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Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

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Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#151

Post by mancerayder »

nntwozz wrote: post #90

Not saying it's right for everyone, but I moved off-grid where my nearest neighbor is 5km away. 20 years in an apartment in the city was enough for me, as I grew older I realized there are too many things outside of my control if I want silence and peace of mind. Sound pollution is a very real baseline stressor.

I can relate to this very much. A city guy, no one could understand my (also) 20 years of complaining about neighbors with loud music, slamming doors, making noise after midnight, etc etc. I lived on top floors, and I even spent a fortune living in a luxury building that was newly built, hoping sound insulation was higher end. The problem is that bass music travels through everything. I suffered from being woken up in the night by party goers, and early morning by door slammers. Once I wake up, it takes me a long time to fall back asleep. On weekends, when I want to stay at home and just play a game or read, people play music in the afternoon and often I would stress over some sort of party nearby beginning that evening, forcing me to find somewhere to go just to avoid the noise. Eventually I purchased a home in the woods.

What's happening to make us a minority here is at the minimum:

- Younger people are less sensitive to noise, go out more, and generally don't understand how distressful it can be

- Some people are light sleepers as well as get cognitively overloaded, needing relatively quiet environments to relax. People like me are in a tiny minority.

- Cities are the future, they're the greener option, and you're supposed to prefer the dense apartment life instead of the car one, on ethical grounds.

So when I detailed my suffering several times here on HN, and suggested dense cities are not mentally healthy for many people such as myself, I got downvoted. There's a bit of politics behind city living that folks who don't have cognitive sensitivities around noise just won't relent from.

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#153

Post by idiotsecant »

its_ubuntu wrote: post #134
galangalalgol wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inhaling any particulate seems like a pretty bad idea. I knew a Jamaican guy who thought people were silly for smoking it and said tea was the best. I have no opinion, not my vice of choice.

[flagged]

You sound just delightful. A wonderful blend of ignorant and weird-but-not-in-the-good-way. Smoking anything is bad for you, including the thing you like. PM 2.5 contamination is enormously harmful, and it doesn't magically go away if it's weed.

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#154

Post by its_ubuntu »

fao_ wrote: post #139
its_ubuntu wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> There is no such thing as "gluten intolerance", for example [citation needed]. I have celiac disease and a wheat allergy, which presented at the age of 3 comorbidly. If I ingest gliadin, my immune cells take the gliadin, run a nice little check on it, and then raise holy hell and destroy my gut villae. If I come into contact with wheat, I get a histamine response. Even a bag of (organic, locally produced) wheat flo…

[flagged]

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#155

Post by sysworld »

luckylion wrote: post #142
TacticalCoder wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Triple-glazed windows do work wonder. I live atm in a modern construction with triple-glazed windows everywhere. Now it's not the city per se, more like the posh suburbs, but it's still an apartment, with neighbors. But you don't hear them, nor do you hear the cars outside. That said TFA's author is a real dick and that is seen in the way he writes. You don't "teach" your neighbors and you don't program them in a pav…

He might have, and my experience is that you cannot teach inconsiderate people, they lack social object permanence: as soon as you don't stand in front of them, they become unaware of your existence and thus are also unaware that their music at two in the morning might be annoying to you. Better windows don't help either - but they're great for noise outside. The only thing that helps against horrible neighbors is mo…

"The only thing that helps against horrible neighbors is moving. If you've never learned that lesson, you've never had horrible neighbors."

Having lived next to a terrible neighbour for over 20 years, I can confirm a horrible neighbour never changes into a considerate one. And often they're the ones that never sell or move (why would they, they're having a great time..). Almost all the neighbours properties around here have been sold a few times, but not him.

Lucky we've been lucky with our other neighbours who are (currently, and most of the owners of the past too) all very nice people.

We'd love to move, but we really like the location, house and garden. That and anything similar is priced out of our range.

We used to think we got really lucky with the price of our place, but maybe no one bought it because they knew the neighbour that lived there.

But yeah, if you can move, move. Don't hang around hoping things will get better, they usually don't.

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#156

Post by matheusmoreira »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #137
nntwozz wrote: post #90

Not saying it's right for everyone, but I moved off-grid where my nearest neighbor is 5km away. 20 years in an apartment in the city was enough for me, as I grew older I realized there are too many things outside of my control if I want silence and peace of mind. Sound pollution is a very real baseline stressor.

