing, I would “graciously” comply however I tend to mind my own business and would have no clue wrt what they were up to on a given evening.
Maybe I am the one being unrealistic here but I don’t think it should be his responsibility to ensure that your party goes off without a hitch. If the man wants to cut his yard at a time unpleasant for you, it sucks, but it shouldn’t necessarily reflect badly upon him.
Other than that, I am inclined to agree that most people don’t care to know (or just don’t think about it)that something they find pleasing or a necessity, might not be pleasing to everyone else.
I asked the people at Home Depot about this. I was told by the salesperson that there are lower-noise models out there, but they don’t sell well. He speculated that the machine has to be loud to “sound” like it’s working, and to appeal to certain types of individuals. He did not speculate or elaborate on those “certain types of individuals”. He did demonstrate the difference in noise level, and it’s the difference between a loud annoying hum and the typical monster roar. I found the whole concept of “loud on purpose to increase sales” idea fascinating.
