how to deal with a marginally noisy neighbor, NYC edition
May 24, 2019 8:26 AM Subscribe
After 5 year, the blissful idyl of my Bed-Stuy life has been shattered by pernicious bass frequencies emanating from a car stereo and invading my sleep-bubble at 7am. I feel shattered, gutted, I feel like universal forces of injustice have conspired to wrest control of my life away from me. Askme, can you help me calm down and strategize how to move forward?
I've lived in this apartment for 5 years and I can honestly say that nowhere in my life have I slept better - partly on account of sobriety (nearly 3 years!) and partly because it is SO PEACEFUL on my beloved little block. Note that there's a school directly across the street from me - so it can be rather trafficked in the early morning, but even with that, sleep has been delicious. To be clear, I sleep with a white-noise machine, black-out curtains, an eye-mask, and ear plugs - but with all those precautions in place, I'm able to achieve sweet unconsciousness.
Until about a month ago, that is. That's when I noticed bass frequencies of a car stereo starting at about 7am and continuing for sometimes as much as 90 minutes - most days! This is not a question of twice-a-week alternate side of the street parking. To be perfectly clear, I am not talking about window-rattling volumes - I suspect that most people would have little trouble either sleeping through this or else rolling over and going back to sleep.
The problem is that I'm a musician and tightly-wound, especially when it comes to sleep. Re: being a musician, I don't work crazy late hours, but I regularly get home around 11 or so, so going to sleep earlier in order to adapt to the external noise isn't really an option. Also, I'm super sensitive to the rhythms of the bass frequencies - it's not just that they wake me up, but that they instantly engage my brain, which I've struggled so mightily to shut off. It's a recipe for disastrous consciousness.
I find this all so profoundly frustrating because in the last few years I've FINALLY figured out how to manage my time in order to be productive in the ways that I want to be, I feel like I'm making real progress on things that eluded me for YEARS. I'm proud of myself! I attribute my progress to sobriety, regular work, and better sleeping habits. So the fact that my delicate balance has been upset is that much more frustrating.
I've spoken to my landlady about this. (I live on the top floor of a brownstone. My landlady has lived here for decades, as have many of our neighbors, including the guy who plays music at 7am.) She knows the guy I'm talking about and claims that he doesn't take kindly to requests like this - she says he's likely to take it as a confrontation and may well escalate. She did tell me yesterday that she'd speak with his mother, although I don't know if she has, and he was out there again this morning. Because of her description, I haven't yet spoken with him myself.
I haven't made a formal noise complaint although I have asked the police how they typically deal with them - I'm told that they try to respond within 8 hours, which is essentially a deal-breaker, of course. I'm not even confident that they'd notice the noise - it's just really not that loud to anyone other than me and my hypersensitive ears/brain.
I'm also trying to be sensitive to issues of gentrification. As I mentioned, he and his family have been in the neighborhood for years and years - he could easily see me as an interloper, which would not bode well for me asking him to be sensitive to my sleep needs, I think.
But it's just so frustrating to have my idyllic situation compromised. So I come to you, askmefites, in the hopes of finding wisdom, experience, or at least some compassion. Should I speak to him? Should I move? Do I need to man up and just make myself cope?Thanks!
I've lived in this apartment for 5 years and I can honestly say that nowhere in my life have I slept better - partly on account of sobriety (nearly 3 years!) and partly because it is SO PEACEFUL on my beloved little block. Note that there's a school directly across the street from me - so it can be rather trafficked in the early morning, but even with that, sleep has been delicious. To be clear, I sleep with a white-noise machine, black-out curtains, an eye-mask, and ear plugs - but with all those precautions in place, I'm able to achieve sweet unconsciousness.
Until about a month ago, that is. That's when I noticed bass frequencies of a car stereo starting at about 7am and continuing for sometimes as much as 90 minutes - most days! This is not a question of twice-a-week alternate side of the street parking. To be perfectly clear, I am not talking about window-rattling volumes - I suspect that most people would have little trouble either sleeping through this or else rolling over and going back to sleep.
The problem is that I'm a musician and tightly-wound, especially when it comes to sleep. Re: being a musician, I don't work crazy late hours, but I regularly get home around 11 or so, so going to sleep earlier in order to adapt to the external noise isn't really an option. Also, I'm super sensitive to the rhythms of the bass frequencies - it's not just that they wake me up, but that they instantly engage my brain, which I've struggled so mightily to shut off. It's a recipe for disastrous consciousness.
I find this all so profoundly frustrating because in the last few years I've FINALLY figured out how to manage my time in order to be productive in the ways that I want to be, I feel like I'm making real progress on things that eluded me for YEARS. I'm proud of myself! I attribute my progress to sobriety, regular work, and better sleeping habits. So the fact that my delicate balance has been upset is that much more frustrating.
I've spoken to my landlady about this. (I live on the top floor of a brownstone. My landlady has lived here for decades, as have many of our neighbors, including the guy who plays music at 7am.) She knows the guy I'm talking about and claims that he doesn't take kindly to requests like this - she says he's likely to take it as a confrontation and may well escalate. She did tell me yesterday that she'd speak with his mother, although I don't know if she has, and he was out there again this morning. Because of her description, I haven't yet spoken with him myself.
I haven't made a formal noise complaint although I have asked the police how they typically deal with them - I'm told that they try to respond within 8 hours, which is essentially a deal-breaker, of course. I'm not even confident that they'd notice the noise - it's just really not that loud to anyone other than me and my hypersensitive ears/brain.
I'm also trying to be sensitive to issues of gentrification. As I mentioned, he and his family have been in the neighborhood for years and years - he could easily see me as an interloper, which would not bode well for me asking him to be sensitive to my sleep needs, I think.
But it's just so frustrating to have my idyllic situation compromised. So I come to you, askmefites, in the hopes of finding wisdom, experience, or at least some compassion. Should I speak to him? Should I move? Do I need to man up and just make myself cope?Thanks!
Mostly, I think it's probably hopeless. But, you've got some social connection to the guy (that is, you know your landlady, your landlady knows him), so he's not a total stranger. And the thing that gives me a glimmer of hope is that he's lived there for a long time, but the noise that's bothering you is new, so it's not a long-term established pattern of his.
It is barely possible that if you come at him in the friendliest possible way, appealing to the social links (that is, "so my landlady knows your mom" or something like that) and being deferential to his longer residence in the neighborhood, and frame it as "Nothing ever bothered me until a couple of months ago, and then suddenly I can hear your music every morning and I work late and it wakes me up. You're not being unreasonable, it's not that loud, it's just that the bass gets to me. Is there any chance you started doing something a couple of months ago -- moved the speakers to a different room or something -- that you could switch back?"
