The Day the Music Died

My noisy neighbor is moving, and I have mixed feelings...

Sorry for the super long post. This story comes from nearly a decade of events.

This situation escalated sometime in 2018. I’m not sure when the first incident occurred.

The first time we called the police was because a guy had showed up and broken all the windows out of a guest’s SUV with a baseball bat in the middle of the night.

Not long after that, we called again because of the loud music, etc. That night we laid in bed and listened as the neighbor yelled at us from his front yard. He called us names, insulted us, used racial slurs, and spoke lewdly for about an hour and a half.

Needless to say, we were upset.

The bedroom window was approximately 10 to 15 feet from his living room window. He had a window AC unit, so that allowed more sound to escape.

Enter our poorly insulated, 100+ year old house.

That was the first time we moved the entire house around to escape the noise.

It didn’t really help. Sound will wrap around your whole house to crawl in a side window.

Rooms like my office were still adjacent to his favorite noise-making areas. He partied hard and frequently. The music would play all evening starting around 6pm until sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It was miserable.

Most of the time it was on the weekend, but there were times he would do it during the week. Sometimes, I would begin to think I’d escaped a weekend only for him to turn the music on at 11PM or later. When it happened that late, I knew I was in for an all-nighter.

By the time we got to this point, I was so angry and upset, I could never have rationally asked him to stop in a civil manner. For me, it was a full on assault and I had very little recourse.

Sound is a Weapon

Did you know there are actual weapons based on sound? One is an LRAD. That’s stands for Long Range Acoustic Device. These are mostly used for communication over long distances, but a powerful one will scramble your brain with soundwaves.

They used these during the stand-off in Waco with the Branch Davidians in March of 1993, two weeks after they cut power to the compound. According to the Congressional report, they played:

the sounds of dentists' drills, locomotives, helicopters hovering, loud obnoxious music, Christmas songs, Tibetan Buddhist chants, previously recorded negotiations, squawking birds, cows mooing, clocks ticking, telephone busy signals, and the cries of rabbits being killed.

“The cries of rabbits being killed”…what is wrong with people!?!

Who went to the rabbit slaughterhouse (why does this exist?) and said, “Wow, this would be a great torture sound for people! Let’s record it!”

Aside from this, sound affects us. Good sounds, bad sounds, we are affected by them psychologically.

Here’s some support for that notion:

• https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/music/your-brain-on-music/your-brain-on-music/your-brain-on-music-the-sound-system-between-your-ears/

• https://healthmatch.io/anxiety/noise-anxiety-what-you-need-to-know

• https://www.juliantreasure.com/blog/4-ways-sound-affects

I understand completely why I am so deeply affected when I can’t escape someone else’s noise permeating my sanctuary.

The Cops Were Useless

There are noise ordinance laws in probably every city across the United States. It’s illegal to make noise during certain hours. In my locale, those house are 10pm to 6am.

My first line of defense became calling the cops which I loathe.

Most of the time, this was happening on weekends when the police are over-extended with drunks and domestic altercations.

Many times when I called, I would get the “we’re currently experiencing high volume, but we’ll send someone out when they’re available” spiel.

If they did show up, it escalated the situation.

Early on, a cop obviously disclosed who placed the call hence the hour and a half diatribe from the neighbor in his front yard.

At this point, I will disclose that I am white and I live in a predominately POC neighborhood. I have ZERO problems with this. In fact, I kind of liked it before it got stupid around here this last year.

I don’t mind diversity. I quite prefer it. Life is boring when everyone is the same, and I don’t think meaningful conversations happen or world-changing relationships get built by living on opposite sides of the fence or tracks or whatever.

I don’t know all of my neighbors’ names. I don’t speak to them regularly, but here’s the thing, they are MY neighbors. You don’t get to come mess with them without me stepping up to defend them, even the ones who make noise. More on that later.

Eventually, it became apparent that calling the cops was strictly something we were doing and no one else, so we stopped doing it.

No one else in this neighborhood has ears, a poorly insulated house, a neighbor 5 feet away with an insatiable appetite for bass, or all 3.

