Am I the only person who can’t stand these despicable things? I live in an apartment, and my upstairs neighbors have installed not one, but two of these units out on their balcony, which is about 15 feet or so from both my bedroom window and my living room sliding glass door. Now any time the wind is blowing at a decent clip, I get to listen to the sound of clanging metal. And what separates this abomination from most other apartment noise pollution, is that I have to hear this all night long, and even when the upstairs neighbors are out!!
There has to be a contingent of wind chime fans among Dopers, since the damn things are everywhere. Can somebody explain to me why the sound of wind is better when accompanied by the sound of metal sticks banging together? Can somebody explain how this is less inconsiderate than simply running a looping tape outside of incessant hammering that your neighbors can clearly hear?
As a side note, I have successfully convinced a neighbor to remove wind chimes in the past, but in this case, I have already put the kibosh on late-night noise from the upstairs and would rather not seem more like the noise nazi than I probably already do. I have also taken to sleeping with earplugs, and while that does cancel out most noise problems, I still have to ask…why?? Why!!!
I’m only sensitive to noise I think is inappropriate. Go ahead and listen to music, stomp around all day, whatever, I don’t care. Set up drums in your living room directly above me (like these guys did), I will be at your door in two minutes. Sit outside and ding a triangle, I’ll come for dinner. Set a triangle to auto-ding outside 24/7 (the equivalent to me of wind chimes), I’ll rant.
Eh…no one agrees with me on this, I just don’t understand why.
I’m with ya zwaldd, for the most part. It’s the constancy of the cacophony that ultimately drives me nuts. If they rang for only ten minutes or so, I wouldn’t mind 'em at all. But they don’t. Some days they go interminably.
Wind Chimes are Martha Stewart’s boombox. You think wind chimes sound pretty. You can’t understand why anyone would have a problem with them. Well, congratulations, you’re now in the same boat as the kid with the block-shaking car stereo blasting his music to the neighborhood. He too, thinks the music is just fine. He too, is just trying to show his appreciation for it, and bring some brightness into peoples’ lives. He too, can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to hear it. And, for the record, he too, doesn’t care and didn’t ask if you DON’T want to hear it.
Someone gave us some wind chimes a while back, and we hung them on the porch. But UncleBeer’s right - there’s no “off” switch for them. Not only did we have to listen to them all day long, but so did our neighbors. The chimes are now haning inside, and if we get a desire to hear them, we can blow on them or whatever, without it lasting all day, and without annoying anyone else.
Yes, thank you. I’m as likely as the next person to brush my hand across them as they hang in the store to see what kind of tone they’ll emit, but who wants to listen to those notes for hours on end? Why don’t I just sit outside and randomly pluck the notes of a D chord on my guitar for 12 hours straight. It sounds nice for about 30 seconds, so it’ll probably sound nice for 12 hours??
I have some windchimes, but they are not the big giant ones - most of them don’t make much noise. If it’s a particularly windy day, I take the loudest one down. My neighbors and I get along pretty well, so I assume if they annoyed anyone, they would tell me.
UncleBeer will just have to put up with it them this summer.
I think some of the Maine Buoy Chimes actually have an “off” switch - there’s some mechanism built in to slide something up to muffle the sound. Can’t find one on-line, though.
Where are you Zwaldd? We’ve got exactly the same neighbours. Surely if someones lives in an apartment complex, then they should respect their fellow residents. Only a complete asshat would have a pool party. At midnight. On a Wednesday. If you want a wind chime, fuck off! Go live on a ranch 10 miles from other people. Some of us have to sleep at night. And could you stop leaving dogshit all over the complex. It’s not very nice. And do you have a ten foot high inflatable snowman run by an air compressor? Then fuck off! You have neighbours 3 fet away! Maybe potential apatment dwellers should be force to have an IQ test before moving in, followed by a caviyty search to remove anything that can make a really loud noise.
And while I’m here
As for the felcher who turned his stereo on full blast and drank himself into a catatonic stupor for 16 hours - you can fuck off too.
Well, I guess you should all be quite thankful you don’t live near me!
I collect windchimes, and currently I’ve got about 7 or 8 out on my front porch. I don’t think my neighbors mind, as they’ve got a couple themselves.
I agree that some chimes are just horrendous to listen to, and fortunately I live in an area that gets almost no wind except for the occasional hurricane. However, I find that the majority of my chimes (balinese wooden chimes) really aren’t that loud, and I find the sound quite pleasing. It’s almost akin to the nice patter of rain.
When we lived in apartments, I would never have thought to put them outside, as there just isn’t enough space between people’s porches and balconies to avoid annoying someone or other, but I own my house now, and there’s plenty of space between houses. I don’t think my chimes are any more annoying than my neihgbor’s twelve (yes 12) chihuahas yapping at 7am.
If they’re that annoying, I’d suggest slipping an anonymous note underneath the offending neighbor’s doorway. Chances are they don’t even know you can hear them, or that they’re that annoying. A simple, “I appreciate the sound, but not for hours on end” should do the trick.
Amen. And the kid will eventually drive off, but the wind chimes can’t.
Outside my window, the wind has just gusted as I’m typing this, and I hear a crescendo of leaves rattling. To mask that with the constant tinkle of wind chimes would be, to me, the equivalent of going backpacking with your Walkman always on–just another way to put an additional barrier between a person and nature.
Most windchimes annoy the snot out of me, but has anyone seen the tuned chimes? I’m a huge fan of those, and someday I’m going to by myself one of those big four-tube monsters tuned like church bells.