This is a real long shot, but if it's making you miserable it might be worth a try.
posted by LizardBreath at 8:50 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
It is barely possible that if you come at him in the friendliest possible way, appealing to the social links (that is, "so my landlady knows your mom" or something like that) and being deferential to his longer residence in the neighborhood, and frame it as "Nothing ever bothered me until a couple of months ago, and then suddenly I can hear your music every morning and I work late and it wakes me up. You're not being unreasonable, it's not that loud, it's just that the bass gets to me. Is there any chance you started doing something a couple of months ago -- moved the speakers to a different room or something -- that you could switch back?"
This is a real long shot, but if it's making you miserable it might be worth a try.
posted by LizardBreath at 8:50 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Re: ear plugs, which ones are you using? The only ones that I've found can block any bass frequencies are these.
posted by knownassociate at 8:52 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by knownassociate at 8:52 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: LizardBreath - it's not about moving speakers. He sits in his car from 7am listening to music. Again, it's not about alternate side of the street parking - he does this most days. Thanks so much for your response!
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:00 AM on May 24, 2019
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:00 AM on May 24, 2019
If I understand this correctly, someone in your neighborhood has recently started playing music with extra-strong bass in his car outside your building in the early morning for as long as 90 minutes at a stretch?
I have to agree with your landlady. Especially if the music isn't all that loud and, as you suggest, most people would be able to sleep through it, someone who likes to sit in his car and play loud(ish) music at 7 AM in a residential neighborhood is unlikely to respond well to a request that he turn it down. Some of this may very well be cultural. It's typical of gentrifiers to come from a culture in which it is considered incumbent upon each of us to take care not to disturb our neighbors, whereas many of the preexisting cultures in the neighborhoods that are being gentrified hold that each person has the right to enjoy their music at the volume they prefer (etc.) and that their neighbors shouldn't attempt to infringe on that freedom. In gentrifying neighborhoods there are frequently clashes in which the longstanding residents who are used to being able to play loud music in their cars, have loud games of domino, barbecue on the sidewalk, etc. get into disagreements with newcomers who have an expectation of more serene surroundings. This can lead to resentment from the longstanding residents who feel as though gentrifers are trying to take away things that have been done in the neighborhood since "time immemorial." Needless to say, there is also often a racial component to these disagreements on both sides. All of this is to say that you're unlikely to get a positive response out of the person playing his car stereo.
posted by slkinsey at 9:01 AM on May 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
I have to agree with your landlady. Especially if the music isn't all that loud and, as you suggest, most people would be able to sleep through it, someone who likes to sit in his car and play loud(ish) music at 7 AM in a residential neighborhood is unlikely to respond well to a request that he turn it down. Some of this may very well be cultural. It's typical of gentrifiers to come from a culture in which it is considered incumbent upon each of us to take care not to disturb our neighbors, whereas many of the preexisting cultures in the neighborhoods that are being gentrified hold that each person has the right to enjoy their music at the volume they prefer (etc.) and that their neighbors shouldn't attempt to infringe on that freedom. In gentrifying neighborhoods there are frequently clashes in which the longstanding residents who are used to being able to play loud music in their cars, have loud games of domino, barbecue on the sidewalk, etc. get into disagreements with newcomers who have an expectation of more serene surroundings. This can lead to resentment from the longstanding residents who feel as though gentrifers are trying to take away things that have been done in the neighborhood since "time immemorial." Needless to say, there is also often a racial component to these disagreements on both sides. All of this is to say that you're unlikely to get a positive response out of the person playing his car stereo.
posted by slkinsey at 9:01 AM on May 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
There’s an app for this!
It’s called reported and you take a video of the car doing the thing and the app will send that video to 311 and other pertinent agencies (police). It’s New York based. If this vehicle happens to be a taxi or black car, the TLC WILL issue a ticket. You may be asked to serve as a witness, via phone call. The video evidence makes the ticket very hard to contest but the recipient of the ticket isn’t told there’s video until trial.
If you can casually stroll by the car several nights in a row at slightly different times to get videos and send them after you get them, the app will geocode the location based on where you send from, allowing you to correct the address.
The police just close their stuff within minutes of seeing it, but it leaves a record of the complaint happening and police inaction. So if you make ten reports against these loud people you could the foia the complaints against that license plate at take it to the news. Or something.
As for short term solutions? Earplugs.
posted by bilabial at 9:07 AM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
It’s called reported and you take a video of the car doing the thing and the app will send that video to 311 and other pertinent agencies (police). It’s New York based. If this vehicle happens to be a taxi or black car, the TLC WILL issue a ticket. You may be asked to serve as a witness, via phone call. The video evidence makes the ticket very hard to contest but the recipient of the ticket isn’t told there’s video until trial.
If you can casually stroll by the car several nights in a row at slightly different times to get videos and send them after you get them, the app will geocode the location based on where you send from, allowing you to correct the address.
The police just close their stuff within minutes of seeing it, but it leaves a record of the complaint happening and police inaction. So if you make ten reports against these loud people you could the foia the complaints against that license plate at take it to the news. Or something.
As for short term solutions? Earplugs.
posted by bilabial at 9:07 AM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
Also! The app was created because the creator was constantly being woken up by honking from the gas station near his apartment. He noticed it was mostly being used by cyclists to report blocked bike lanes and crosswalks. It’s also great for reporting delivery trucks that are double parked or otherwise being dangerous.
posted by bilabial at 9:10 AM on May 24, 2019
posted by bilabial at 9:10 AM on May 24, 2019
From the description (music that's not that loud, at a reasonable time of day), calling 311 won't do anything and would be crazy obnoxious. That seems like a very terrible idea to me.
posted by LizardBreath at 9:11 AM on May 24, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by LizardBreath at 9:11 AM on May 24, 2019 [13 favorites]
This is the downside of living in a city. He has every right to sit in his car on a public street and play bass music at a moderate volume. I think the best thing you can do is realize you are asking him for a large favor—changing his own schedule and habits, which constitute perfectly legal behavior, to accommodate yours—and if he says no, take it gracefully.
