I can finally open my apt. windows, with the warm weather, and I cannot hear myself think! Cars and airplanes going by (at different altitudes, of course). Passersby talking. Churchbells clanging. Neighbors playing music, kids shrieking, that idiot three doors down revving his motorcycle. Birds cussin’ and talking dirty (the dreaded Ethel Merman Bird is outside my bedroom window bright and early).
Mind you, I can deal–the weather is so lovely, and I enjoy a breeze wafting through! But damn, the non-winter world is a loud one.
Yeh, taking a daytime nap in warm weather with the window open is only wishful thinking. And I don’t even live in a busy, semi-urban neighborhood. I’m in a slightly rural suburb, but everyone else’s volume level is always set at eleven.
This reminded me of a story my brother told me once. He’s always been a yuppie-type - CPA, golfer, driving high-end cars, living in suburbia - but he’s also pretty down to earth and in touch with reality. He went to visit a friend who’d just bought a new home in a fancy-pants neighborhood. His friend said “Listen… That noise is so annoying!” He was referring to the occasional bzzzzt of a bug-zapper 3 houses away.
I feel your pain. I’m lucky enough to have two little girls across the street who only know how to speak in that special little girls squeal. And there’s the neighors with their yip dogs. And the teen down the block with his mini-motorcycle thing that uses what sounds like a lawnmower motor. AAHHH-RRREEEEEEEE.
Thank heavens for the ability to pause TV, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to finish a program.
But, I’m such a happy camper to be able to get fresh air in here.
There are three pre-teen girls next door set on perma-shriek. The only noise that really gets my blood boiling is the cycle-revving, though. And that same guy tends to play really loud music. The neighborhood trash, is what he is, basically.
We’ve been having a bizarre late winter here in Minnesota (temps in the 70s and 80s above zero). It took the wildlife a while to figure it out/get here from Texas, so we had several days with windows wide open, sun beating down through the bare trees, and not a bird chirp or a bee buzz to be heard. It was just creepy.
BTW, I now have an image of an Ethel Merman harpy burned into my synapses, and I have you to thank for it.
Ugh, the motorcycle. Our house backs up to a busy street, so I expect - and get - plenty of traffic noise. But there’s a guy who lives on that busy street directly behind us who has a big ass Harley. I can tell he’s trying very hard to be as quiet as possible, and I believe he IS being as quiet as possible. But that is not very quiet at all, and he comes home late at night and leaves early in the morning.
I kind of like the outside noises. Of course, we’re very rural, and they’re probably sparse compared to what many of you experience. On the other hands, sometimes the neighbors spread manure, and the phrase “fresh air” becomes an epic joke.
This is a good place to describe our across-the-street neighbor, whom we have named “Loud Boy”.
Loud Boy is a talkative fellow. But when he talks on his cell phone, he comes out on his driveway to converse, and he faces away from his own house and directly at our open windows. He has one of those flat, hard, bellowing voices that carry a long way, too. We think that whenever he uses the phone, Mrs. Loud Boy shoves him out the front door because the din would threaten her sanity if kept indoors.
The birds are what gets me. I live one street over from a fairly busy highway, but due to a thick layer of trees, the noise thankfully doesn’t penetrate. It’s a quiet street with nothing but the occasional car driving by (or maybe kids playing outside, which isn’t too loud). It would be an idyllic setting if not for the goddamn birdsong.
And now they’re building a nest right underneath my window! grr
Oh! Their relatives the Screamies live across the street from me! Mr. and Mrs. Screamie and their two Screamie kids. They actually do not bother me too much, as their screaming is so entertainingly over-the-top, and they make me so glad not to be them.
My bedroom window opens onto a major street at ground level. It’s just next to some traffic lights, which means any police that are jumping the red lights whack the siren on just as they pass my window. We also tend to get a lot of drunken arguments screamed from one end of the street to the other at 3am, which can be interesting.
In fact, the street is so loud, the birdies actually wake up at 3-4 am, sing for a few hours, then go back to bed before rush hour starts.
When I go back to visit my parents in their tiny village, I can’t sleep because it’s so quiet. You really can’t win.
It’s one of the things I cherish about living in the country! (Huh, I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “cherish” before.) When I lived in the city I never got to hear anything but the neighbor’s music, cars, buses, trucks, airliners, and shrieking children. Now I just lie in bed sometimes when I first wake up and try to identify all the birdsong coming through the window. Then at night I lie there and listen to the frogs down by the river. The only better falling-asleep music is a good thunderstorm.
We live on a twisty, hilly road through some pretty scenic territory, and every year there’s a gigantic motorcycle rally of some kind that goes past…and goes past…and goes past…for a couple of hours. This always occurs on one of my work days, and I’ve learned to give up trying to work and just stand outside and wave. At least they’re nice enough to take a different route home.
He can’t be trying that hard. With stock mufflers or nice quiet aftermarket one’s, you probably would barely note his coming and going if at all. I suspect he or a previous owner has replaced the stock mufflers with a loud aftermarket exhaust system that is either barely muffled or completely unmuffled.
Sadly I was that guy. Well not a harley, but the guy with the loud after market exhaust on his motorcycle that is how it came when I bought it used. And I would drop the revs way down and be light on the throttle in my neighborhood thinking I was being quiet for my neighbors. Then one day one commented, “boy that bike sure is loud”. And I realized that while I was being much quieter in my neighborhood, I was far from being quiet. It was a hard pill to swallow, but I ended up shelling out over $500 on ebay for used stock exhaust system so that I could stop being “that guy” and start actually being quiet.
If you know the neighbor at all, you might in the nicest tone possible, let him know that you sincerely appreciate that he is trying to come and go quietly, but that the bike is still quite loud. If you aren’t lecturing or a jerk about it, he may take it to heart.
I lived in Manhattan in the early 90s. Most of the time I had the window closed and the A/C on, but one summer the A/C broke and I had to open the window for a little ventilation. I’ll never forget the time I woke up at 3 AM to the sound of a woman screaming “HE PUSHED ME DOWN AND HE RAPED ME”. She was just standing on the sidewalk outside my building. I was on the 19th floor and could hear her quite clearly.
Yeah, I called 911.
Anyway - in a song, there’s a line about “the city that doesn’t sleep” - I think it’s because it’s TOO DAMN LOUD.
