Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down
idiallo.com668 points by firefoxd 13 hours ago
668 points by firefoxd 13 hours ago
Reminds of a neighbor I had back when I was renting in a big city. He didn’t seem to understand what’s wrong with keeping his TV on for very long periods broadcasting the sleaziest (at least at the time) reality show on full volume.
I tried talking to him multiple times to no avail. He’d basically say “yeah I’ll pay attention no problem” but nothing changed for weeks.
Coincidentally at that time I was working morning shifts at a radio station. Those start really early so you gotta wake up at around 4am.
I decided one day to change my alarm (triggered on my Sony Vaio) from the peaceful iPhone-like tunes to System of a Down’s “Chop Suey”. I also decided to forget it on, on repeat, full volume, while leaving the apartment.
I don’t think 3 days passed before he knocked loudly at my door, moaning and complaining.
I told him: “you gotta understand, your TV was so loud I couldn’t sleep for nights on end, the old tune wouldn’t wake me up anymore. I had to change it. I’m so tired that I even forget to turn it off.
But yeah, I’ll try to pay attention to it”
This post and your comment has me thinking about STFU, posted here a couple weeks ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46649142
Is it feasible to capture and directionally pipe audio back to a rude neighbor? Seems like it could be effective.
Been around for awhile: https://www.holosonics.com
"a beam of directed ultrasound that delivers audio ten times more isolated "
ah, so this is what they used in embassy attacks
Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/316/
Oh I had one of those neighbors too, but I don't even count them in my bad noisy neighbors list.
Were you each other’s only neighbours? How did that “war” not involve other people in the vicinity?
Based on this tall tale being the top comment, and the replies to you, I hereby request dang remove the “HN is becoming Reddit” nono from the guidelines.
I agree. I don't understand the argument that just because people have incorrectly claimed HN is turning into reddit before, it automatically means it can never happen. I think HN has become a lot more like reddit and in some ways even worse.
But did he get the message and start keeping the volume down?
Usually people who are that inconsiderate don’t change. Or they quickly change and then quickly change back.
Morning people are often inconsiderate to night people and let alone change they simply judge night people for not getting up at fuck you o’clock.
Usually morning people don’t change and are inconsiderate their whole lives.
Baseless accusations, because what bothers night people in the morning, bothers morning people in the night.
The only real difference is how much you care about how your actions impact the environment and people around you.
I wake up early, because I work early, I don't make any sound, my flatmate (I rent a room from the company) works late and always stays up late, they make so much noise that they keep waking me up to the point that I had to report them to the company.
It doesn't matter if you're a night or a morning person, what matters is, are you considerate or not.
From childhood I remember there was a guy who was blasting loud music whole day. He wouldn't stop, so one neighbour got so angry he took an axe, demolished this guy's door, took his stereo and launched it through the window, through the glass. Fortunately it landed in the garden on the other side. Then he said next time he will chop him up and throw through the window. That was the end of nuisance. Police came, but all the neighbours said they didn't hear anything and the guy did it himself, must have gone insane.
I do not know in what country you live, but in the countries I lived in if you chop somebody's property you will go to jail.
But the guy did it himself. Must have gone insane.
Ignoring the entirety of the rest of this story, I desperately want to know why: "Fortunately it landed in the garden on the other side." was so notable.
"The victim did it to themselves" is a famously bulletproof defense. I don't know why people don't try it more often.
This is the typical tall tale that used to travel in every neighborhood as a warning, especially to scare kids from doing some things. Kids eat up these stories. Probably doesn't work that much in the age of phones and "pics (shorts?) or it never happened".
I’d tell him “no worries I will pay more attention next time”.
did you not read the last line of the post?
I had a neighbor who mounted his TV directly on the shared wall to my bedroom in violation of the lease terms. The wall was hollow and seemed to not only conduct the sound into my bedroom but act as a natural amplifier. I offered him a nice speaker system I wasn't using but he said he didn't know how to connect it to the TV. I offered to do it for him but he refused. I offered to pay a professional and he still refused. I was forced to move my bed into the living room so I could sleep through the night as he started his day by watching the news at full blast at 3am.
Naturally, in response I propped those speakers to the same wall and played whale calls at a low volume any time I wasn't home.
This reminds me of this guy [1]
My neighbor is smoking on the balcony, and smoke goes to my home with little kids. I talked with him several times, didn't help. It's his territory, so not much I can do, besides closing the doors. But at least i can use this fake smoke detector with VERY ANNOYING random buzzer. It starts buzzing when i connect to it my iPhone via BLE. Makes it not as relaxing to smoke on the balcony as it planned to be for him. I'm going to train this mofo with reinforcement learning like a fkn Pavlov Dog.
1. https://old.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1ojv6x4/smokin...
it's impossible to tell who is normal in these stories.
for example, the guy can start smoking inside, and it will always smell like smoke.
or, the guy can get his own buzzer.
i've had oversensitive neighbors sit there and bang on pots all night because fireworks or construction noise.
like another comment mentioned, apartments are just built really badly. you can hear anything. which leads to friends of mine complaining about stompers, but to me, they're clearly not stomping. they're just tip-toeing around as quietly as possible. when you get people actually harassing you daily, then you figure out the difference.
if you have to set up a machine or device, then you might be the bad neighbor. this is especially true if they don't set up a machine back at you. that means they're just taking in your harassment and not escalating.
people aren't total idiots. they figure someone is messing with them for their level 15 volume and keep it lower. For anyone with a TV, try putting your volume to 15. Is is unreasonable volume? It's very hard to say who is the psychotic neighbor. I've been on both sides: neighbors that were loud but normal (maybe they had bad hearing, or worked at night), and neighbors that were oversensitive, who were petty and bought machines and devices and sprays to really hurt all of the people who lived around them.