This:
I haven't made a formal noise complaint although I have asked the police how they typically deal with them
They’ll tell you that it’s the daytime in a public place in a city and that the car guy is doing nothing wrong and you need to deal with it instead of trying to use the cops as a personal comfort concierge service.
posted by sallybrown at 9:12 AM on May 24, 2019 [20 favorites]
This:
I haven't made a formal noise complaint although I have asked the police how they typically deal with them
They’ll tell you that it’s the daytime in a public place in a city and that the car guy is doing nothing wrong and you need to deal with it instead of trying to use the cops as a personal comfort concierge service.
posted by sallybrown at 9:12 AM on May 24, 2019 [20 favorites]
As for the gentrification issue you bring up, I think one way it often arises is when you have two competing needs, of a pre-gentrification community member and a post-gentrification one, and the new guy’s need is taken more seriously and seen as more important. You find yourself in a situation where your neighbor’s needs and yours conflict, but instead of thinking of his choice to play music in his car as something important to him the same way your sleeping is to you, you think about it as something you need/should be able to put a stop to. For you to get your desired sleep, he will have to give up his car music,* but you don’t frame the question this way. In this way you’re trying to shape a neighborhood to your needs instead of trying for some comprise or third option (like suggestions for ways you might better drown out the bass noise).
*i can’t imagine why anyone would want to sit in a car playing bass music for 90 minutes at 7 AM, but being a good neighbor and good person means assuming he has some legitimate reason for this. Maybe it’s the way he chills out and gets psyched up to go to a job he hates, or something. Or it’s his personal time away from his mom.
posted by sallybrown at 9:26 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
*i can’t imagine why anyone would want to sit in a car playing bass music for 90 minutes at 7 AM, but being a good neighbor and good person means assuming he has some legitimate reason for this. Maybe it’s the way he chills out and gets psyched up to go to a job he hates, or something. Or it’s his personal time away from his mom.
posted by sallybrown at 9:26 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for the feedback, everyone.
LizardBreath - I realize that this is subjective, but music in a public space at 7am doesn't constitute a reasonable hour to me. I'm pretty sure that NYC construction work can't begin until 8, for example. As I mentioned, I'm a musician - I play electric guitar, but I don't use an amplifier until 10am (and even then, it's quieter than a television).
sallybrown - I'm not asking him to stop listening to music in his car at 7am - only to do so a little more quietly. One thing I left out is the time last week that he sat in his car listening to music at 7am - WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN, while he was working on the stoop of his building. I'm curious if that changes anything for any of you. He has also been know to crank music from his car with the windows down while washing his car - in the afternoon. This annoys me but I don't say anything because he of course has the right to do that. (Also - I like his music!)
knownassociate - ordered those plugs. Thanks a million.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:33 AM on May 24, 2019
LizardBreath - I realize that this is subjective, but music in a public space at 7am doesn't constitute a reasonable hour to me. I'm pretty sure that NYC construction work can't begin until 8, for example. As I mentioned, I'm a musician - I play electric guitar, but I don't use an amplifier until 10am (and even then, it's quieter than a television).
sallybrown - I'm not asking him to stop listening to music in his car at 7am - only to do so a little more quietly. One thing I left out is the time last week that he sat in his car listening to music at 7am - WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN, while he was working on the stoop of his building. I'm curious if that changes anything for any of you. He has also been know to crank music from his car with the windows down while washing his car - in the afternoon. This annoys me but I don't say anything because he of course has the right to do that. (Also - I like his music!)
knownassociate - ordered those plugs. Thanks a million.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:33 AM on May 24, 2019
I'm curious if that changes anything for any of you.
It still seems to me that you should approach him as a friendly neighbor and a peer and realize that when you’re asking him to turn down his music, you’re asking for a favor, because you’re asking him to care about your sleep needs more than his desire to play music on a public street. It seems like you have music in common so maybe this will be the beginning of a good neighbor relationship.
One thing I left out is the time last week that he sat in his car listening to music at 7am - WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN, while he was working on the stoop of his building.
Maybe we just have different experiences of city living, but I live in a generally quieter city than New York and this doesn’t seem out of the norm to me. It’s noisy to live in a city!
posted by sallybrown at 9:44 AM on May 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
It still seems to me that you should approach him as a friendly neighbor and a peer and realize that when you’re asking him to turn down his music, you’re asking for a favor, because you’re asking him to care about your sleep needs more than his desire to play music on a public street. It seems like you have music in common so maybe this will be the beginning of a good neighbor relationship.
One thing I left out is the time last week that he sat in his car listening to music at 7am - WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN, while he was working on the stoop of his building.
Maybe we just have different experiences of city living, but I live in a generally quieter city than New York and this doesn’t seem out of the norm to me. It’s noisy to live in a city!
posted by sallybrown at 9:44 AM on May 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
Contrary to what's being said here, the NYC noise code prohibits at all times the use of personal sound devices on or in a public right of way, including from inside cars, that are plainly audible at 25 feet. That sounds like it may well apply to your situation. (I do note that, to the extent that there are hours restrictions on various kinds of noise, they tend to start "noisy time" at 7 am, not 8.)
I think that people need to be sensitive to the customs of the neighborhood they are moving into. But this is not a custom of the neighborhood you are living in, or you wouldn't have had five years of peace. It's not like pre-gentrification populations are somehow inherently immune to noise; it's just that they are more often used to using public spaces for many of the activities that are rather noisy, often due to lacking adequate private spaces to do so. That doesn't translate into being happy about loud noise during times when they're trying to sleep.
So I think you are more in the right than not--but being "in the right" only gets you so far with a neighbor. You're probably not going to get a timely response to a noise complaint of this nature to 311 even though it may be a violation of the noise code. You can try appealing to him directly, but only at a time when you're feeling relatively chill about it, because you don't want this to escalate. He may or may not be wedded to starting this behavior at 7 am. If he knows it bothers people, he might care. But you can't come in all aggrieved, regardless of how you might actually feel about it.
posted by praemunire at 9:47 AM on May 24, 2019 [6 favorites]
I think that people need to be sensitive to the customs of the neighborhood they are moving into. But this is not a custom of the neighborhood you are living in, or you wouldn't have had five years of peace. It's not like pre-gentrification populations are somehow inherently immune to noise; it's just that they are more often used to using public spaces for many of the activities that are rather noisy, often due to lacking adequate private spaces to do so. That doesn't translate into being happy about loud noise during times when they're trying to sleep.
