The Annoying, Backyard-Enjoying, Hates Old Junks & Anything Involving Noise, Neighbor

Whats odd about that??

 

right on, that is exactly the best approach to take. Be a good neighbor, not a neighborhood problem.

 

go to your local police station and ask them for their interpretation of the noise ordinances being as they are going to be the ones making the final decision (coming to your garage)
i had the same thing happen to me this summer.
the town kook/crazy lady sent her pussy whipped old man over to my place to bitch about my compressor being too loud.
i tried to be the good guy and not cheeze him off but he continued to be a dick anyway.
i let him ramble to impress his wife and he left.
then 2 weeks later i was just finishing cleaning out my spray gun with cleaner/thinner and 5-o shows up in my driveway.
he asked me what i was doing so i took him to the garage and showed him to which he replied
"thats all your doing?"in disbelief.
i said"thats it"
he then told me

"your neighbor made it sound like you were dumping toxic waste in her yard"
"this is nothin"
"if she calls again we will have to make an "Appearance" but to tell you the truth we could care less about stuff like this .there is nothing we can do about it anyway.
then i went to the police station and asked another cop about my neighbor complaining about my air compressor being too loud .
turns out he had the same air compessor i do and told me that it is not unreasonable to operate this compressor before 9:00 pm(the towns noise ordinance)and that if the neighbor shows up in my driveway bitching again to call us and we will remove him from the premesis.
PROBLEM SOLVED

tell them to politely go fuck themselves.

 

It looks to me like the neighbor is trying to do the right thing by talking to YOU about it. It probably would have been easier for her to go to the cops, code enforcement or the home owner and avoided talking directly to you. And I wouldn't bet that the home owner that owns your "shop" would go to war with his neighbors for you. I think you're doing the right thing by trying to work with her.
My .000000002 worth.
Larry T

 

I had a neighbor next door that hated all my cars. He was a snooty city transplant that decided to bitch about everything.
He never said a word to me or any other neighbor. But I could hear him bitching to the county people on his phone almost daily. Its really quiet here. Sound travels..

Anyway, I made sure all my stuff was kosher with the county. Everything out of public view, front yard clean, I dont use air tools unless absolutely necessary.

The county inspector saw that everything was cool, and made a special notation to ignore HIM as a nuisance complainer.

I have not heard anything since. And he moved away. Yesterday I was firing up the Fordabaker with no mufflers. The new people who speak almost no English came over to check it out.
They were cool with it, we talked for a while.

So cover your butt first as far as the county regs go. If you are compliant, theres not a whole lot your neighbor lady can do.

 

My buddy, Pete, is a full time farmer working a 180 acre century farm. His new SoCal neighbor bought a chunk of farm land and built a house right next to Pete's farm...then sued him (and won!) for, get this..."deprivation of less than 100% enjoyment of personal property"!
This is a real, no BS story. He had to pay the dude $8,000, lawyer's fees, and build an 8ft steel fence!
Pete. being no fool, built the ugliest recycles fence that you could imagine! Then the neibhbor took him back to court and sued him again for building an ugly fence! So Pete had to paint the fence.

 

Slowandlow63,

My neighbor complained about me working on my custom making all that loud noise. I told her that I had to listen to her sons punk rock band that play way too loud and I never complained. She walk away and never said another word to me about noise. Lucky me....By the way her sons band sucked...............

Cruiser

 

On the flipside,

A guy down the street has basically an auto repair shop in his garage/ back yard.

Many cars in and out all the time, and constant air compressor and tools going. Along with loud music, etc.

His neighbor lady calls the cops, fire dept, county on him every chance she gets.

She's a bit nutty. She yells at him through the fence all day, and shot at him one day. She went to jail for psycho evaluation for a few days for that. She lit her own garage on fire and accused him of it.

The county people tell him what he can and cant do, he takes care of the problems and they go away. Until she gets a bug in her ass.

I guess what I'm saying in his case is he pretty much deserves the grief he gets,because he is running a full time shop out of his house.

Ask yourself this question..If you were not into cars, would you want to live next to you??