Triple-glazed windows do work wonder. I live atm in a modern construction with triple-glazed windows everywhere. Now it's not the city per se, more like the posh suburbs, but it's still an apartment, with neighbors. But you don't hear them, nor do you hear the cars outside. That said TFA's author is a real dick and that is seen in the way he writes. You don't "teach" your neighbors and you don't program them in a pav…

> You don't "teach" your neighbors and you don't program them in a pavlovian way.

Sure you do. Punishment of bad behavior is a basic social rule. Words were exchanged. All they had to do was listen, understand and stop the bad behavior. Had they done that, things would not have escalated beyond a polite conversation. Unfortunately, people often choose overt disrespect instead. They choose to challenge the other guy to do something about it.

If anything they should be glad the punishment was as civilized as this. There are many places in this world where it could easily escalate to actual violence.

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#157

Post by idiotsecant »

fao_ wrote: post #139
its_ubuntu wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> There is no such thing as "gluten intolerance", for example [citation needed]. I have celiac disease and a wheat allergy, which presented at the age of 3 comorbidly. If I ingest gliadin, my immune cells take the gliadin, run a nice little check on it, and then raise holy hell and destroy my gut villae. If I come into contact with wheat, I get a histamine response. Even a bag of (organic, locally produced) wheat flo…

[flagged]

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#158

Post by adsteel_ »

WA wrote: post #107
binaryturtle wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there was an easy solution like this for smoking "neighbours". Some sort of detection device that instantly closes my windows automatically and then "explodes" a nasty "stinking bomb" outside (e.g. automatic opening of a container with butyric acid or similar), so it smells worse than their smoke. Eventually their brains would connect smoking with nasty stinking and stop doing it. But I wouldn't know where to…

No smokers in my neighborhood, but people use their goddamn fireplaces too much and it’s kinda impossible to get fresh air in winter evenings and often during the day. Not sure how to train them. And unfortunately, there are too many. Burning wood should be forbidden in residential areas. It’s similar to smoking in restaurants, except you can’t escape them.

My romantic views of wood smoke hit reality when I first camped in Canada's Banff-Jasper national parks, where you could buy unlimited firewood for the night for $5. Everyone bought it, it seemed. Trying to breathe downwind of a campground was a rude wakeup call. It should definitely be restricted in denser residential areas. I can't imagine some of the towns in Germany or Poland where residents depend on wood fires for heat.

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#159

Post by gljiva »

nkrisc wrote: post #131
gljiva wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Since they smoke on the balcony, rather than near roommates/family, many are likely more mindful and pleasant to coexist with than what you displayed. They’re more pleasant to coexist with because they let their smoke drift into my home instead of their own? What? They’re just externalizing the negatives of their own vice.

You haven't mentioned that they:

a) are aware that their smoke isn't dispersed enough by the breeze / open space to be unnoticeable.

b) know there is someone close enough who isn't like them and other smokers, and is really bothered by the smoke.

They do, however, go smoke on their balconies since they were made aware smoking inside is bad for their roommates/family.

So, many of them are more likely than not reasonable people. They _could be_. While you _proved_ that you aren't, by not communicating it (or at least not mentioning it as if it isn't the most important reason why they are "awful people"), just judging them and holding a grudge.

In this very comment you again showed that you don't care enough to understand others who you might disagree with, because I am just rephrasing what I already wrote, since you replied like I didn't.

Re: Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down

#160

Post by DiggyJohnson »

WA wrote: post #107
binaryturtle wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there was an easy solution like this for smoking "neighbours". Some sort of detection device that instantly closes my windows automatically and then "explodes" a nasty "stinking bomb" outside (e.g. automatic opening of a container with butyric acid or similar), so it smells worse than their smoke. Eventually their brains would connect smoking with nasty stinking and stop doing it. But I wouldn't know where to…

No smokers in my neighborhood, but people use their goddamn fireplaces too much and it’s kinda impossible to get fresh air in winter evenings and often during the day. Not sure how to train them. And unfortunately, there are too many. Burning wood should be forbidden in residential areas. It’s similar to smoking in restaurants, except you can’t escape them.

I cannot fathom making this comparison.
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