Steerpike

Just discovered a new pet peeve ... moved into a new home in AZ this weekend, spent my first night sitting outside in the lovely cool evening air (70F) ... only to hear a neighbor's wind chimes! God, they go on-and-on-and-on ...

Hotscot

Some neighbors don't realize that their annoying noises don't stop at their property limit. And that it's the Murican Way to impose their life choices on others.

Only thing I can suggest is talk to them, friendly, about it. Be open and honest.
The risk is, in response, they put 10 more up.

Or get a bigger one of your own.

scrubbedexpat097

I hate wind chimes. The one good thing to have come out of Hurricane Harvey was the loss of everyone's chimes and so far it seems the closer neighbors haven't replaced them yet

NYer

Boo hoo hoo! Those Americans and their windchimes! It makes me just want to die...eee!
First world British problems.

scrubbedexpat091

Check the noise ordinance in your city, if the wind chimes are making noise at night after a certain hour it may be something the city can assist with if they have a noise ordinance. Of course you may not make friends with your neighbors by doing that.

One upside to our building is the strata outright bans those noise makers.

Hotscot

It's a peeve...that's all.

dee98

One of my pet peeves is when people do not hold the door open for you and let it swing shut on you!

Steerpike

I'm in an HOA community and they are pretty restrictive in general ... can't park on the street overnight, etc. So I wouldn't be surprised if they did have some restriction. The problem right now is - which house is it? I was searching for a home for 18 months and the #1 criteria was always that it needed to have a view and be quiet. I finally found something with a killer back yard overlooking a stretch of desert with mountains behind. If you look closely at the pic below, you'll see lots of rooftops a few hundred feet away, and the sound is coming from that direction ... so it's going to be a fun challenge tracking it down! I'm hopeful that they are snowbirds and will soon fly back to the frozen north, as lots of the folks here do. If they are smart, they would bring in such things as windchimes because we get massive, violent storms in the summer monsoon season.


I seem to have the hearing of a bat - I can hear just about anything from a long way away. Coupled with this, I have a problem filtering out noise and get quite 'anxious' when there is noise ... I don't like the sound of a fountain / water feature either (which would be an option to drown out the chimes ). I can just about 'tune out' a fridge or an AC unit, so the problem seems to be anything that is not 'monotonous'. Barking dogs drive me to distraction, as do a neighbors TV, or loud music. I almost never listen to music in the car either - I love the peace of long drives ...

scrubbedexpat091

Yes, I could see how it may be tricky to track down the offending house from the picture. Nice view though.

I hate noise, as I have gotten older noise bothers me more and more, to a point I am seriously considering wearing noise cancelling head phones all day everywhere..lol

moneypenny20

That's gorgeous.

Steerpike

I've actually tried that! The problem is, noise-cancelling headphones do great at filtering out the monotonous noise (they are great on airplanes!), but not so good with changing noise. They certainly reduce the volume of distant sounds but they don't kill them. I have a pair of the classic 'Bose' units, and they are quite amazing but they are also bulky and intrusive. I've tried in-ear variants, but they don't work as well. Just wearing simple ear-plugs would probably do the trick to some extent (I do use silicone gell-type earplugs when I travel so I can sleep in noisy hotels, etc) but I also love the sounds of nature - birds chirping, wind in the trees, etc.

Hotscot

Wax ear plugs that I got from Boots back home are fantastic. Total silence.
Never seen them here.

Funnily enough, kids on dirt bikes really annoy me.
Baby screaming next to me on the plane doesn't trouble me at all.
They can't help it.

Steerpike

That is a huge factor for me; there's something fundamentally psychological about the issue. If it's truly unavoidable, I don't mind it so much (although wall-mounted A/C units in hotels do bother me!). Barking dogs bug me not because it's the dog's fault, but I curse the owners ... how can anyone own a dog and not take measures to keep it quiet ...).

I didn't know about 'wax' earplugs (as opposed to silicone) - here's some 'wax' earplugs on Amazon ... Prime available ... ordered a pack for tomorrow ...
https://www.amazon.com/PQ-Earplugs-Sleep-Moldable-Cancelling/dp/B07DNFD3HM/ref=pd_sim_0_2/133-6595095-0057340?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07DNFD3HM&pd_rd_r=93fe7f6d-5568-11e9-9d3c-3b8481c1489b&pd_rd_w=a2XMK&pd_rd_wg=1MbpR&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=TDXR0H5MY76SAX6YZME5&psc=1&refRID=TDXR0H5MY76SAX6YZME5
and here are the silicone variety I use, which I think are very effective:
https://www.amazon.com/Macks-Pillow-Soft-Silicone-Earplugs/dp/B003LZQGN6/ref=pd_bxgy_121_2/133-6595095-0057340?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B003LZQGN6&pd_rd_r=a04a8a80-5568-11e9-a98d-9dad7d01a5fd&pd_rd_w=Mwshi&pd_rd_wg=E2lt5&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=01D1ZD913SPKTJWPGYCC&psc=1&refRID=01D1ZD913SPKTJWPGYCC

scrubbedexpat091

I do use regular ear plugs a lot. Even the sound of someone eating bothers me to a point I have to leave the room/area. We also live overlooking a major arterial road leading into downtown so its pretty much non-stop noise all day and night, winter isn't too bad since the windows are closed 90% of the time but March to October its too warm to keep them closed, and boy does the traffic noise get to me.

Pulaski

I agree about dogs, but in most cases I apply the same "rule" to parents of screaming kids. Most of our neighbours have a dog or dogs, and many of them you rarely ever here, but a couple of houses have dogs that bark incessantly!

I don't worry much about light aircraft, or even jets, though this may be a result of having lived at Kew, under the usual approach path to LHR, which also meant enduring take-offs a couple of days a month. I find the tinkle sound of metal windchimes to be irritating, but I find the deeper tone of bamboo chimes quite soothing. There were some neighbours up the road a few years ago who's kids had a dirt bike and the racket that bike made was obnoxious.

There is gunfire near Pulaski Manor every weekend and most evenings, from multiple directions (all directions!), thankfully not continuously. From the sound of them there appear to be a wide variety of weapons - pistols, shotguns, rifles, and I believe, sometimes a machine gun, but they don't bother me either …. except the time that there was gun fire from the house where neighbours with marital problems lived - I called the sheriff but thankfully the deputy found nothing.