screaming kids - really?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Just chiming in to say I wouldn’t be ok with that either. One of the first “discussions” I remember my dad having with me was about how you don’t scream bloody murder unless you’re being bloody murdered. I have three siblings and can’t remember ever being allowed to scream like idiots (unless maybe we were at grandma’s). I don’t have any real advice about your neighbors, but you have my sympathy.

The last time I tried to be nice and reasonable and “just ask” my neighbor two doors down to please keep her little dog out of my yard you would have thought I went over there cussing and carrying on. It’s been two years and she still randomly yells obscenities at me and my husband whenever we drive past their house, or she sees us in our yard. I have no idea why, because I was as nice as I know how to be about the dog, but nothing could have prepared me for the crazed reaction I got. She actually told me I needed to, “Move out to the country if I didn’t like animals being loose (?).” I thought that was funny considering that’s what she needs to do if she wants to let her dog run around. I think it made her mad that I laughed, but I couldn’t help it.

62

As in, we’d prefer they park elsewhere? Or, as it’s in front of our house, we get to say who parks there? Or as in, it’s illegal to park there? (Yeah blocking your laneway, not cool, regardless!)

I was a tad skeptical that children could shriek until midnight, but hey anything can happen.

But the above sentence makes me think that you’re ‘that’ neighbour, now.

63

Just keep calling the police, it worked for my neighbor. He and his wife hated, hated, hated, my son and his friends skateboarding in our cul-de-sac so he would call the police anytime they went out there. He couldn’t stand the “noise” of a skateboard on concrete. The same asshole neighbor who ran his leaf blower every weekend.

I guess the police would sometimes ride by and ignore the complaint because it was just a couple of kids on skateboards but every now and then they would stop and tell them to go home. Eventually they told my son they would arrest him if he was seen in the cul-de-sac with his skateboard again. Unfortunately I wasn’t there for that exchange. It just wasn’t worth the trouble to be constantly hassled so I drove them to the skate park after that.

If you keep calling the police, evenutally you will find a policeman who will make the threats you want.

64

Two annoying neighbor anecdotes.

One fall day, it was finally cool enough to fling open all the windows and cut off the A/C. As I sat outside on my deck that morning, enjoying my coffee, I heard this rhythmic sound, that made me think a neighbor was chopping wood. Or splitting logs or something. WHUMP birds tweeting WHUMP birds tweeting

I didn’t think too much of it, but took note when I went back out there in the afternoon and again in the evening. Every few seconds: WHUMP birds tweeting WHUMP birds tweeting Finally around midnight, I wander upstairs to go to bed. My bedroom is on the second floor, in the back of the house and very well insulated. I’ve had EMS show up at the house across the street in the middle of the night and never heard a thing. Anyway, I’m laying in bed, still hearing WHUMP birds tweeting WHUMP birds tweeting (Well, by this time, no birds tweeting 'cause it was night.) From my bed, completely forgetting my windows were open (which is why I could hear it) I shouted, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT NOISE?” The whumping stopped. Next thing I heard was a sheepish “Sorry” from my neighbor. :smiley: No cops were called. Note: I wasn’t particularly irritated by the sound, just intensely curious as to what could still be making it after 12+ hours.

Anecdote #2: There is a day care/after school care place behind my house. Every day, when I go home from lunch, I am subjected to the sounds of the screaming children. Because this place closes at 5 and is not open weekends, I generally try to tune out the screaming. I’m sure the day care people want to get the kids outside to get their scream on and I think kids should be able to run around outside and play and be loud, regardless of how irritating those sounds are to me.

Every now and then, though, some of those little ones get really shrill and shrieky. I have shouted “Shut UP” over the fence a time or two, but it’s usually pointless as I will only be out there for about ten minutes. If I’m home sick or something, it’s awful. I am not going to call the cops. I think next time the kids are screaming in that especially high-pitched “A grizzly bear is eating me alive” shriek, I am going to walk over there and talk to the day care ladies and explain to them that I’m extremely concerned about the sounds of abuse that I can hear over the fence and the next time I hear the dear babbies screaming like that, I will have to call the cops and/or CPS because I’m concerned that some little kids are being abused/beaten to death. I have heard the day care ladies screaming back at the children. Perhaps they need to know how it sounds… and that they could lose their business license and possibly their livelihood by not keeping that shit under control.

