Hot Rods RANT, Open pipes and SOME neighbors

Where I grew up the neighborhood was a quiet, established neighborhood with only 2 streets leading in & out. We knew pretty much everyone in the neighborhood, and most were older folks. Our house was one of the bigger ones in the 'hood and was a corner lot on a hill. Nice house, nice yard, no fence, big trees, ya know. But there were always old cars parked outside, some in the side lawn near the street. Not ghetto or anything because all the cars moved under their own power. Neighbors never complained, sometimes they'd stop in to see what dad was tinkering with while me and my lil bros were riding BMX bikes on the ramps. Then when I got to driving age, me and all my friends had loud ass cars and they'd all come over in a pack. Then when the little bro got to driving age it just got worse with his '66 C-10, and the youngest brother (Cjared3B on here) with his '72 Buick GS, and his friends cars. Mom & dad loved it, the neighbors probably not so much, but no complaints. I think we had 12 cars there every night for a few years with only enough room to park one in the garage, and 4 in the driveway. It was nuts, but the neighbors never complained! Eventually dad bought some land about 30 miles away so that became the new storage lot for the project cars. The lil bros and I have all moved out, but the sickness has followed us all. Mom & Dad's house has thinned out the cars, but there's still 3 in the driveway and 2 in the garage Lil bro has two houses, both littered with his projects, youngest bro has 4 or so cars at his place down the street from Mom & Dad's house. It's a disease.

On another note, my daily is a straight-piped, chrome stack out of the bed Dodge Diesel Dually pickup. Everytime I fire up the rig, my neighbor bitches that it shakes his walls. I laugh and tell him to shut the fuck up because we both live inside warehouses that are about 50 yards from the train tracks.

 

I know the feeling. I worked at a dairy farm an the neighborhood that was just built was complaining about the smell. Go figure, they knew what they were going into.

 

Speaking of funny parking stories , I had to go out of town a while back for a funeral and I was at the house of the family of the person who died and a mate of mine was sleeping in his car due to there being so many people there , he had to park in a public park a couple of houses down because of all the other vehicles parked nearby . My mate woke up one morning to find a note attached to his car saying that he was parked in a spot that a lady who lived in a nearby house aparently parked all the time and she was wanting him to move his car . My mate found it strange that he was being told to move from a public parking space on a public street he went to talk to the lady and explained the situation and her whole attitude changed .

 

I can identify with those of you with obnoxious neighbors. Behind my house is a guy with a trailered boat who thinks he has to fire it up and let it run for 20 minutes 2 or 3 times a week. Guess he thinks the battery will go flat otherwise. (Hey Gilligan, there's a thing called a battery charger.....). Across the street, they have the big stereo and flat screens in their swimming pool area and they entertain a lot. Their guests are obviously hard of hearing, based on the sound volume I can hear in my house with the windows closed. So far, I haven't complained since I have a car with headers and a pretty loud Flowmaster exhaust. I don't to start something that will come back and bite me on the ass, but one of these days....!

Regarding the rights and liberties discussion, my right to swing my fist stops at the end of your nose just as my 1st Amendment rights don't allow me to shout fire in a crowded theater. It's all relative to the situation at hand and subject to common sense.

 

hmmm....well it could of been worse. You could be a farmer & they could of moved in & then complained they don't like the tractor noise at daybreak...

 

Is one person's right to make noise somehow more important than another person right to relative quiet??? The minute your shit,be it noise or pollution,spills over onto another's property,it becomes their business.

 

It all boils down to a distinctive sense of neighborhood community.

Depending on the districts, we have that thing in Germany too, not just the cities where American Armed Forces are stationed. And yes, usually its young city slickers who break up such old, naturally grown sub-societies.

Concerning the open headers; Some ten or twelve years ago there used to be a youngster who ran his retro-rodded S10 (err... I know) with open headers first for a while, then he changed over to true lake pipes. Used to come home and take off in the middle of the night, but everybody was real patient. Nobody ever called the cops on him (although the MP stopped him a couple of times and even suspended his license for DUI and reckless driving while on Base).

Today, a lot has changed; the old people either die or move to retirement homes, their kids usually sell the old Gruenderzeit houses (late 19th century, characterized by early industrialization and architectual historism) for new real estate developments. Now, half the village is occupied by yuppies and DINKs who got more issues than a newsstand.