So I think you are more in the right than not--but being "in the right" only gets you so far with a neighbor. You're probably not going to get a timely response to a noise complaint of this nature to 311 even though it may be a violation of the noise code. You can try appealing to him directly, but only at a time when you're feeling relatively chill about it, because you don't want this to escalate. He may or may not be wedded to starting this behavior at 7 am. If he knows it bothers people, he might care. But you can't come in all aggrieved, regardless of how you might actually feel about it.
posted by praemunire at 9:47 AM on May 24, 2019 [6 favorites]
sallybrown - I'm not asking him to stop listening to music in his car at 7am - only to do so a little more quietly. One thing I left out is the time last week that he sat in his car listening to music at 7am - WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN, while he was working on the stoop of his building. I'm curious if that changes anything for any of you. He has also been know to crank music from his car with the windows down while washing his car - in the afternoon. This annoys me but I don't say anything because he of course has the right to do that. (Also - I like his music!)
This sounds like normal behavior on his part. I mean, playing his car radio while he's in/around the car? Not weird. I think you're going to have to habituate yourself to this level of "disturbance," which is frankly super minimal.
If it's the bass specifically rather than the volume, maybe go out and ask if he can turn down the bass. But keep in mind that this is a personal preference of yours, not him doing anything "objectively" wrong or even remarkable. So don't involve authority figures like the landlord or the cops to try and enforce your personal preferences on what some other person is doing in a public space, that's not their job (which is why they keep putting you off), and it's liable to create much more of a disturbance than this guy's bass level does anyway.
posted by rue72 at 9:47 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
This sounds like normal behavior on his part. I mean, playing his car radio while he's in/around the car? Not weird. I think you're going to have to habituate yourself to this level of "disturbance," which is frankly super minimal.
If it's the bass specifically rather than the volume, maybe go out and ask if he can turn down the bass. But keep in mind that this is a personal preference of yours, not him doing anything "objectively" wrong or even remarkable. So don't involve authority figures like the landlord or the cops to try and enforce your personal preferences on what some other person is doing in a public space, that's not their job (which is why they keep putting you off), and it's liable to create much more of a disturbance than this guy's bass level does anyway.
posted by rue72 at 9:47 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Am I thread-sitting? Am I doing this wrong? I'm sorry if I am.
Thanks so much for the feedback.
I hope it's clear that I understand that he's not like WAY out of line or anything. I also understand that this is new behavior for him and just as it started up, it may well run it's course before too long.
Also, I've tried to make it clear that I'm hypersensitive to noise, and rhythmic noise in particular - so yes, if I do speak with him directly, I will make every effort to do so in a non-confrontational, friendly way.
But I'm curious - are people really saying that playing music publicly outside at 7am is copacetic? Like, theoretically, setting up a boombox and cranking tunes outside at 7am? Regardless of noise codes, this just seems like it's not ok. But maybe that's just my cultural associations with different times of the day.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 10:00 AM on May 24, 2019
Thanks so much for the feedback.
I hope it's clear that I understand that he's not like WAY out of line or anything. I also understand that this is new behavior for him and just as it started up, it may well run it's course before too long.
Also, I've tried to make it clear that I'm hypersensitive to noise, and rhythmic noise in particular - so yes, if I do speak with him directly, I will make every effort to do so in a non-confrontational, friendly way.
But I'm curious - are people really saying that playing music publicly outside at 7am is copacetic? Like, theoretically, setting up a boombox and cranking tunes outside at 7am? Regardless of noise codes, this just seems like it's not ok. But maybe that's just my cultural associations with different times of the day.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 10:00 AM on May 24, 2019
On a weekday? 7 am seems to me like when ordinary daytime rules start -- anyone on a regular daytime work schedule is plausibly going to be up by 7. Exactly what fits under 'ordinary daytime rules' is slippery, but the time doesn't seem out of line early to me. If it were 6, I'd feel differently, and anytime before 6 is the middle of the night.
posted by LizardBreath at 10:06 AM on May 24, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by LizardBreath at 10:06 AM on May 24, 2019 [7 favorites]
But I'm curious - are people really saying that playing music publicly outside at 7am is copacetic? Like, theoretically, setting up a boombox and cranking tunes outside at 7am?
It happens fairly regularly in my neighborhood but more often on the weekend (which I guess could seem worse to some people and better to others). I also have a neighbor who does some kind of furniture making in his garage early in the morning on the weekends with the door open that I can hear from my place. Then there’s the typical street work/construction and loud ass rusty garbage trucks banging all over the street, which starts at 7 AM in my area. It’s even more common for people to run their cars late at night on Thursday and Friday playing tunes around 1-2 AM. I’m a pretty sensitive sleeper like you but an earlier riser, so maybe I notice it more because I’m intentionally up and about.
posted by sallybrown at 10:07 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
It happens fairly regularly in my neighborhood but more often on the weekend (which I guess could seem worse to some people and better to others). I also have a neighbor who does some kind of furniture making in his garage early in the morning on the weekends with the door open that I can hear from my place. Then there’s the typical street work/construction and loud ass rusty garbage trucks banging all over the street, which starts at 7 AM in my area. It’s even more common for people to run their cars late at night on Thursday and Friday playing tunes around 1-2 AM. I’m a pretty sensitive sleeper like you but an earlier riser, so maybe I notice it more because I’m intentionally up and about.
posted by sallybrown at 10:07 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
This may not be a route you want to explore due to your sobriety, but have you thought about talking to your doctor about a mild sleeping pill? It might help shut down that part of your brain that’s auto-responding to bass frequencies.
Also, I do think that if the volume of the music is generally reasonable, playing music outside at 7am *by itself* is not an unreasonable action if nobody has asked him to stop. Ultimately, I think you need to try to work something put directly with him.
posted by epj at 10:09 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Also, I do think that if the volume of the music is generally reasonable, playing music outside at 7am *by itself* is not an unreasonable action if nobody has asked him to stop. Ultimately, I think you need to try to work something put directly with him.
posted by epj at 10:09 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
I mean, to me there is a huge difference in noise between "cranking tunes" at 7am and what it seems like you're describing - someone listening to music, in their car, usually with the windows up (right?) at a noise level that you think wouldn't be disturbing to most people.
TBH, living in a city to me means that 7am is commute time and therefore noisy time whether it's "allowed" or not - even in my small city people are going by on bikes, motorcycles, and cars with their radios playing, and there's nothing to be done about it.
posted by nakedmolerats at 10:11 AM on May 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
TBH, living in a city to me means that 7am is commute time and therefore noisy time whether it's "allowed" or not - even in my small city people are going by on bikes, motorcycles, and cars with their radios playing, and there's nothing to be done about it.
posted by nakedmolerats at 10:11 AM on May 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
One of the challenges with this kind of question is that many people (me included, I'm sure) find it a little difficult to separate "other person is engaging in behavior that has negative impacts on me" from "this person is doing something that should Officially Not Be Allowed". It's really understandable to look for a way in which a behavior that is negatively impacting you personally (especially if the impacts are significant to you) might be Not Allowed so you have some authoritative-feeling justification for making a request that, in actual reality, boils down to "I would like you, a stranger, to inconvenience yourself or otherwise change your behavior to accommodate my wishes and preferences".