 

Where do I work? In warehouse space behind my shop and apartment in a mixed commercial and residential area. I've been around the car scene since way before you were hanging off mummys tit. The main point as your Myspace clearly shows is you are running a business in a residential area and if you can't afford a proper shop that is your problem....don't make it your neighbours. People are entitled to enjoy their home without being harrased by unreasonable noise. You can quote all the regulations you like that are in your favour but the reality is that it wouldn't take very much effort to prove that you are operating your business in a non approved area without complying with relavent safety regs and I suspect without paying tax. Your actions and attitude are the cause of the genuine hobbyist getting clobbered with more and more regulations. If after the amount of time you have been working there you still don't have enough business and money to get a small proper shop you probably need to start upskilling your business skills. It takes alot more than being able to turn out a good job to run a business. In fact a lot of really great tradesmen are the worlds worst business operators around.
A few guys here seem to think that being a car guy confers special status on them and the rules don't apply to them. No wonder we get bad press and hassles at times as that attitude gets us all a bad name. For our hobby to survive we need to keep in good with the rest of our community.

 

So a coupla updates since last wknd. We soundproofed the compressor some and left the doors closed while we were working. AFter about 3 hours we broke for lunch, I went over and knocked on her door. Basically she said it was alot better and thanked me. I told her what we did and she seemed grateful. She said she had 2 concerns though. First the she felt the garages were to be used more for the residents. I thanked her for her opinion. She then gave the me a copy of the same legislation on noise ordinances that I had. Showed her hand, nothing.

So that was last wknd. Today we worked with the doors open because we were only doing hand blocking and it was hot. I think the compressor cycled maybe twice. Next thing I know a police officer is walking up the driveway. Said a neighbor called in a complaint. Said he had no idea why seeing as it was 2pm and we were entitled do be doing this kind of work. He then added, "God forbid anyone should do any sort of physical labor in Westfield." I asked him if he wanted us to close the doors and he said no, just keep doin what your doin, no problem.

All in all a decent, but not overjoying experience. I spoke to my landlord as well. He informed me that the lady complaining was also a tenant and that I shouldn't worry about it. He thanked me for the heads up and that was that. So far so good.

 

I also have a neighbor that is so bad that when I pulled my truck from my garage for 1 day,she called the police code enforcement officer,Because our city voted for un-regestered in driveway's.What a croc of shit...Some people really suck!!!!!

 

hehe...so far I have had only two problems with the neighbors...
A teenage girl next door was on the phone in the back yard as I had the compressor running and was hammering on the frame. she was screaming at me and eventually threw a small rock at the garage. I went out and said I am calling the cops (yeah right)...scared her and she ran inside the house.

The second time was a month ago. My wife graduated from beauty school and we were having a small party. We had some friends over and had the music going. We were in the backyard and at 10:40 a guy that lives across the alley on the corner comes over pitching a fit. We tried to explain and even asked how many times we have been loud since we lived there. He was not having it and was bark bark barking till my wife told him and I quote...shut the fuck up you cheater and go back home if you know what is good for you. he shut up and went home. I guess he did not know that my wife knows the gossip in town and knows this guy is/was cheating on his wife.

as far as the shop goes I try to not be loud before 9am and stop being loud around 7pm and stop pretty much all the noise around 10pm.

I can not wait till I go to break in the cam on my engine with nothing but headers on.

 

Years ago, in Redondo Beach, there was a neighborhood where a guy had a Baja Bug with an open stinger exhaust. After numerous complaints, the neighborhood got together and signed 32 noise complaints. Guy got time in State prison.

 

Prison time for noisy exhaust,while drug dealers,
and child molesters walk free.Gotta be Calif.

 

Wow, you have some jack ass people living in the neighborhood where your garage is at. Seriously, some people are just wicked bored and have nothing better to do with their time than to try to mess with others.

You know the law, and so long as you stay within it, there is nothing anyone can do about it. Even the police realize this. If you're lucky, the woman will keep calling the police on you. They'll get sick of her incessant calls about nothing and just stop responding. We've all heard the story of the boy who cried "wolf", right?

