problem neighbours

rob777vdy · #1 03-25-2008, 11:04 AM

afternoon all.just been wondering how many of yous have bother with your neighbours regarding your music and guitar playing.i live in a 2 storey flat (appartment) im upstairs the neighbours are great.the lady downstairs is disabled shes really nice i help her out here n there with alsorts of stuff.my other neighbour is into rock music so he is sound,the floors in my flat (appartment) are concrete, i often ask the neighbours can you hear my guitar+music,no they cant bearing in mind i have respect for my neighbours and keep music&guitar at a reasnable level.but i remember when i lived at my mothers house the neighbours were a right pain in the butt.again music&guitar was kept to a low volume but as soon as i started playing sure enough knock at the door.eventually i got sick of the complaining, this day the neighbour knocked at the door i was totaly xxxxed off,and told him here FXXX OFFFFFFF and get a life.my mother told me to get rid of my gear,but i moved out instead shhhh some folk eh.rob

kotornut · #2 03-25-2008, 11:08 AM

When I lived with my parents I was always having band practice in my living room and I was worried because their neigborhood is mostly middle aged, but no one ever complained.

When I asked my neighbors if it ever bothered them they said "no you guys are actually good, so it's no big deal."

HDS · #3 03-25-2008, 11:41 AM

No problems here.
Neighbours to the right are a band house so no problems there. We thought it was funny how we live right by each other. Neighbour to the left is a red neck and only has problems when he cant hear the race.

Three houses down is another band, hehe.

Jamie · #4 03-25-2008, 11:42 AM

The last flat I owned, I checked with the neighbours above, below and to either side. Nobody had a problem with me practicing, recording and programming drums - nothing as noisy as a full band.

So off I went, and got a very rude letter of complaint through the door.

I printed little notes and put them through the door of every flat in the building. Nobody came forward.

I explained that if whoever it was just contacted me, I would work out how the sound was travelling and either stop or solve the problem.

But nobody came forward. The notes continued, ruder and ruder - sometimes just scrawls "Shut UP!" and so forth.

One time they even cut out and highlighted the rehearsal studios in Edinburgh from the Yellow Pages. Kinda amusing as I own one of them.

I never found out who it was, I asked everybody over and over again, but nobody ever came forward.

I actually had a similar situation in my last office. A woman would catalogue nights we left the lights on (either through working late, or through leaving them on all night) - apparently it disturbed her. She kept charts and highlighted areas, posting a monthly report through the doors. But she never told us who she was or where she lived. As the office bordered 3 sides with approx 50+ flats around, we never worked out which window it was, or why it was such a big deal, I mean, we never worked past 10pm.

Guess its an Edinburgh thing.

rob777vdy · #5 03-25-2008, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamie

The last flat I owned, I checked with the neighbours above, below and to either side. Nobody had a problem with me practicing, recording and programming drums - nothing as noisy as a full band.

So off I went, and got a very rude letter of complaint through the door.

I printed little notes and put them through the door of every flat in the building. Nobody came forward.

I explained that if whoever it was just contacted me, I would work out how the sound was travelling and either stop or solve the problem.

But nobody came forward. The notes continued, ruder and ruder - sometimes just scrawls "Shut UP!" and so forth.

One time they even cut out and highlighted the rehearsal studios in Edinburgh from the Yellow Pages. Kinda amusing as I own one of them.

I never found out who it was, I asked everybody over and over again, but nobody ever came forward.

I actually had a similar situation in my last office. A woman would catalogue nights we left the lights on (either through working late, or through leaving them on all night) - apparently it disturbed her. She kept charts and highlighted areas, posting a monthly report through the doors. But she never told us who she was or where she lived. As the office bordered 3 sides with approx 50+ flats around, we never worked out which window it was, or why it was such a big deal, I mean, we never worked past 10pm.

Guess its an Edinburgh thing.

i think folk like that have nothing better to do.(no love in there lives)

losgatosrg350dx · #6 03-25-2008, 01:23 PM

i dont have any neighbors, my parents like in the house right next to mine, i live in a side cottage, at full volume in running about 130+db out of my 4x12 so sometimes when they are home doing stuff, they can hear it all over the property and it drives all the nature away too....sometimes they get mad when im at it for like 3 hours, but hey just bust in my pad and tell me to turn it down, for the most part they dont mind the noise

my parents have a really loud and REALLY expensive home stereo and my dad blasts pink floyd and clapton all the time, so i dont think noise matters to them all so much

LonePhantom · #7 03-25-2008, 06:23 PM

When I was at my old place and had the band going we used to practice on Saturday or Sunday arvos for a few hours. No one cared about it except for one neighbour. We weren't even that loud.

She would come around and whine to the missus, but if she wasn't home she'd just bang on the door while we were playing, never when we stopped for a breather. Obviously she was too chicken 5hit to complain to our faces.

We also know that it wasn't much louder than a loud radio outside the house. If the bass player was running a bit late, and the drummer and I were jamming he said he could barely even hear us from the front door.

After the times she would complain to the missus we would turn down a little, and right at the end turn it all right up and blast out a rendition of Dennis Leary's "A55hole!