The rule is simple IMO: whatever you’re doing, if it impacts people beyond your own sphere then you’re the problematic one.
Playing loud music, your neighbours can hear it => you’re the problem
Smoking and having the smoke pollute your neighbours air => you’re the problem
Your comment impacted me, so I assume you'll post an apology for this deeply problematic behavior of yours?
Plenty of times the fault is with the apartment, etc.: if the reasonable noise of me living disrupts my neighbors, that's bad design. Different people work different shifts - I don't see why the morning person should have to hold off on a morning shower just because the plumbing wakes up their neighbor, nor why the night-shift worker should have to hold off on doing laundry just because that wakes the morning person up.
> it's impossible to tell who is normal in these stories
The answer is that everyone thinks they’re the normal one. And everyone generally is normal.
I’ve objectively been a bad neighbor in the past. Early 20s me loved loud music. But late 20s me learned how to be considerate of the music volume.
I’ve also had crazy neighbors. One neighbor of mine complained constantly, immediately after moving in, that the communal laundry area light was left on, and I kept promising to try and do better. Of course, I made plenty of mistakes and often forgot to turn the light off when leaving with a full basket. One day he just took the (low powered LED) bulb away like they were his! Was I the poor neighbor wasting electricity? Was he the psychopath who thought he could forcibly control the entire apartment buildings access to light? It’s all in the story telling.
In my apartment complex,there are 3 types of lights in the community/public areas: 1. Centrally controlled lights - security team controls them from their common control room (this is also where the CCTV feeds are monitored live on TV screens) - e.g., floodlights, for pathways, lights in staircases. 2. Automatic-sensor (motion-sensor) driven lights - e.g., in elevators/lifts. 3. Manually operated lights - e.g., terrace lights, etc.
So the security team manage all the lights in the utility areas, whereas the uncommon areas (e.g., terraces; their doors usually kept locked by a bolt on the inside, because we sometimes get prowlers/intruders on the rooftops: monkeys from nearby jungle!) are operated by security or tenants/owners, on a need basis.
Of course, for smaller complexes, where a dedicated security team (or even a lone night watchman) is not feasible, it is advisable to install automatic lights on common areas (but not for stairs, etc., otherwise it is a safety risk), so this avoids altercations between users.
For inner rooms (such as a laundry area), a two-way switch setup helps - one switch in the room, and one on an accessway or way outside (preferably one of those acrylic translucent light switch (which lights up when switched on)), so it is easier to spot if it is left on.
I will go insane if I read more reddit.
> Have you thought about moving into a house with no neighbors? Otherwise, have some respect for others IMO
What about the smoker having respect to the person he forces to smoke? (you can't be quick enough to close your window, the smoke has already invaded your home once you smelled it). Your rights end where my rights start. You have no right to invade my personal space with your toxic smoke
Legally, you do, when it is your own house. You can shut the windows there.
Not saying I’d like it, just that you’re objectively wrong.
Your rights also end where his rights start, and he has the right to smoke on his own balcony, annoying as that might be.
LOL, this reminds me of that iconic TBBT episode where Sheldon "trains" Penny with "positive reinforcement". ;)
In a similar vein, many years ago I helped someone with a similar problem with a neighbour who had the volume too loud. As the aerial cable was accessible, I suggested he stick a pin through the neighbour's cable whenever the volume got too loud, and pull it out when the volume went down.
Sure enough, after a while the neighbour learnt their TV only worked if they kept the volume down in the evening.
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 start. :-\
"Noftsker also shared the hacker aversion to cigarette smoke, and would sometimes express his displeasure by shooting a jet of pure oxygen from a canister he kept for that purpose; the astonished smoker would find his or her cigarette bursting into a fierce orange blur."
- Hackers, Steven Levy, 1984
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.
100% agree, many people don’t realize just how harmful wood smoke is. It’s also the main source of pollution in the Bay Area during the winter. Unfortunately energy costs are high enough here that people resort to burning wood to save money, so collectively beneficial policies are likely to face resistance (understandably).
The purpleair map has been awesome to at least make the problem visible. I hope they are using it to aid enforcement on spare the air days.
[flagged]
“Burning wood at home produces more pollution than road traffic” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjdne9ke0m1o
“Residential wood-burning is the biggest source of particulate matter and soot/black carbon in Europe” https://www.fern.org/publications-insight/latest-evidence-on...
“domestic wood-burning is the largest source of particulate pollution in the UK. Only 8% of the UK’s homes burn wood, but this accounts for around 21% of the total PM2.5 emissions, whereas all traffic on the UK roads produces 13%” https://medium.com/the-new-climate/why-the-environmental-mov...
Ah yes, the proverbial Quick Google Search that proves me wrong.
Sorry, can't be bothered to take any of that noise seriously.
As I pointed out in my other now-censored post, I breathe in smoke every day through the copious amount of weed I smoke, and have done so for decades. I'm in perfect health. Odds are, much better than you in fact.
When was the last time you were sick? For me it has been decades. Let's compare notes and decide which of us really knows the meaning of health.
Everything is a lie. Believe none of it.
> I breathe in smoke every day through the copious amount of weed I smoke
It shows.
Yes clearly your anecdote is irrefutable proof.
If you can refute it, feel free to do so.
Meanwhile I'm just sitting here, being healthy as fuck as usual. Same shit I do every day. It's pretty boring by now. I just never get sick, that's all. I can run and work circles around you and your entire crew, and will continue to do so for decades, even as your frail body circles the drain.
Has nothing to do with my intellect, or life decisions; no, I'm clearly a total moron who just stumbled into good health by complete accident.
Or I'm lying. Obviously. (Who DOESN'T get sick, right? Unheard of among your crew.)