Loud outdoor music - how late is too late?

It’s cool. I don’t think you are personally lame and you didn’t do anything unreasonable- especially with those details. I’d get cranky, too, about a bunch of noise for no reason.

If I were working nights and there was loud music during the day, I’d certainly complain.

What I think is different (and annoying) is that the celebrations you describe are shared by the neighborhood in general. The parties and noises people are complaining about here are at the expense of the neighbors’ quiet enjoyment of their own homes. They’re not invited to join in the revelry.

Decent people invite all their neighbors to join in to a noisy and/or outdoor party. This serves two purposes: one, they can have some fun themselves, and two, if they prefer not to, they have some notice and can plan around the inconvenience.

Consideration has to go both ways to make a decent community. Community is NOT about letting rude and inconsiderate people run roughshod over your rights and feelings.

Interesting question. My gut feel would be 11:00 pm should be the cut-off time on Fri and Sat nights and 9:00 pm other nights. However, in a real-world sense, if I’m sitting in my backyard at 2:00 pm trying to listen to my music at a low volume but can’t, because of the neighbour five doors down (I’m in a townhouse strip), the time of day suddenly becomes irrelevant.

Culture is improved by neighborly consideration, which is in no way synonymous with “sterile marketed blandness”

In fact, a lot of marketing is centered around promotion of loud parties (notably with sales of booze).

I also say 10pm is the cutoff except for special days. Like on the 4th of July, we had music and noise till about 12:30am, which I can understand. Or when the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, we had noise till around midnight. OK those are special times.

Also we had a neighbor that has a party about twice in the summer and it’ll go on till midnight or 1am. But it’s always on a Saturday and it’s only once or twice a year

This. 100%.

Generally I’m fairly tolerant during the day, but my idea of a perfect Saturday is dozing in the hammock for a couple of hours so I completely understand those who make the complaints. In a residential neighborhood when you didn’t invite the neighbors midnight would be the latest I would wait.