Piano Playing Noise Daily from Neighbors
Recently bought an attached brick house and now we are going crazy on a daily basis listening to our neighbors learning how to play piano. The noise level in intolerable and they play right at the time when we come home. We tried to reason with them many many times, asking to move the piano…
Recently bought an attached brick house and now we are going crazy on a daily basis listening to our neighbors learning how to play piano. The noise level in intolerable and they play right at the time when we come home. We tried to reason with them many many times, asking to move the piano away from the common wall or to play at different times, to no avail. My husband gets soo upset that he called police once and it did not lead to anything. When can we do, our house is turning into a nightmare as we can’t even relax after difficult day at work. We are even considering selling. Any advice on how possibly to resolve this situation? The neighbors are very stubborn and are not willing to compromise even a little bit. Any advice will be appreciated.
Thank you!
I can not believe what I am reading, when you can call someone an a..hole an stay annonymus shows the type of individuals that you ARE NOT.
Yes Im for the kid playing his piano.(why not let him play an electric one with earphones?) We have forgotten to be a good neighbor, and I can understand why he would call the police, you have many neighbors that are very agressive, and if you would go up to them and ask them to lower the volume you would be putting your life at stake. I would rather call the police and let them deal with the noise problem. It is always a good advice to call the police first!
wow…i’m a first-time reader, and I am amazed at how venomous this discussion is. The name calling, profanity, and the lack of consideration that both parties could be at fault is a bit shocking.
Of all the threads here, the one dealing with interpersonal relationships – not renovating a dilapidated domestic anachronism – is the one that gets this crew heated. it’s been an education.
thanks mother theresa.
It’s bad enough to call a person you know an asshole in anger but to direct all this at a person that you don’t know and have never met? Don’t the name callers know that the way that they choose to see others is the way that they will be seen?
I agree that the child should be allowed to play the piano. I guarantee that as clearly as some may think that they see this person’s shortcomings- their own are as glaringly obvious to others. Our emotions cause us to miss things that we should know and to become blinded and irrational- all of us. And, the jury is out. Read the posts.
If you have some wisdom- please be a gentle teacher.
When it is cold we run for a sweater- when we are hot we want a fan. The best things are found when we sit in our discomfort and see what is on the other side. There is probably joy and understanding.
The best wisdom that was shared here.
– I lived above a family whose child started piano lessons. For the first couple of months it drove me crazy, but then I learned to ignore it. By the time I moved, several years later, I realized I was actually going to miss it, because it had become rather enjoyable to hear the kid getting better and better at playing.
Good luck with learning to share the joy of a child and to approaches each new thing as though it were the dawn of time. What an incredible gift to be able to hear that music.
one hour a day at the same time every day is actually very considerate. It means you know exactly when the noise will occur and can plan around it. One thing that may help you is one of the those white noise machines. They are very effective in blocking out unwanted noise. Get a couple of them and put them on while playing occurs. But you do sound like an asshole.
or the piano player’s parents should call the police for harrassment.
they’d have a better case against this psycho than she does towards them.
Court TV is looking for feuding neighbors for their new reality show Neighbor 911 – you should go on the show and have an “expert” mediator help you work out the problem!
Thank goodness we don’t have lawns here to mow.
I don’t know. On one hand, it’s only an hour. On the other, I don’t doubt that it’s really irritating, because anyone learning how to play the piano is repetitive and has little control and the sounds themselves are simple (for learning purposes).
And if it were at the exact time I come home every day, I would probably politely ask, in the context of other things, if the time of practice could be moved up just one hour or so. And nobody knows how the OP approached the situation. There isn’t enough information here to judge.
It could very well be that the OP “poisoned the well” over a small issue (it’s only an hour and definitely not worth getting worked up over).
It could also be true that the OP politely asked for a concession about the time and was met with an overly defensive response, in which case the piano-mom is the one who’s out of bounds.
It is a city, which means that you have to understand that your noise impacts other people. You have to at least try to play along!
I think, of course, that children have the right to play the piano. But if doing it even a half an hour earlier in the day would make the situation more win-win, and if the mom isn’t even listening… then who is the asshole there?
Other win-win solutions:
1. Do a yoga class or something right after work
2. Go to work an hour later if you can
3. Get an ipod and some noise cancelling earphones, and learn a language or something while you putter around your house for that first hour.