I just think there’s a huge difference between kids being loud,shouting and laughing and that horrible eaten-alive-by-a-grizzly-bear scream. Little kids have higher pitched voices, so they’re going to be a bit shrill. I think the OP is concerned about that godawful eaten-alive-by-a-grizzly-bear scream. I would try to talk to the neighbors once and explain that the screaming makes it sound like something is horribly wrong and too bad, so sad, sorry, but I’m gonna have to call the cops if I think someone is seriously injured or being eaten alive by a grizzly bear in full view of the neighborhood homeowner’s association.

65

Little girls are absolutely the worst. I remember washing dishes one day and hearing a bloodcurdling shriek. I dropped my dish and went to the door because I swear to god it sounded like someone was being raped. Flashes of Kitty Genovese went through my head as I opened the door - to see some kids playing and a little girl doing the shrieking.

I am lucky in that after a few minutes her mother came out and told her to shut up. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of elderly people, so luckily people are nicer than that. But that scream was awful.

Re: the bouncy house. They rent it every weekend? Those things aren’t cheap! Maybe they own one? Either way they are super jerks for allowing this sort of behavior.

66

Yes, it does happen to be a noise they make, however, if had screamed as a child or made any noise that was too loud, my dad would quickly turn my ass raw and blistered :eek:.

Better yet, crank some Notorious B.I.G. :cool:, or, even better, Limp Bizkit, specifically Nookie. Stage two, witness how quickly the kids are rushed in the house :D. You might not be friendly neighbors anymore on any level, but hey, they started this war :D.

67

Indeed. I rented one last month, for the Firebug’s fourth birthday party, and the tab was a couple hundred bucks. So there’s probably a limit on how many weekends this will happen.

68

While blaring your stereo may be a viable option in response to loud neighbors, those who consider this solution should be aware that they can and probably will be ticketed for disturbing the peace or some such. Police officers don’t often look kindly on retaliation such as this.

69

I really hate this “excluded middle” kind of argument. There is a happy medium between kids not allowed to make any noise and kids shrieking like they’re being killed for endless hours day after day. If you can’t understand that, maybe we should be feeling sorry for your neighbours.

Maybe curlcoat could have a meeting with all the other neighbours and they can all gang up on the shrieking kids neighbours. I’m guessing she isn’t the only one bothered by it.

70

Or suffers from Voice Immodulation Syndrome, like Jacob Silj.

71

Children, being children, have less self-control than adults. This can lead to prodigious noise levels. Being children, they also tend to have high-pitch voices that both carry and penetrate remarkable distances.

This doesn’t excuse 12 hour marathons of screaming, of course, or night-time imitations of air-raid sirens by the little monsters. THAT is caused by inconsiderate parents.

Certainly, by sundown the noise should be reduced.

My suggestions:

  1. Check the local noise ordinances so you know your legal footing. I doubt you’re going to stop the screaming at high noon, but it can give you a leg to stand on regarding cut-off times. Also check and see if there’s a curfew for kids.

  2. Attempt to speak to the neighbor. Say you understand their kids need to play and it’s wonderful they’re getting exercise but the noise volume is extreme at any time, and particularly late, after dark, it’s highly disturbing. Could they please get the kids to lower the volume?

  3. I’m assuming that’s not going to work (but what the heck, try it anyway) so the next step is to call the police and report a noise violation. Also a curfew violation if applicable.

I hope that would get some results. If not, the only recourse after that would be to sue the neighbors which I’m not enthused about. It will, of course, render you enemies with that neighbor, you’ll have to document (written log, video tape, etc.) the violations, and deal with a court. Not to mention they might counter-sue.

Good luck.

72

Oh, easy solution! Go over and be a nice neighbor and give the kids caramels to eat. Or any other extremely sticky, hard to chew candy. They will love you and they will be quiet.