And boy those folks are hard to train and to integrate...!

 

Let me guess....

You voted for "change" and think the socialist direction our country is headed in is a good thing...

 

I have to admit, we live in a pretty laid back neighborhood. Everyone on our block knows that we drive loud cars, but we do make a genuine effort to not be obnoxious about it. Our next door neighbor has a dirt track race car, when it comes time to tune it, he comes over and lets me know, so I can turn off my alarm on my car, so it doesn't go off. The other folks who live on the other side of us have never complained (one of the kids grew up across the street from us and bought this house next to ours a couple of years ago), he claims to hate dogs, but will sit for hours watching our two Boxers play in our back yard, laughing at thier antics. My point here is we all get along great because we all realize that all of us have our "things" but don't let those "things" get in the way of sensibility and common courtesy. Rarely will you find our city's finest on our block responding to complaints. When they are called, everyone usually knows why before the cops even show up.

Carrie

 

my neghibors love me,they call me the gate keeper(my house is the first on the block) i help fix their cars lawn equipt & ect,but i dont play my music loud -very rarely stay in the shop past 10 pm,they never complain when i fire up or blast my 1969 camarp nhra s/g up the steet or when my hoodlum freinds lay some rubber down in the street

 

I just wish people could mind thier own damn buisness and leave me the hell alone!!!!

 

Mitch I was just teasing, maybe that didn't come through. But I know where you are coming from. Heck I did something was pretty dumb last year. I had just concluded a deal to sell an OT 10.00@133mph car, and so I went and detailed it, and then did a transbrake hit by Addison and Western and went about three blocks. I'm lucky the cop did not show up to court.

 

When I was 18 in 1974, I wanted to fire up my 64 Pontiac right after swapping engines before getting the exhaust installed. But I had a big Mike Didka looking old man that taught me the world doesn't revolve around me and to respect the neighbors..

After reading this thread all I can say is, Thanks Dad!

 

I've moved many times in my life. Once I sold a house and moved because my neighbor was on his second dog(that I had witnessed). I watched the first one die. Actually neighbors said it was about his fifth dog. Long story but he kept his dog on a long heavy chain that the animal could barely drag. 24-7, year around, rain, hail, or snow, that dog dragged that chain. For me, it was either kill the owner or move. I would never treat an animal like that and couldn't bear to watch it happening. I wimped out.
Many times I've wondered what would have happened to me if I let my emotions rule and I had saved the dog, but I did respect the man's right to his property, and in those days nobody really looked on that abuse of the animal as illegal. I for sure didn't respect tha man, but I respected his right.
Say what you will, but I still believe that we pretty much have a right to do what we decide on our own property as long as it is'nt child abuse, or threaten the safety of our neighbor. It isn't even my right to interfere with a neighbor that commits spousal abuse, that's up to the spouse that's being abused, that's an adult making a choice. I'm not saying this except to draw the parallel, that what our neighbor does is his business so long as it ain't done to me or mine. If he breaks the law that's between him and the fence post. So, bottom line, what I do, he don't like it;? Fuck him, and all of the busybodies that he congregates with.

You people that claim my neighbors have a right to control my acivity are all dead wrong. As it is with me, I don't imagine for a heartbeat that I have a right to 'busybody' what my neighbor does, as long as he don't threaten my safety, and for that contingency, that's why I have a 12 gauge.

It slays me when people will see a neighbor doing relatively dasterdly deeds and say nothing but whine and hiss like a leaking supercharger when that same neighbor makes a littler bit of noise..........................

 

I run straight pipes on every car I have, including my daily drivers-06 mustang gt, 08 mini cooper s, and 08 lincoln mkx. All have cats, but no mufflers. Just got done doing straights on my 57 buick too. I've never had the cops called on me and never been pulled over, and I've been doing straight pipes for over 10 years.