This level of noise would almost certainly not bother me personally, because I'm not especially noise-sensitive. fingers_of_fire, you're clearly rather noise sensitive and it sounds like this is having significant impacts for you. That does indeed suck, and your feelings of frustration are legitimate. However, your frustration, and even the personally significant impacts of interrupted sleep you have described, does not elevate this issue to a level of Not Allowed. You can certainly ask your neighbor to change his behavior as a favor to you, to accommodate your acknowledged noise sensitivity. You cannot, in my view, demand change, or be huffy or resentful if your neighbor says "my desire to start my day with music is just as valid and important as your preference to sleep till 9am", because your neighbors desires are just as valid as yours. And who knows, maybe he just discovered last month that if he starts his day with music, he has a significantly better day and it improves his mental health so much that he's been really making some great strides lately! You have no way of knowing!
And, per your last update-- honestly yes, 7am on a weekday is a 100% reasonable time for daytime noises and activity to happen outside. People with regular 8-5 jobs are mostly up by 7, and people who do service jobs are often up and going about their day before 7am. Your musician schedule is not wildly out of whack with that, but IMO it's enough different that asking for people to accommodate you is still you asking for a favor.
posted by Kpele at 10:12 AM on May 24, 2019 [15 favorites]
This level of noise would almost certainly not bother me personally, because I'm not especially noise-sensitive. fingers_of_fire, you're clearly rather noise sensitive and it sounds like this is having significant impacts for you. That does indeed suck, and your feelings of frustration are legitimate. However, your frustration, and even the personally significant impacts of interrupted sleep you have described, does not elevate this issue to a level of Not Allowed. You can certainly ask your neighbor to change his behavior as a favor to you, to accommodate your acknowledged noise sensitivity. You cannot, in my view, demand change, or be huffy or resentful if your neighbor says "my desire to start my day with music is just as valid and important as your preference to sleep till 9am", because your neighbors desires are just as valid as yours. And who knows, maybe he just discovered last month that if he starts his day with music, he has a significantly better day and it improves his mental health so much that he's been really making some great strides lately! You have no way of knowing!
And, per your last update-- honestly yes, 7am on a weekday is a 100% reasonable time for daytime noises and activity to happen outside. People with regular 8-5 jobs are mostly up by 7, and people who do service jobs are often up and going about their day before 7am. Your musician schedule is not wildly out of whack with that, but IMO it's enough different that asking for people to accommodate you is still you asking for a favor.
posted by Kpele at 10:12 AM on May 24, 2019 [15 favorites]
Kpele: "People with regular 8-5 jobs are mostly up by 7"
Have we already moved so far from the 8 hour workday that people assume that jobs starting at 8 are 'regular?'
Anyway, I think people giving you a hard time about this are out of line -- I would absolutely hate this guy playing this music at 7am. On the other hand, my wife and I moved to a quiet suburban house last year in part to get away from noises like this one. YMMV.
posted by crazy with stars at 10:27 AM on May 24, 2019 [10 favorites]
Have we already moved so far from the 8 hour workday that people assume that jobs starting at 8 are 'regular?'
Anyway, I think people giving you a hard time about this are out of line -- I would absolutely hate this guy playing this music at 7am. On the other hand, my wife and I moved to a quiet suburban house last year in part to get away from noises like this one. YMMV.
posted by crazy with stars at 10:27 AM on May 24, 2019 [10 favorites]
I have a severe hearing loss and sleep without my hearing aids. I do notice bass music without my hearing aids, and used to live in a neighborhood where it was frequent at odd hours. I wonder if a foam mattress or foam mattress topper might help, as it might be less conductive, since some of the bass sensation is also traveling to and activating your body outside of your sense of hearing?
posted by Slothrop at 10:28 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Slothrop at 10:28 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don't know if a white/pink/brown noise machine would help you or not. Our house backs up on a fairly busy street, and with new construction in the neighborhood, a middle school nearby, and a traffic light close enough that cars are often stopped outside the back of our house for a couple of minutes at a time, we ended up getting one. My husband thought it would bother him too much to sleep, but it turned out that we both get better sleep than ever. It doesn't completely drown out the traffic/cars/stereo/kid noise, but it fades it into the background enough that if we do wake up, we can fall back to sleep.
posted by telophase at 10:42 AM on May 24, 2019
posted by telophase at 10:42 AM on May 24, 2019
Ok, so I have a lot of experience with this sort of “everything was perfect and now my life is ruined because of this one little crack opening up!!” thing because I’m very vulnerable to it as well and I empathize with how all-consuming it can be. I think you need to be find a way to see the situation as a set of multiple truths that do not fit into a clean narrative together: this person’s actions are causing you deep suffering and that suffering is real and this other person’s actions are not malicious, and even more importantly, not really unreasonable.
My perception is that the emotional agony attached to this type of grievance is primarily about powerlessness and feeling captive. I often find that my greatest frustration is actually in living silently with my own upset, and that even if nothing concrete comes of it taking even a small constructive step towards addressing the situation can help a great deal. If I were you, I would approach this person in a friendly way and explain what’s going on for you, but releasing yourself—this is the important part—from the expectation that he will do anything differently. You’re just saying your peace so you can flag the situation and move on. I suspect that building a friendly acquaintanceship with this person would help relieve your distress in and of itself even if his behavior doesn’t change at all. “My neighbor who I smile and nod at a few times a week and who showed me a cute picture of his baby niece” is an easier person to share the world with than “Faceless nuisance man who only exists for two hours every morning to make me suffer”.
Have you ever tried a Buddhist meditation practice? I can speak from personal experience that this is precisely the sort of real-life situation that meditation is an incredible tool to help cope with. The thing about meditating that I didn’t really understand until I did it is that it helps you take wisdom that you may grudgingly acknowledge but don’t actually feel in your lived experience (say, “Things can really only bother you if you let them” or “Nothing is ever perfect”) and begins to show you their empirical realness.