We Fought the Only Way We Knew How

In June of 2018, after a full day and night of non-stop noise, we started our revenge the next morning about 5 hours after he’d finally turned the crap off.

First we mowed.

Then we dragged the speakers from the living room to the bathroom. It’s the thinnest wall in the house and faces his bedroom window. This happened:

This did not seem to phase him in any way.

It seemed each time I decided to seek revenge, something dumb happened.

Vengeance is Mine Sayeth the LORD!

On one occasion, he played his music all night, so I raised the window next to my desk and let him have it from my inadequate desktop speakers. They are pretty loud, but not wall-piercing.

The thing I forgot was that I had raised the screen on this window for the cats, so they could view the bird feeders a few feet away. I now had a gaping hole in the side of the house. After a few minutes, I spotted a cat outside, and I thought, “That really looks like B…..oh crap!”

Now I’m outside, 5 feet from the neighbor’s window where I just tried to disturb him with loud music going, “Here kitty kitty” trying to coax my cats back in the house!

On another occasion, I had a small, but very noisy alarm designed to stick on your window, so if the window is opened it goes off thereby letting you know someone is breaking in.

After a night of regular torture, I decided to place this alarm between the window and screen of my bathroom window and let it go for a while. I hoped to get a reaction this time!

Nothing happened, so I went to retrieve the device and I couldn’t get the bathroom window to open back up. So, here I am with this thing making all this racket and I’m struggling in full view to open the window.

Fun times.

I stopped after that. I realized that God wasn’t playing with me and He wasn’t going to let me enact revenge in this manner with this dude.

Accepting the Circumstances

By 2021 and after the neighbor obviously used his stimulus to upgrade his already horrible stereo:

• We had prayed for him

• Prayed for ourselves

• Moved our house around no less than 3 times trying to escape the noise

• Built a sound stopping plug for the window out of cardboard, pillows, foam, and hot glue

• Asked him to stop nicely

• Asked him to stop not so nicely

• Called the cops more times than we can count

• Been verbally abused

There was nothing left we could do short of shooting him to change his behavior. I couldn’t shoot him, because it’s not quiet in jail!

All I could do was accept whatever circumstances had exacerbated this situation like the fact it wasn’t his fault our house is 100 years old and had no insulation. I also had to consider all of the other sounds permeating my space that had nothing to do with him from current and future neighbors all around.

Solving one aspect of the problem wasn’t going to fix anything. I had to find go-to methods to deal with ALL unwanted noise.

I began to find ways to cope through other means:

1. Lofi Hip Hop - This YouTube channel changed my life! If you’ve never heard of Lofi Hip Hop, you’re probably straining your brain to figure out how it could help. Give it a listen. This is one of a few livestreams this channel runs constantly.
   

   They have another sleep-focused one that I listen to all night, every night.
   
   What this does is drown out unwanted sounds. Because it has a deep bass line, it also drowns out bass from other music. Sure, if it’s loud enough, I can still hear it, but not if I use earbuds! So, if out loud doesn’t do the trick, I can pipe it directly into my ear canals!
   
   This also helps with my terrible insomnia! It kind of conditions your brain to want to sleep when this music is playing. This works for travel as well.
   
   This is the number one tool in my coping arsenal. There are many other sounds available on YouTube along this same vein if you don’t like Lofi Hip Hop.

2. Noise machines - I have a couple of different machines where I can create white, green, and brown noise. This sounds like TV static or fans running that drowns out unwanted noise. If you can’t sleep without the fan, you are utilizing this type of sound.
   
   I have real noisemakers too. Even though I have central air in my home, I installed a window unit just for the noise. I know that sounds extreme, but I was desperate, folks.
   
   I have a pedestal fan that also creates a fair bit of noise.
   
   All this tolerable noise, helps drown out the unwanted noise. Is it ideal or as good as quiet? No, but it does help me keep my sanity and not resort to murder.

3. Devising wicked plans - I would sit around and think of ways to stop the noise. Of course, these are things I’d never do, but just the thought would help me get through the noise.
   