 

i'll say it again, I'll never understand the reasoning of these people who can't stand to see others have fun. This conversation reminds me of when I was on Main Street in Rockland, which is a fairly nice coastal town here in Maine. My brother and friend and I were about 15 and decided to have some fun while mom was in the store by rocking her van back and forth while we were in it. We got it rocking from side to side pretty good when this Volvo pulls up and some lady rolls down the window, and yells "KEEP ON ROCKING BECAUSE I JUST CALLED THE COPS!" She was so mad her face was all red and I could see spit flying out of her mouth.

some of you are that lady. If a loud noise doesn't wake you up and isn't persistant, then I can't see how any harm has been done. If you choose to live in a place where you're living elbow to elbow with other people, one would think a certain level of tolerance would be required....

 

In the late 1800s on a hot August afternoon in downtown Pittsburgh a trolley conductor was whipping the horse on an overcrowded trolley. All of a sudden this big Irish Immigrant came from nowhere and through everybody off the trolley and beat the shit out of the conductor.. This was the moment the Animal cruelty association was started...

 

I was wondering when a Californicater was going to pop up. They move to roomy Oregon and complain about the noisy planes, gun clubs, kids in the play ground, dogs, wild animals, noisy cars and bikes, birds crapping on there pretty Detroit bOhemoths,and every thing that just don't cover there way of life. Be thankful you live 2000 miles from the governator state.

 

I was getting too sick to notice anything else!

 

Let me guess ... you think the no politics on the HAMB rule doesn't apply to you because you're special ...

 

I dunno Nash - a lot of people look at silence as consent
I had a neighbor that hit his girl a lot, and every time I saw it I called the cops. Eventually they took that fucker away and she left.

I think we need to do the good thing as often as we can.

And so with regards to this thread – I think that if the neighbor is supposed to forgive your one time blast up the street with no pipes then you should be able to forgive their one time calling the cops.

I see where you are coming from tho’ – would be nice of them to just let it slide.

 

So if you buy a house next to an airport , the airport has to move- right. I like the way you think

 

That would be AWESOME your own personal DRAG STRIP. Think of the endless possibilities.

 

Mike:

If you would just go over to Jim's and help him with his truck, your problem is solved. With Jim's truck running, the spotlight will be shining in another direction.

p.s. Hope to see you at Chuck's very soon. Stu

 

My neighbor kid drives a '68 Couger. He has mufflers. It's a little loud but not bad. His car stero on the other hand can be really obnoxious. While I have not called the cops I do go over and tell him to turn it down. His fun is interfering with my fun and reasonable people make reasonable compormise. Noise laws were made for people who are not reasonable. Now when the kid decided it would be fun to sell E on the sidewalk in front of my house I did call the cops. As it turned out they weren't all that interested. So I told his mother he would have to move his operation from in front of me. He did. Later there was a raid next door. Don't know the outcome of that, but I don't see the kid around lately.

 

No,if you move next to an airport,working farm,business,etc,you have to expect the noise and mess coming from that place.If you live in a typical residential neighborhood,you expect certain noises,kids playing,lawn mowers,occasional parties,passing loud vehicles and so on.What you don't need is a constant blast of boom music or a guy who decides to run a chain saw all night cause he carves totem poles.
50 years ago there was half as many people and half as many loud cars and no blasting crap music.Keep thinking we got some natural right to make excessive noise and sure enough more laws will get passed.

 

There's an old saying about not sh_tting in your own backyard. I'm a car guy and a m/c guy, but when I'm going to make noise I get out of my neighborhood before doing it.
It's like what was said, what is your beautiful music is a nuisance to others. I'm sure there are things the neighbors could do that would drive you nuts. If not, you're much more tolerant than I.
Just my $.02

 

This is funny to me and after posting my 2C I read the rest of the posts. I see two sides here. At least it seems like it to me. The guys who build and can actually work on their cars and the guys who buy them and pay others to fix them so they can drive them peacefully through the neighborhood. Not good or bad either way but if you are more of a gear head and actually work on stuff you are more apt to let some noise slide so when you need the grace it'll be ok. I probably am more than likely in the not so quiet group.

Tim

 

Oh No! you mean that dont happen?

 

I have had a number of open headered Drag and Bonneville cars. A few on fuel. All loud. Not some crap low compresion lazy turd with open pipes. Loud cars. I respect my neighbors and their right to enjoy their life in the manner they wish. I do fire the car in the drive way a few times a year. Usually on a weekend afternoon and for no longer that I need to for whatever I'm doing. The guys I see making noise are usually stupid kids just out of High School with ricers.