Finally… please do not call the cops in this situation. Calling the police on someone inherently entails the possibility of great harm. Anyone who is concerned about this has to draw that line somewhere, whether it means literally never; only if someone is already in danger of harm; etc. I think it’s safe to say, though, that your situation does not clear any reasonable bar for that calculation. I think the most important takeaway here is internalizing (not just acknowledging) the idea that there is not always a logical or objective relationship between how reasonable someone’s actions are and what effect those actions have on others. For example, you both said that an outside observer probably wouldn’t even be able to perceive the music and asked whether it was reasonable to play music in public in the morning. The frank answer to that question is that there is no hour of the day when it’s unreasonable to play minimally perceptible music.
posted by dusty potato at 10:47 AM on May 24, 2019 [20 favorites]
My perception is that the emotional agony attached to this type of grievance is primarily about powerlessness and feeling captive. I often find that my greatest frustration is actually in living silently with my own upset, and that even if nothing concrete comes of it taking even a small constructive step towards addressing the situation can help a great deal. If I were you, I would approach this person in a friendly way and explain what’s going on for you, but releasing yourself—this is the important part—from the expectation that he will do anything differently. You’re just saying your peace so you can flag the situation and move on. I suspect that building a friendly acquaintanceship with this person would help relieve your distress in and of itself even if his behavior doesn’t change at all. “My neighbor who I smile and nod at a few times a week and who showed me a cute picture of his baby niece” is an easier person to share the world with than “Faceless nuisance man who only exists for two hours every morning to make me suffer”.
Have you ever tried a Buddhist meditation practice? I can speak from personal experience that this is precisely the sort of real-life situation that meditation is an incredible tool to help cope with. The thing about meditating that I didn’t really understand until I did it is that it helps you take wisdom that you may grudgingly acknowledge but don’t actually feel in your lived experience (say, “Things can really only bother you if you let them” or “Nothing is ever perfect”) and begins to show you their empirical realness.
Finally… please do not call the cops in this situation. Calling the police on someone inherently entails the possibility of great harm. Anyone who is concerned about this has to draw that line somewhere, whether it means literally never; only if someone is already in danger of harm; etc. I think it’s safe to say, though, that your situation does not clear any reasonable bar for that calculation. I think the most important takeaway here is internalizing (not just acknowledging) the idea that there is not always a logical or objective relationship between how reasonable someone’s actions are and what effect those actions have on others. For example, you both said that an outside observer probably wouldn’t even be able to perceive the music and asked whether it was reasonable to play music in public in the morning. The frank answer to that question is that there is no hour of the day when it’s unreasonable to play minimally perceptible music.
posted by dusty potato at 10:47 AM on May 24, 2019 [20 favorites]
Hey there - I had a similar "I'm sensitive to noise and there's this one dumb dude with heavy bass" thing going on (in my case it's neighbors in the building behind mine having parties in their back yard, which happens to be directly under my bedroom window).
I actually found a white-noise type of thing helped a lot. In my case it was a happy accident - I needed a window fan in my room anyway to cope with the heat, and I noticed that '....hey, with the fan on the party noise doesn't bother me anywhere near as much". I could still hear it, but it was more like a distant background thing instead, and the fan was the foreground. When it got cooler, I needed a portable air filter for a while and I found out it did the same white-noise masking thing.
Try that. Good luck.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:00 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
I actually found a white-noise type of thing helped a lot. In my case it was a happy accident - I needed a window fan in my room anyway to cope with the heat, and I noticed that '....hey, with the fan on the party noise doesn't bother me anywhere near as much". I could still hear it, but it was more like a distant background thing instead, and the fan was the foreground. When it got cooler, I needed a portable air filter for a while and I found out it did the same white-noise masking thing.
Try that. Good luck.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:00 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Guess I am out of touch but I feel like personal noise--music, televisions, loud talking, laughing-- should be kept to a minimum outside in a residential area out of respect for radically different lifestyles. Work times, commute times, play times are not the same for everyone. I get up quite early [before 4 am] and go to bed by 7:30 pm. I am astonished at the number of people who assume everyone is still awake at 10 or 11 pm and think nothing of calling me at those hours. Quick fix for that is "do not disturb" on my phone.
Sounds like OP has made all the necessary personal adjustments--noise machines, black out curtains, ear plugs, masks--to mitigate outside interruptions. I would speak with the neighbor maybe as musician to fellow musician, casually mentioning that you keep late hours and are trying to sleep at 7 am--present it pretty much as you explained it here. He may not realize he is disturbing you. Then again he may not care.
posted by Gino on the Meta at 11:51 AM on May 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
Sounds like OP has made all the necessary personal adjustments--noise machines, black out curtains, ear plugs, masks--to mitigate outside interruptions. I would speak with the neighbor maybe as musician to fellow musician, casually mentioning that you keep late hours and are trying to sleep at 7 am--present it pretty much as you explained it here. He may not realize he is disturbing you. Then again he may not care.
posted by Gino on the Meta at 11:51 AM on May 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
I hate to say this as someone who finds people who don't mind their noise bothering others to be the most galling thing in the world, practically, but in NYC it's hard to view it as anything other than part of the deal you made to live there. Also, my experience is that people in NYC do not respond at all well to requests to NOT have their noise intrude into your world. I had someone who sat in front of my apartment with the car radio on so loud I could understand the words, and I went out and said extremely politely, would you mind turning it down a little--I can hear it really clearly in my apartment, and she went off on me as if I'd come at her, guns blazing. (Another time I asked a guy on the subway if he had any headphones and he responded with similar hostility.)
I eventually got lucky and had an apartment on a quiet street in Inwood but overall it's a bad place to live for noise sensitive people.
posted by Smearcase at 11:55 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
I eventually got lucky and had an apartment on a quiet street in Inwood but overall it's a bad place to live for noise sensitive people.
posted by Smearcase at 11:55 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
I struggle with being sensitive to noise too, though I never ask people to change because it seems so frowned upon. (Also either way, I believe that introducing cops into a situation is very often a bad idea.)
That said, I'm curious if anyone is sharing thoughts from the perspective of having played music like this (loud enough that someone can hear it three floors up with earplugs and white noise)/growing up in neighborhoods where people do. I see a lot of these discussions online and sometimes I wonder if the pile-on is coming from gentrifiers with a guilty conscience who aren't personally sensitive to noise, which might make it easy to go really hard on this issue as a way to pseudo-atone for other effects of gentrification. (I honestly don't know.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:03 PM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
That said, I'm curious if anyone is sharing thoughts from the perspective of having played music like this (loud enough that someone can hear it three floors up with earplugs and white noise)/growing up in neighborhoods where people do. I see a lot of these discussions online and sometimes I wonder if the pile-on is coming from gentrifiers with a guilty conscience who aren't personally sensitive to noise, which might make it easy to go really hard on this issue as a way to pseudo-atone for other effects of gentrification. (I honestly don't know.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:03 PM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think that a few people answering are conflating "possibly inconsiderate, depending on how you look at it" with "behavior that I am entitled to expect a stranger to change (in order to accommodate my preferences)".
