Noisy Neighbors
Okay, so in this case, we’re the “noisy neighbors.” We recently moved from Manhattan into a brownstone in Park Slope. Our new place has outdoor space (that we pay a premium for) and we’re definitely planning to utilize the space during the summer months. My husband and I both work until 7pm so the only…
Okay, so in this case, we’re the “noisy neighbors.”
We recently moved from Manhattan into a brownstone in Park Slope. Our new place has outdoor space (that we pay a premium for) and we’re definitely planning to utilize the space during the summer months. My husband and I both work until 7pm so the only time to take advantage of the backyard is in the evenings as we tend to travel on the weekends. Over the past week we have been out back gardening (trying to beautify our new outdoor space) until about 10pm and one weeknight we had friends over until just before 10pm. I would say that 99% of the time it will just be me and my husband out back and when we’re out there we often play music, but at what I would consider a reasonable level (for example, I can’t hear it when I enter the apartment and close the door). Coming from Manhattan, we’re used to playing music and in most cases being some of the quieter people in our old building. We understand that we live near a lot of families with young children now and we’re trying to find a balance between enjoying our outdoor space and being respectful of our neighbors.
We received a complaint from one of our neighbors that we are being too noisy and that music is meant to be kept indoors in our new neighborhood. As I said, we want to be respectful of our neighbors and certainly don’t want to start off on the wrong foot, but we also want to enjoy our space. When we signed the lease on our apartment nodoby mentioned a “music indoors” rule.
So, here’s my question, is playing music at reasonable levels until 9 or 10pm disrespectful? If so, what would be a reasonable time to play music until?
We would like to come to some sort of arrangement with our neighbors where we stop playing music at some designated hour, but that we still have a right to play music until that point in time without complaints or dirty looks on the street. We think that requesting that music stay indoors at all times is somewhat unreasonable. Would love to hear your thoughts…
Being someone who suffers at the hand of some noisy neighbours I might offer a thought or two. Correct, indeed, are those who state that: 1) it’s a big city and we all have to live in it together and 2) the fact that we live on top of one another means that flushing toilets, jumping cats, and the patter of little kid’s feet are necessarily going to once in a while intrude upon the silence that everyone desires when they come home from the insanity of another day in New York.
HOWEVER, and this is the crux of the matter, none of these premises are sufficient counterarguments to the contention that one does not have the right to infringe upon someone else’s space.
You CAN control your music, if someone is complaining it is a problem. There are plenty of naysayers out there – but I find the last thing people want to do is complain or get into a confrontation with someone.
So if they are dropping notes and calling you or knocking on your door, there is a reason. It’s too loud. this isn’t brain surgery, if you want to listen music great…just don’t force everyone else to be on your schedule.
Also, it’s borderline moronic for a poster to suggest that one’s bedtime hour is unreasonable or not. Many different people in this city with many different jobs. Let’s all respect the fact that 9 PM is late for some, and 530 AM isn’t too early to wake for others. If you want to live without any constraints then that is when you must pick up and move to Montana in the middle of two hundred acres where one does not see another human being for a straight week of Sundays. Then you can play music or dance in a tutu to your heart’s content.
I definitely expect that only if you are having an ocassional party will you have tunes pumping in your yard that are so loud I can hear it through my windows. Otherwise you betcha I’m calling 311. And if they aren’t coming you and all your fun loving pals checking out our formerly quiet borough and going to be grooving to my tunes, but you only get to enjoy the thumpin bass because I’m turning them up way loud. You’ll be heading indoors soon.
How the hell do you anti-music people manage to live in NYC with these incredibly delicate sensibilities? Jesus, move to Montana or pull the stick out of your ass. In Bklyn we have planes flying overheard, cement trucks bouncing around the streets all hours, people yelling, and you’re bitching this angrily about Slopers grooving QUIETLY to a little Boz Scaggs over their Pouilly-Fumé during these lovely summer nights? Get a life–or double-pane windows. I agree with the Fort Greene poster below. And if every one of my neighbors played music at the same volume I use in the evening (soft till 9, reallllly soft til 10, off after that)=, it would be nooooo problem for anyone reasonable.
