I suspect, rather, that people have always been noisy and inconsiderate–but the advent of the hi-fi has allowed them to be so incredibly more so than ever before. Agatha Christie books from the twenties include dialogue about “phonographs next door.”
Ah yes, the constant blasting of Billy the Bass. That right there should be considered a war crime.
When I rented my apartment on the 4th floor of the building I was given a notice stating that it was illegal to operate a gas grill (using 25 pound gas bottles) above the 2nd floor. One pound bottles are ok, apparently, and that’s what I use. Maybe they have had some of the large gas bottles explode or something.
However, many people are simply ignoring the rules. Personally I believe that the apartment manager should police the building or there should be a fire inspection occasionally.
Bob
Heh. Two years ago, after the third time I’d banged on their door after midnight, my new (apartment, and soon gone) neighbor said, “Noise is what happens when you have a party!”
Yes, though I recall it as 5 pounds. Could be wrong. The idea is that if an accident happens, there is only limited fuel.
Not that I would suggest that you do anything illegal, but …
[ul]
[li]Loud music players like this run on electricity, usually from a plug, not batteries.[/li][li]Most townhouses each have their own electric meter, usually mounted on the back wall, outside the house. [/li][li]Electric meters just plug in, with only a little wire serial number tag (easily snipped with a pliers). They are easily removed.[/li][li]If a electric meter is removed after 5pm on Friday, when most of the electric company workers have gone home, it takes much longer for them to respond.[/li][li]The electric company will replace the first missing meter (and maybe the second) without charge. After that, they add the cost of the meter to the electric bill.[/li][li]If the resident happens to be behind on their electric bill (as some lowlifes often are), the electric company will NOT replace the meter until the bill is paid.[/li][li]After several times, leave all 5 or 6 accumulated electric meters in back of the house or at the bottom of the electric pole. The electric company workers will be sure that there is something fishy about this townhouse, suspecting the residents have some kind of fetish about electric meters. They will note that in the record for this address, so all future workers know about the weird people living here.[/li][li]Later, plugging in a direct-short plug (a plug with the 2 wires direct to each other) into an outlet in the back of their townhouse or maybe their garage will blow the circuit breaker, shutting off the electricity. Lazy lowlifes will just call the electric company, saying someone’s stolen our meter again. When the electric company workers arrive, the meter is still there, and they will explain that it’s just a blown circuit breaker. And that they will be adding an after-hours service call charge to the electric bill.[/li][/ul]
Between this and the constant calls to police & the landlord, who will be the first to break?
Get yourself a drum set.
Yanno, SDMB should write some kind of Compendium on Other Ways to Handle Neighbors of the Annoying Kind.
It would be a best seller.
Buy similar equipment and play the same music as the annoying neighbours. We had the same type of problem with a neighbour who played loud music until about 4am on a regular basis. So we decided there must be some point at which he sleeps. That’s when we turn our music on full bung, and go out for the day.
Strangely enough, after a couple of days of this, he stopped the late-night music.
Before you ask, yes we had politely asked him on more than one occasion to turn it down to a reasonable level, we’d had the police round, we’d called the environmental folks from the council who are supposed to deal with noise pollution and we thought we’d made every reasonable attempt to resolve the situation. Well, apart from the time we disabled his electricity supply, of course. And made sure the emergency engineer was “otherwise occupied”.
That would have been hilarious if it wasn’t happening to you !! 
True. I cannot imagine one neighbor in Victorian England with it’s thick plastered-walled mansions and townhouses exclaiming angrily, " By the love of the Queen I cannot tolerate another evening of their blasted harpsichord !! "
I highly advise that anyone going this route use really annoying music, like Death Rape 2000 by Wiseblood (it’s simply 3 notes played over and over again), or Christianity is Stupid by Negativland (“And the loudspeaker spoke up and said, ‘Christianity is stupid! Communism is good! Give up!’ 17 hours a day!”)
Again, I suspect that to be illegal as hell. I know it is dangerous as hell. A local dummy was killed a few years ago trying to short his electric meter with jumper cables. Natural selection, indeed. 
Criminal Mischief is not a good idea or a very good solution.
The way I read the OP, there is another townhouse in between the OP and the jerks in question. I guess you could do this if you don’t mind that some innocent neighbors become colateral damage.
And let it play all the way through Time Zones! Hell, play the whole album (Escape From Noise), especially Over The Hiccups, cranked up to 11. Good choice!
Last year, I had a an apartment neighbor that just wouldn’t give it a rest, so I cranked up all 7.1 channels all the way and played the first couple of bars of Donald Fagen’s Morph The Cat on DVD-A. Almost 600 watts full blast in a tiny apartment. Damn near knocked the pictures off of my wall! The neighbors finally took the hint.
If I have to listen to noise, it will be noise of my choosing! I’m so glad I live in a townhouse with only 1 shared wall now.
Is there any escape?
Have the same problem with some wanker who lives down the street and has one of those cars with the stereo so loud it vibrates. He goes up and the down the street in the summer with all the car windows open, blasting away.
So, one day when I was out the front fixing my garden hose, wondering why it wouldn’t work, pointing it generally toward the road, he went by. Amazingly enough, the vibration must have fixed my garden hose! Just as he went by my house. With the windows open.
I tell ya, it was a miracle! Oddly enough, now he keeps his passenger window up when he goes by. I can’t imagine why.
My recommendations:
If it’s Zero-dark-thirty: Insomnia by Faithless (“I can’t get no sleep”)
If it’s an argument: I Write Sins, Not Tragedies by Panic! at the Disco (“I’d chime in with ‘Haven’t you people ever heard of closing a goddamn door?’”)
I’ve personally used Insomnia, and that cured all subsequent volume-offenses.
Illegal, stupid and dangerous. This “non-suggestion” has just won the trifecta. :rolleyes:
That’s ridiculous. It’s not even funny
To clarify a few points (and to thank those posing the illegal and dangerous options for our amusement):
1.) There is a nice couple in the townhouse between the asshats and us. They’re a young, quiet, slightly nerdy couple like us. We don’t want to do anything to make them angry. They’ve been beyond nice to us. Also nice is the cop that lives on the other side of us. We don’t want to make him mad (he is a police officer for a couple towns away, and the idiots tend to behave when he’s not on a shift and the car is parked in our row. When he’s working though, we’re on our own.).
2.) Most of the time lately, as the weather has turned nice, the music is coming from a souped-up car stereo. They hang around on the front stoop with the car windows open and listen to the music from the car. No one is actually in the car most of the time. They just use it as a giant boombox. So, as amusing as tampering with their house electrical system might be, it would not solve our problem.
3.) Despite what my wonderful husband said, he may be in his mid-20’s, but I’m not ready for that label. Let’s say I’m in my early 20’s, which makes the age difference even less between us and the kids.
4.) Shirley Ujest, we don’t have a drum set, but OMD did just pick up his guitar amps from his parents’ house… . . .Amplified bluegrass band rehearsal should do the trick. (Except not).
[Moderator Hat On]And yet you went ahead and did just that. Consider this an official warning.[/Moderator Hat On]