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I have a lovely neighbor. He has a lovely Japanese piece of poo poo car that has a stupid big muffler on it that literally shakes my house when he starts the car. He enjoys doing things such as going to work at 6am and waking not just everyone in my house, but all nearby neighbors, as well. Personally, I have spoken to him numerous times. I have gone so far as offering to pay to have the dealership put the stock exhaust back onto his car. He told me no. As a last resort, my neighbors and I have all started calling the police. Problem is, at 6am, nobody wants to call the police. They want to go back to bed. He has gotten numerous tickets for it and stopped driving the car for several months at a time. However, now that the weather is nice, he's driving it again (even though it's really lovely, he thinks it should only be driven in the summer). Anyway, calling the police is ineffective and has not stopped him from waking everyone in the vicinity. I am done with it and need to try something else. My city has a law where no fence can exceed 8 feet 6 inches. However, I can build a fence on my own up to 7 feet with no permit. The extra 18" will require a city inspector and a permit. So, I am to the point where I want to buy a bunch of lumber, and construct a wall at the edge of my property, closest to his driveway. See the picture for layout. Essentially, the property line extends to less than 10 feet away from his driveway. I want to put a 7 foot tall fence right at the edge of my property (allowable, I checked with the city). I will use as solid of wood as I can find and perhaps plant some tall shrubs on my side of the fence to help create more sound dampening. My question is: will this be effective at all? Will the sound be appreciably quieter at all? http://imgur.com/trqttmI Before anyone asks: there is absolutely no convincing him to not drive the car or to put a reasonable muffler on it. I have spoken with him numerous times and we openly hate each other. I will not vandalize his car, if for no other reason than fear of retribution. I can afford the fence materials and am completely willing to spend however much to help quiet the noise of his car. Calling the police is not at all effective and, frankly, feels wasteful of their resources. There is no "just go back to sleep" when he wakes up my young kids (under 5 years old). Once they're up, they're up. He does this predominantly on weekdays and intermittently on weekends. My city does have noise regulations and he is 100% violating them at the hours he drives to work - enforcing these is incredibly tough as it requires a police officer to be parked near his house at the moment he leaves. He has another vehicle which is normally quiet and does not wake anyone no matter how loud he revs it (it's a Scion with stock exhaust). He makes the decision to drive the lovely Honda because ??? TheDeviousOne fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Apr 22, 2016 |
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Apr 22, 2016 03:41
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Cobweb Heart posted:This. Cops are lazy as poo poo and they will try to make it sound like it's a big hassle to do things that they are obligated to do. If he's actually breaking the noise laws he has nothing to hide behind. (Every noise restriction I've ever been familiar with would not allow for starting your thundering lovely car every day in the AM.) If he does it with any regularity it'll be easy to catch him. Be a big loving pain in the rear end to all the authorities - definitely bring up that it's loving up your kids' sleep schedules because people in power tend to want to side with angry parents and away from single dudes with ratty cars. Well this thread as convinced me that a fence wouldn't be an effective way to get results. I am going to stay away from vandalism. I have no idea what this guy would do if someone were to damage his precious car. He'd immediately suspect me, even though 4-5 other neighbors all equally hate him. Looks like I'm back to calling the police again. Another option: do tall shrubs block this type of noise? Like a bunch of 10 foot arborvitaes planted as close together as possible? Everything I've ever read about sound says it takes mass to absorb the sound waves. My reasoning with the solid wood fence was that it would a) absorb some of the sound and b) block a lot of the soundwaves that would otherwise be headed directly toward my bedroom. Again, I will start calling the police and will ask my neighbors to as well. But, if that doesn't pan out, I want to have another option (aside from vandalism).
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Apr 23, 2016 02:23
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I will take video with my phone next time. I might also buy the cheap decibel meter from Amazon. Yes, I made a thread about this a year or so ago. I thought the issue was resolved as he didn't drive the car for a long time. I know at that time, he got numerous tickets. I assumed it was done being an issue. If he was still driving it, it was not in the morning or night. However, he's at it again. I'm not going to vandalize it. I just don't want to lose anymore sleep over it. Because it was asked, it's not lovely because it's a Japanese car, rather, as far as Japanese cars go, it's particularly lovely with dents and cheesy rims and mis-matched fenders, and the wheels have tons of negative camber. As in, when you look at the car from the front, the wheels are not vertical, they are sloping inwards, toward the center of the car. Full disclosure: the past week, I have been starting work by 6am, so I haven't been home to know when he was leaving. My wife has told me that she will call the police if she ever hears the car starting before 7, but I think he's on some weird Thurs-Sat work schedule or something. I suspect I'll know more in a couple days.
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May 3, 2016 02:26
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Kritzkrieg Kop posted:Since you're too frail to throw a brick are you able to find someone who can do it for you? I would love to shove potatoes into the muffler, smash all of the windows with bricks, buy a $200 full-sized van and drive it at 40 mph into the back of this parked car - but I'm not going to do this because I live next to this guy for the foreseeable future. I am not willing to risk whatever retaliation he might do when he suspects it was me. Also he and his wife have a total of 3 kids, something like 9, 4, and under 2 years of age. The car must be waking them when he starts it, so it's mind-boggling that the wife allows it.
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May 4, 2016 02:45
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