   I would think things like:
   => Unscrew the meter from his electrical box and throw it in the woods.
   => Throw cat dookie in his yard.
   => Hack his wifi.
   => Break in and wreck his speakers when he’s not home.
   => Find a way to broadcast my own sounds through his speakers.
   => Back the car with the big speaker box in the back right up to the edge of the yard toward his house and let it play a while.
   => Knock on his door, walk in, and shoot the speakers until they stop.

4. Devising less wicked plans - I would also think of things I could do to deflect the noise like:
   => A brick wall!
   => A cinder block wall
   => Any kind of wall!
   => Building a soundproof room on my house
   => Burying that side of my house under dirt
   => Digging a basement
   => Creating an array of panels to stop the sound
   => Figuring out how to insulate the house

These things allow me to cope without getting as upset. I still get furious sometimes, but it’s nothing like it was before I had these solutions. I actually share these coping methods on Reddit in communities like this one.

He’s Moving Away Today

This last year has been a tough one for my neighbor.

As much as I despise the noise, this sentiment doesn’t carry over to the person. Sure, I get enraged with him, but at the same time, I can’t blame the guy for wanting to unwind a little.

Over the years I’ve noticed some things about him:

• He works…A LOT

• He doesn’t lay out of work

• Up until this last schoolyear, he took his daughter to and picked her up from school

• He’s not a thug

• He’s not a hip hop fan. He prefers R&B

• He is mild-mannered except when he’s intoxicated

• He keeps his circle small

• He is close to my age

His daughter got her own cell phone and the drama has increased. She now comes home from school and turns her music on. It’s much worse than his.

Cardi B has a song, and if you know anything at all about Cardi B, it’s probably regarding her trash music, but that’s a whole other post altogether. She has a particularly disgusting song, and this kid was playing it at top volume one day.

I went outside to take the trash out, and she went in just to change the song to that one. I lost it. I told her, “Turn off that trash music. It’s nothing but bad words and trash and there are little kids in this neighborhood who don’t need to hear it!”

She just stood there looking at me kind of dancing a little bit. I said, “Right now, or I’ll call the cops and they can tell you to turn it off and then we’ll tell your dad.”

That was the last time that happened. Her hurry to terminate the music told me two things:

1. She wasn’t supposed to be outside when her dad wasn’t home.

2. She wasn’t supposed to be listening to that music.

Kids show up from time to time while her dad is at work which I’m certain is a no-no.

The first group took about 3 weeks to escalate to throwing rocks through his front windows.

This was a turning point for us. We went from being the evil white a-holes next door who always call the cops to being the ones providing the cops with footage of the culprits from our security cameras.

The music situation changed drastically. It became less frequent, sessions were shorter, and it wasn’t as loud.

This was a breakthrough I’d prayed for.

The window was broken a second time. We missed that one.

The third time was just a few weeks ago. A group of kids started showing up when Dad wasn’t home, and it only took them about a week to reach the window-breaking climax. This time, it happened while he was home.

This winter, a pipe burst in his house.

Now, new owners bought the home and have opted to kick him out.

For me, this has garnered a whole new set of thoughts and emotions. I’ve been thrown out of a rental on short notice before, it’s terrible.

The worst part is finding somewhere to go…in a housing shortage no less!

As we watched him carry out two space heaters today and pondered the two defunct window units he’s run selectively in recent years, I said, “I hope he’s going somewhere better where he doesn’t have to worry about that crap.”

Man, I don’t know why. I don’t wish misery on anyone. We all have ONE LIFE to live. I see someone who works hard and tries to care for his own. I hope things get better.

I’ve also decided that people in this neighborhood making noise is God’s reminder for me to pray for them. So, I’m going to continue to pray for this guy and his family and that one ride-or-die friend that always helps him no matter what.

All this time, I never wished for him to move because at least we knew what to expect from him. Who knows what we’d get with someone new. A sampling from the neighborhood makes this guy seem like the quiet one.

Today, the music dies. No celebration. No goodbyes. It’s the end of an era.

LATEST UPDATE: New folks came to change the locks yesterday. A lady came back about an hour later to clean and commenced to turn on some Hispanic radio at full volume. Look, go on and let the music die. I’m good with that.

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