Gurj · #8 03-25-2008, 06:48 PM

I used to have problems with my neighbours in my second year at uni. Used to play at a reasonable level and never late at night. The bitch next door used to start banging on the walls, etc. Which of course used to annoy me, so I used to turn it up a little, just a little, to make her even happier and drown out the noise of her banging the wall!

Now I have great neighbours. I play a little loud, but never too late. The guy next door even started playing guitar himself since I moved in, so can't be all that bad

varador · #9 03-25-2008, 08:37 PM

losgatos... 130dB? That's the kind of sound pressure a jet engine / turbine gives off when in full blast. The loudest concert recorded in the Guinness World Book of Records was Manowar (OMG I LOVE MANOWAR) somewhere at 110-120dB... So... 130dB? I think you might be overshooting it a bit

But I have no problem believing that you drive all the nature away

varador · #10 03-25-2008, 08:41 PM

I'm in college and for practicing it kinda sucks, there's a ****ing whiner on the second floor of my dorm (I'm on the first) and he's not thrilled by my Peavey Valveking 112's chugga chugga. Meaning: he's actually gone up to my room, knocked on my door and asked me to turn the "music" down (he couldn't tell it was me playing, he just thought it was music... Thank goodness).

I sent the guy off with a few ideas of my own... Such as the idea that nobody on my floor ever complains about my "music," so he, living on the second floor, should perhaps quit his anal bitching.

varador · #11 03-25-2008, 08:43 PM

Also, a 1x12 can be loud! Maybe my dorm just has thin walls, but if I turn my Valveking up to 3 on the dirty channel the odds are good that all of the other 15 people on my floor will hear it. As well as that troll on the second floor. Oh well.

losgatosrg350dx · #12 03-26-2008, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by varador

losgatos... 130dB? That's the kind of sound pressure a jet engine / turbine gives off when in full blast. The loudest concert recorded in the Guinness World Book of Records was Manowar (OMG I LOVE MANOWAR) somewhere at 110-120dB... So... 130dB? I think you might be overshooting it a bit

But I have no problem believing that you drive all the nature away

well my amp and cab seems to be louder than any concert ive been at

maybe not 130 but very close, and my ears arent very sensitive so i can usually crank it as high as it goes and be fine...
we have pa mains in our home stereo, its a huge rack unit ill get some pics, and we turn that up all the way too...its like being in a concert in our living room, but maybe louder!!! its rad

yeah but it was cranked up, and in a small room too

chaos731 · #13 03-26-2008, 10:25 AM

Back in my renting days, I had various problems with neighbors related to music, but nothing ever escalated beyond the "finding a happy median" level.
Now that I own a house (a townhome, actually), and the neighbors on both sides also own their homes, I was initially worried about being too loud. As it turns out, there is a 10 inch concrete firewall that separates each of the homes, so nobody hears a thing. Even when I turn my rig up above 3 or so (which is about as loud as I can get it without physically shaking things out of their cabinets), nobody can hear a thing. My wife, ever-tolerant, and my cat, ever-oblivious, are the only ones who would mind. If my wife doesn't want to hear it, I'll turn it down or use headphones, but the cat doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, she'll just lay down on top of the amp. I think she digs the vibration or something. Occasionally, she'll jump up and sit on my lap while I'm playing, trying to eat the strings and stuff, but that's about as far as my problems go these days.

HeavyMetal4Ever · #14 03-26-2008, 11:19 AM

I've got a block of flats next door to me and there's been some truly psychotic people living there over the years.

My personal favourite was the bikie dude who decided to stand on the pavement in front his flat at about 3am, and offload about 10 bullets at the street sign down the road one night. By the time the cops showed up, he was long gone. They asked a few questions, but I had no answers. I never saw him again.

About 2 years later, a random nutter moved into the same flat, and decided to hold a seige. He apparently rang the cops and told them he had some sort of bomb, and he was planning on blowing himself (and the flat) to bits. We were evacuated down the street while they negotiated. They eventually stormed the flat to discover his "bomb" was a can of lighter fluid.

Can't complain though as none of the people living there have ever said anything about my stereo or my guitar being too loud, and I do like to arc the volume up a bit.

Rock on!

kotornut · #15 03-26-2008, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by losgatosrg350dx

well my amp and cab seems to be louder than any concert ive been at

maybe not 130 but very close, and my ears arent very sensitive so i can usually crank it as high as it goes and be fine...
we have pa mains in our home stereo, its a huge rack unit ill get some pics, and we turn that up all the way too...its like being in a concert in our living room, but maybe louder!!! its rad

yeah but it was cranked up, and in a small room too

The decibel scale is exponential. You can't be very very close to 130 decbels.

The way it works is 130 is ten times louder than 129 decibels or something like that.

ANyways the loudest concert ever was aound 120dB (actually it's logarithmic) if I remeber correctly. I think you need to know what you are talking about before you say it.

The world has changed, it used to be that you didn't say something if you don't really know anythign about the subject. But, now on forums like this so many people say things they absolutely have no clue about.