I don't think anyone has said "you unreasonable monster, you should be grateful it's not worse!", but a number of people have said "this behavior may disturb you, but that in itself does not mean that you are entitled to demand change". Even if the neighbor is being somewhat inconsiderate and not being as accommodating as possible to f_o_f's acknowledged noise sensitivity, that does not mean that the neighbor should be required to make changes.
posted by Kpele at 12:04 PM on May 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
I don't think anyone has said "you unreasonable monster, you should be grateful it's not worse!", but a number of people have said "this behavior may disturb you, but that in itself does not mean that you are entitled to demand change". Even if the neighbor is being somewhat inconsiderate and not being as accommodating as possible to f_o_f's acknowledged noise sensitivity, that does not mean that the neighbor should be required to make changes.
posted by Kpele at 12:04 PM on May 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
I see a lot of these discussions online and sometimes I wonder if the pile-on is coming from gentrifiers with a guilty conscience who aren't personally sensitive to noise, which might make it easy to go really hard on this issue as a way to pseudo-atone for other effects of gentrification.
You might want to check out discussions around #DontMuteDC , which involved a similar issue of music, disruption, gentrification, and neighbor complaints in DC (although the music involved was louder than in OP’s question). Plenty of people involved in these discussions are locals or city natives, which is perhaps why we have different expectations about noise, and more importantly how we impose preferences on neighbors.
posted by sallybrown at 12:15 PM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
You might want to check out discussions around #DontMuteDC , which involved a similar issue of music, disruption, gentrification, and neighbor complaints in DC (although the music involved was louder than in OP’s question). Plenty of people involved in these discussions are locals or city natives, which is perhaps why we have different expectations about noise, and more importantly how we impose preferences on neighbors.
posted by sallybrown at 12:15 PM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
That said, I'm curious if anyone is sharing thoughts from the perspective of having played music like this (loud enough that someone can hear it three floors up with earplugs and white noise)/growing up in neighborhoods where people do.
Yeah, me.
posted by rue72 at 12:19 PM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yeah, me.
posted by rue72 at 12:19 PM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm also someone whose brain latches onto rhythmic sounds and insists on trying to fill in missing pieces of partially-audible music. And the fact that you actually like the music doesn't lessen the feelings of anxiety that isolated low frequencies can cause. So I understand how you feel. But this isn't a situation where your problem should be someone else's problem.
First, to answer your question --- Look for ways to cope with this issue on your own. As others have already stressed, do not involve the police. I'd also advise against asking this person to lower the volume if you don't already have a neighborly acquaintance. It's not this person's duty to change their behavior to suit you, and it's entirely possible the music level wouldn't be perceived by him or anyone who's standing near the car to be unreasonable, especially when all the other city sounds are mixed with it.
A quick illustration of this: I was bothered by a low-frequency hum in my apartment that I swore had to be coming from a loud piece of machinery nearby. It turned out to be from a bakery two blocks away, a simple ventilation fan that didn't sound very loud or intrusive when I stood right next to it.
Next, the time of day issue --- Yes, NYC tends to have a later schedule than other places, even for people who have office jobs. A lot of people who are gentrifiers don't have to be to work til 9 or 10 am, but many residents of neighborhoods that are being gentrified have jobs that start earlier or require them to be up early for long commutes. And anybody with kids is totally going to be up at 7am. So that time of day is definitely not considered a quiet hour. I also live in Brooklyn, so I know this to be true.
Finally, finding a solution --- You want a source of 'pink noise' or 'brown noise' in your bedroom, not white noise. In addition to the earplugs that were recommended, try running a basic box fan in your bedroom. I find that usually does a better job of masking low-frequency sounds than a white noise generator.
posted by theory at 12:32 PM on May 24, 2019 [8 favorites]
First, to answer your question --- Look for ways to cope with this issue on your own. As others have already stressed, do not involve the police. I'd also advise against asking this person to lower the volume if you don't already have a neighborly acquaintance. It's not this person's duty to change their behavior to suit you, and it's entirely possible the music level wouldn't be perceived by him or anyone who's standing near the car to be unreasonable, especially when all the other city sounds are mixed with it.
A quick illustration of this: I was bothered by a low-frequency hum in my apartment that I swore had to be coming from a loud piece of machinery nearby. It turned out to be from a bakery two blocks away, a simple ventilation fan that didn't sound very loud or intrusive when I stood right next to it.
Next, the time of day issue --- Yes, NYC tends to have a later schedule than other places, even for people who have office jobs. A lot of people who are gentrifiers don't have to be to work til 9 or 10 am, but many residents of neighborhoods that are being gentrified have jobs that start earlier or require them to be up early for long commutes. And anybody with kids is totally going to be up at 7am. So that time of day is definitely not considered a quiet hour. I also live in Brooklyn, so I know this to be true.
Finally, finding a solution --- You want a source of 'pink noise' or 'brown noise' in your bedroom, not white noise. In addition to the earplugs that were recommended, try running a basic box fan in your bedroom. I find that usually does a better job of masking low-frequency sounds than a white noise generator.
posted by theory at 12:32 PM on May 24, 2019 [8 favorites]
But I'm curious - are people really saying that playing music publicly outside at 7am is copacetic? Like, theoretically, setting up a boombox and cranking tunes outside at 7am?
I mean, I don't love it, but it's kind of part of the deal of living in a big city. (She writes, from the loudest goddamn city in the western world.) I'm excited to fix it by moving to a much more rural area in a few years, but until then...just grit my teeth and go with it. I feel for you, because I do not understand why everyone must emit sounds from their beings at all times and especially early in the morning, but the flip side of that is -- we get to live in a place that's vibrant and alive and has people using it.
Everyone else has really great advice about how to mitigate the bass-ness, but I think this is something where you can more easily change yourself than the world around you. Besides, there's nothing to say that next week bro moves away...and someone who leaf-blows the street in front of their building every single day moves in.
posted by kalimac at 12:50 PM on May 24, 2019
I mean, I don't love it, but it's kind of part of the deal of living in a big city. (She writes, from the loudest goddamn city in the western world.) I'm excited to fix it by moving to a much more rural area in a few years, but until then...just grit my teeth and go with it. I feel for you, because I do not understand why everyone must emit sounds from their beings at all times and especially early in the morning, but the flip side of that is -- we get to live in a place that's vibrant and alive and has people using it.