FORT GREENE-ER: i’m shocked that so many people have a problem with any music any time. i live in fort greene and while i’m not so pleased when there are rooftop’s full of drunk people singing at 2 am on a sunday night/monday morning…no music ever?? i think playing music at a low level in the evening is perfectly acceptable. if you play your music fairly quietly and turn it off and keep conversation low after 9 pm on weekdays, your neighbors really have nothing to complain about. we all live in close proximity and need to respect our neighbors and be mindful of their schedules, but they too have to keep in mind that – though it’s park slope and they may have kids – they live in an urban environment in which there are many different people living different lifestyles within earshot. if they have to close their windows sometimes, what’s the big deal?
Call 311 – within reason.
I think that past 9 or 10 is too much. But it depends…Loud drunken voices, clinking bottles, partying going way past midnight on weeknights…
We had a recurring episode on our street. Newly renovated apartment house and come the first of the month, the double garden apartment tenants were out in the yard at all hours…celebrating. It went on for a week and yes, it totally disturbed the residential quiet that preceded them. (we have a mixed family, elderly, singles neighborhood)
This was in late spring, so school was still on. Kids turn in around 7-9 PM and then if they can’t fall asleep get really upset and so on.
One of us folks spoke to one of the buildings owners (no, they don’t live there) and was told, “come on, you were young once right? Next night without us all knowing it, about 6 or 7 calls to 311 were made. 311 generates a ticket number (which is trackable). Then the info is forwarded to the local police precinct and then they contact the landlord.
Most people in an urban setting are either sensitive and decent or crass/rude and obnoxious. Part of the living togetherness that you get when you are not in a McMansion with lots of land between you. A lot of suburban young folks are coming into the nabe and I think that they are not used to tighter living quarters.
Then again, why do we all have to have music on outside all the time anyway. Music is big in my life, I play a few instruments and sing (as do my wife and kids). I love the “folk” playing that might be outside, but in general, we keep our music inside ALL THE TIME.
Oh yeah, and what the heck is up with the loud car radios. I wish that no car could be that loud. I find that those cars and their empty-headed drivers are a real quality of life issue.
Maurice
I Heart JAM.
Wow, I never expected to get so many conflicting responses to this question! Thank you all for the advice, I do think we will do our best to keep the music to a minimum, while still enjoying it on occasion (of course not into the late hours). The truth of the matter is that because of our busy schedules we will probably only be using our outdoor space a couple of nights a week…we just started off using it a lot because we were trying to get things settled back there and also had some friends who wanted to come visit our new neighborhood and check out our new place. I don’t think it will be a problem to work this out with our neighbors going forward if we keep things reasonable and aren’t out there making a raucous every night. I still think that imposing an across the board “music indoors” policy is too restrictive, especially when living in an urban environment. But, now that we know how much the sound carries we’ll be more aware of the noise we’re making. The fact of the matter is that in our prior apartment you couldn’t hear a siren 2 blocks away, let alone someone playing music at low levels. Settling into a new space takes some getting used to and hopefully our neighbors will understand that and be reasonable with us just as we plan to be with them.
Now I just have to figure out how to tell all of our neighbors that we’re planning a day-time housewarming party in a few weeks…most likely some amounts of music will be involved…
Personally i don’t like it when neighbors write ‘anonymous’ letters to me. Especially when said anonymous letters contain unreasonable requests like ‘don’t ever play music in your backyard’. I would ignore this letter b/c there really isn’t anything your neighbor can do about it. Everything you are doing is perfectly legal and reasonable otoh the way they went about dealing with this issue was very rude.
The neighbors that complained were 2 Blocks Away. That means the music was up too loud. Sound echoes like crazy in those backyards as it bounces off all the buildings. If you play it quietly (and not every night) I’m sure you will not get complaints.
Jimmy Legs you’re a clown! 🙂 too funny… thanks for the chuckle…