FYI for the people on the board who aren't familiar with this area; Westfield is an upper-middle class suburb in NJ. Located near Newark and NYC, it is a haven for yuppies and the white-collar who can live in a suburban environment with a nice downtown district, complete with Panera, the GAP, Starbucks and lots of expensive vintage clothing stores and boutiques, and still jump the local train and be in NYC within 40 minutes.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Westfield-New-Jersey.html

There is a link on the stats of Westfield. The key stats to me are the average median household income ($111,300), average home/condo value ($680,100), and average property tax ($6,808). The bottom line is that this is not a town where the average citizenry are going to take kindly to old cars. They may like the cruise night that the town puts on where everyone can look at all the shiny cars, but they certainly don't want to be bothered with the people who make them that way.

Keep on doing what you're doing, Bill. Don't let these rich fuckers push you around.

 

This is what we do to trouble makers over here.

 

A few years back I had a nieghbor come and complain, I let him have his rant. Then I stood up, but my arm around his shoulders, patted his cheek and smiled. I said "You do what you gotta do, and I'll do what I'm going to do. Then I winked and walked away. He moved a couple of weeks later ......

 

What if your neighbor played "Slim Whitman" records all day long?

 

This is exactly why we're working on buying a house on 3.5 acres, zoned agricultural, and no H.O.A.

 

Haha, ya. But I will say once I figured out how to order and work the menu at said Starbucks and Panera Bread, me and Ryan frequent the sht out of them.

I think I'm in pretty good shape so far, another 4 coats of epoxy last night. Screw her.

 

Ya know, maybe it's not so bad after all living here in Podunk, Nebr. If you make noise around here, at least the neighbors know you're still alive. It's when things are quiet, they come a looking for you.

HellRaiser

 

Another out would be to do like 3 of my friends and I did.... we rented a shop in an industral area for about $250.00 bucks each a month and shared most of our tools and even had space to park 3 or 4 cars each plus a cool place to throw a party every now and then. We each had our own stall plus an area to park other cars, trailers, boats, etc,etc,etc.... Not to mention 220 power and high rafters for block and tackle and/or car lifts. And most important a BATHROOM!!!

 

Ya thats was the plan. A good friend of mine (Unionvillehaunt) lost his space and was looking for a new one. So me and DropnDrive were all set to move out of the place now join up with Chris and move into a bigger space. However that fell through for good reasons. I'd still like a bigger shop in a better area but financially it won't work just yet.

 

Close to Newark eh? Maybe you need to just say "no habla englez" since they don't seem to do anything about the illegals until they kill someone. Steal things and molest kids all you want, just don't make a lot of noise doing it.


Here again, people who don't seem to have a clue that what they're worried about is nothing and things could be one royal fuck of a lot worse. But it sounds like you made out okay. The only thing you need to be careful with now is to make sure this lady doesn't get some kind of bug up her ass to report you as running a business there. That's the only way I see you getting into trouble.

My neighbor pulled that one on me when they whined about my '50 Chevy, because I told him I make money with the cars and car parts and stuff. The inspector came, but he sure didn't see any signs of a business, just an old car and a garage at the time full of all sorts of crap. An inspector coming when you're in the middle of an engine R&R on someone else's car, might be a problem.

 

Ya, thats the only part that worries me too. There are no "signs" (or signs) of a business being run there. Usually the middle bay is empty unless there is a customer junk, and even if there is, what's to say its not a friend of mine's. I mean its not the best excuse, but what hard proof would someone gather just by looking at my place?

 

uuuuhhh,

I was gonna say 'Punch her in the throat",

But that works too.







.

 

Burn her house down! Then you can use the lot for overflow parking. LOL! Maybe she'd rather have a meth lab next door. Dumb broad!!

 

4 coats of epoxy eh? Did she catch a BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ???

 

Not sure, but I sure as hell did. I try to keep things nice around there. I only spray at night when theres no one home or at least no one outside.

 

Thank her for her input, and tell her you've decided to start testing .50 BMG automatic weapons instead of working on cars. Ask her if she'll listen and tell you if the howitzers make more noise than the mortars. I'm sure she'll be cooperative.

dj