Everyone else has really great advice about how to mitigate the bass-ness, but I think this is something where you can more easily change yourself than the world around you. Besides, there's nothing to say that next week bro moves away...and someone who leaf-blows the street in front of their building every single day moves in.
posted by kalimac at 12:50 PM on May 24, 2019
are people really saying that playing music publicly outside at 7am is copacetic?
Yeah, from when I lived in NYC this would be totally normal and fine during weekdays. Even assuming a 9-5 job instead of the 8-5s most bosses pull now, you’re usually up by 7 because of the commute. Like - it would be weird to me to expect not to be woken up by noise at 7am in NYC.
I also have lived in places where car-as-music-maker is totally normal and fine. Boomboxes are hard to come by these days! It’s for when you want to listen to music and hang out but still be social, rather than “AirPod Guy”.
posted by corb at 1:58 PM on May 24, 2019
Yeah, from when I lived in NYC this would be totally normal and fine during weekdays. Even assuming a 9-5 job instead of the 8-5s most bosses pull now, you’re usually up by 7 because of the commute. Like - it would be weird to me to expect not to be woken up by noise at 7am in NYC.
I also have lived in places where car-as-music-maker is totally normal and fine. Boomboxes are hard to come by these days! It’s for when you want to listen to music and hang out but still be social, rather than “AirPod Guy”.
posted by corb at 1:58 PM on May 24, 2019
are people really saying that playing music publicly outside at 7am is copacetic?
Whether his behavior is reasonable or legal isn't really relevant to the question of whether you can stop it. Your landlady is gently warning you off confronting him about it. So, if he won't voluntarily stop, then you're looking for a solution to make him stop. That solution would be the police/311. Gentrifiers who call the police on people of color for quality of life issues are valuing their own comfort over their neighbors' safety. Don't do it.
I am also very sensitive to noise and a poor sleeper. This sort of thing makes me furious. I am very sympathetic to what you're going through. But, I don't think there is a solution here outside of finding a way to cope.
posted by Mavri at 6:43 AM on May 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Whether his behavior is reasonable or legal isn't really relevant to the question of whether you can stop it. Your landlady is gently warning you off confronting him about it. So, if he won't voluntarily stop, then you're looking for a solution to make him stop. That solution would be the police/311. Gentrifiers who call the police on people of color for quality of life issues are valuing their own comfort over their neighbors' safety. Don't do it.
I am also very sensitive to noise and a poor sleeper. This sort of thing makes me furious. I am very sympathetic to what you're going through. But, I don't think there is a solution here outside of finding a way to cope.
posted by Mavri at 6:43 AM on May 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
This may be over the top (this kind of shit quite literally makes me crazy), but I found myself similarly disturbed once, and I managed to get the music to stop by pelting the roof of the car from my window with a couple of dog biscuits.
Some part of this guy’s brain knows he’s bothering people.
posted by STFUDonnie at 7:10 AM on May 25, 2019
Some part of this guy’s brain knows he’s bothering people.
posted by STFUDonnie at 7:10 AM on May 25, 2019
I dispute that you should put up with antisocial activity because of a small chance that something bad will happen. If someone is blasting their car stereo, they have demonstrated that they are an asshole who is unconcerned with their neighbors so I am not real concerned for their welfare. The way I score it, if the option is "I use earplugs to listen to my music" vs. "everyone else has to use earplugs so they can't hear my music," the choice is pretty clear. (The same goes for noisy motorcycles, where they could just wear headphones and play loud motorcycle noises directly into their heads, but no one ever seems to do this and it may actually be illegal).
Finally… please do not call the cops in this situation. Calling the police on someone inherently entails the possibility of great harm.
Of course, I live in a suburb and even one "boompa car" cruising down the street is an annoyance. I take solace in the knowledge that the driver will be functionally deaf in fifteen years, but it is tempered by the fact that I'll probably be dead by then.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 10:51 AM on May 25, 2019
I think people are being really really hard on your here, and yeah reading their own guilt into something that is legitimately disturbing your quality of life. Like don't call the cops ever, especially in NYC, but what's happening is annoying! You're probably not the only person in the immediately vicinity who finds it annoying! Sound is a huge conductor to anxiety and it sounds like you've done everything you can to mitigate this. I wish I had any great suggestions, but you don't have to take up a meditation practice or accept this is fine, or become at peace with it somehow. Sleep is important and 7am is still early. You can be plenty concerned about gentrification and being a respectful neighbor and also have what's very much anxiety and insomnia trouble affecting your health, especially as someone who got sober and cherishes your rest, and someone who has sensitivities to sound. Competing access needs.
Maybe have your landlady give you an update on what his mom said? If anyone is going to deescalate this it's not going to be you and this guy one on one or one or the cops, it's going to be her.
posted by colorblock sock at 11:06 AM on May 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
Maybe have your landlady give you an update on what his mom said? If anyone is going to deescalate this it's not going to be you and this guy one on one or one or the cops, it's going to be her.
posted by colorblock sock at 11:06 AM on May 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
You want a source of 'pink noise' or 'brown noise' in your bedroom, not white noise.
Yes, you need something with a lot of bass content to mask bass, and you need some decent sized speakers to reproduce it. You can also try mynoise.net, a great site for all kinds of background sounds that aren't just steady noise.
Seconding a box fan.
posted by bongo_x at 2:09 PM on May 26, 2019
Yes, you need something with a lot of bass content to mask bass, and you need some decent sized speakers to reproduce it. You can also try mynoise.net, a great site for all kinds of background sounds that aren't just steady noise.
Seconding a box fan.
posted by bongo_x at 2:09 PM on May 26, 2019
NYC is not on one schedule. Lots of us wake up at 5 (or earlier) to get to early morning work schedules. It bugs me when people play loud music after 8pm or so. But their schedule isn't my schedule and we all have to live together. For me, 7am bass is infinitely preferable to 9pm bass, but luckily for folks like you, 9pm seems more common.
posted by Salamandrous at 6:04 AM on May 27, 2019
posted by Salamandrous at 6:04 AM on May 27, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
I think you've done all you can at this point. In a perfect world your landlady would speak to him about it without involving you at all, but it doesn't sound like she really wants to get involved.
posted by cakelite at 8:37 AM on May 24, 2019 [5 favorites]