73

Aren’t those bouncy castles, y’know, notoriously prone to punctures?

I’m just sayin’, is all!:smiley: (Dart guns at dawn!)

74

This was the typical response in the Pit, except those were, you know, ruder. :smiley: The thing is, kids may be kids, but there is simply no reason why any parent should think that the “A grizzly bear is eating me alive” shriek (thanks Dogzilla!) is acceptable at all, much less for hours on end. Unless of course they are the sort of parents that aren’t bothering to parent.

:rolleyes: Way to jump to a biased wrong conclusion. For one thing, the only reason they need to park anything on the street is because there are three families living in that one (originally) three bedroom house, so there are five cars there. Then, they made their two car garage into another bedroom, so now they can’t park there. Three, and more to the point, they could park in front of their own house but they choose to park in front of ours because there is a shade tree in our boulevard. And fourth, which was the point you jumped over - the problem is when we need to use that area to park our trailer or for friends, they act all put out that they have to move their cars over to their side of the street. Like you, they seem to feel they have the right to park there, which technically they do but if they were at all considerate of the feelings of their neighbors they’d at the very least not act like its a huge inconvenience to move their cars to their house.

And yes, children (probably they are little girls) can and do make “I’m being torn asunder” screams until midnight and beyond. Either you do not live near any young children or your neighbors are considerate. Which ever it is, consider yourself blessed.

Sigh, that used to be our neighborhood, but the older folks have mostly moved to Arizona and young families are moving in. The ones kitty-corner to us aren’t that bad, but for some reason the mother brings her two toddlers out front to play and those two are the whiniest, most perverse kids I’ve had the misfortune to have to deal with in a long time. Probably because their mother is either ignoring them or yelling at them - I really don’t know why she had them.

The people directly across the street are only an issue on the weekends, and it isn’t every weekend, tho lately we’ve had a run of three in a row. During the summer, it can be more weekends than not when they are having pool parties.

The bouncy house is an indication of why these people have three families in one house - they are terrible with money. I honestly have no idea how they can afford that thing, maybe they have a friend in the business or something.

Exactly. Anyone that says that “kids will be kids” when mention is made of screaming is probably the same sort of person that lives across the street from me!

We haven’t ganged up on them, but the people living on the other side of them, the guy living on one side of us and the retired guy down the street have all said something and as far as I can tell, no difference. Even when the people living next door had a new baby.

75

Three families in a single-family home? That might be a zoning violation.

It certainly explains why the kids are outside all the time - probably too many people in the house. Especially if half of them are screaming kids.

76

Oh god, large families tune everything out. I’ve got a friend with a large family and it’s always chaos over at their place. The thing is, now she can’t stand to be alone in her apartment! She needs to have the TV blaring if she’s alone or else she gets scared from the quiet.

77

'nuff said.

I think I jumped to exactly the right conclusion, regards the parking, anyway.

78

Unfortunately, it isn’t. Our city has a “number of people per room” law, I think it’s five not including bathrooms and the kitchen. So, since they have five rooms that qualify in that house, they can legally have fifteen people living there. Contrast that with I’m only allowed three pets.

Yeah, I guess. But why do we have to pay for their stupidity???

That’s actually kind of sad.

So if I came over once every couple of months and asked you to move your cars to in front of your house so I could park my trailer in front of my house, you’d huff, sigh, roll your eyes and pretend you don’t speak English? Nuff said indeed.

79

How many times do I have to tell you people? The answer, as it is every time, is SOUSA.

80

That needs to be the title of something, not sure what though :).

This I will never understand :sigh:, there is nothing better in this world than utter, complete and total silence, it’s even better if there’s a ton of noise, and then you’re able to shut it all out at once. I can hardly stand being around my niece and two nephews, and they’re very well behaved, but still make too much noise for me…sei still.

Okay, so Sigmagirl has us beat, but Sousa would also be traumatic for the one who uses that to retaliate with, you’d need to be able to take what you’re dishing out I’d think, and those kids would know it was a battle of willpower at that point. Just who could stand it longer :D…