What to do about noisy (commercial) neighbors

[MusicalADD]

Anyone here have any experience or advice re: how to deal with excessive noise coming from nearby businesses?

My house is on the edge of a residential neighborhood. Not far from my back yard is a business, a gardening center. The gardening center is new -- it was undeveloped land, till this year.

Business appears to be booming at the gardening center as lately they have been having tons of large trucks coming and going. The problem is that whenever the trucks back up, there's the loud "beep, beep" that I think is built into every large truck. The backing-up sound is very loud, and I assume it can't be turned off -- that's a safety feature, I think. That's a sound that really travels.

There is some distance and some trees between our yard and the business, so I guess you could call it a buffer, but it's not much of a buffer. The safety beep-beep of the trucks backing up is still pretty loud. It woke me up this morning. And it goes on through much of the day.

So I guess I'll have to investigate what my options are, but I'm not optimistic. I'm sure they can't just shut off the beeping. And I'm sure they won't want to just stop selling fill / wood chips / whatever else the trucks are delivering. And I'm not aware of any magical sound barrier that could be constructed to deaden the sound.

Back when this commercial development was still in the planning stages, I attended the public meeting where the proposed development was presented for local residents to comment on. I asked at that time whether the development would mean there would be loud noise, like that from construction equipment, starting at 6 am. "Oh no, nothing like that," they replied. "And we don't even open for business till 8." Alas, reality has not complied with that prediction. And naturally the trucks are operating at 7, which I really don't appreciate on my days off when I'm hoping to catch up on some sleep. And the noise goes on all day.

I guess I'll have to talk with someone from the town to get a clearer definition of what the town considers to be an adequate buffer. I know that in some areas they put up earth berms to minimize commercial noise, but they probably can't do it here - power lines are in the way.

Anyway, if anyone has advice or experience in this regard, I'd be interested to hear it.

[dwest]

Vegetation generally doesn't do a good job of blocking sound. It can be an important psychological factor as in "out of sight, out of mind." A berm or solid noise abatement wall would do a better job. The berm would have to be designed based on several factors including frequency of the noise you want to abate. The space needed for such a berm may exceed the area available. Walls are more expensive but in confined spaces they can be very effective and can be used as a surface for growing more vegetation like vines or blocked with trees and shrubs.

[rhulsey]

I feel for your situation and good luck with your efforts. While I don't live next to a business (just a giant, news-making ash disaster) I live on a ridge and the interstate is probably less than 1/2 mile at its closest point. From my house I can see a shopping center with Kroger and Lowe's that is around a mile 'as the crow-flies'. I do occasionally hear the back-up beepers from the shopping center when the wind is calm. The interstate traffic noise is constant, especially the "jake-brakes" the truckers use. The noise is lower in the summer when the trees have leaves, that's for sure. And before the pine beetles killed the pines, there was a lot less noise year round.

[mutepointe]

Been there, done that. My only advice is to teach yourself to not focus on the noise. But please, let me tell you my experience.

I rented a house in downtown Hurricane, WV for a good number of years. This was all the noise in my immediate neighborhood.
1. The town fire whistle was IN MY YARD. If this thing went off during the day, even with doors and windows shut, I could not hear the TV or hear the person on the other end of the phone. I would just have to tell them I would call them back. After a while, I could sleep right through this whistle and never hear it. Someone shot this whistle, killed it good. We were prime suspects in the neighborhood. It wasn't us. They moved the whistle to the police and fire station that were just across the railroad tracks. The new whistle was even louder but not so loud in my yard.
2. The railroad tracks. Coal trains regularly went by at scheduled times. 4am was a scheduled time. Our dog found it necessary to go outside and bark the train away every time it went by.
3. A laundry/dry cleaner. I never patronized this business and they were on the other side of the railroad tracks 200 yards away. For some reason they had a phone and intercom system loud enough that I could hear their phone ring and their staff paged through the intercom when I sat in my yard. I never figured this out.
4. The basketball hoop. Our next door neighbor had a basketball hoop on the garage right outside our bedroom window. He was a grown man, in his 30's or 40's, and he played basketball with friends and kids and anyone else who would play with him everyday, rain or shine, all seasons, even in snow storms, in the dark by the street light, well after bedtime. I would always hear dribbling. I never ever spoke to this man. I thought he might be recovering from a drug addiction or something.
5. The gravel road. Even though I lived in downtown Hurricane, I lived on a gravel alley. Any car that went up that road could be heard the whole length of the alley.

Even with all these noises, someone turned us in to the Humane officer because our dog barked. I showed the humane officer all the noises in our neighborhood. He heard my dog bark when he knocked at the door. He said it was his job to drop off the paperwork.

I liked living there. I wish I could have stayed but I couldn't have afforded to buy a home in the area. Try your best to make the noise something positive. Turn it into a song or something.

[BillChin]

After a while most folks adjust. Folks live near airports, train tracks and other places with high noise levels and after a while the humans adjust. They do tend to experience higher levels of stress, but they do manage.

Some simple things a person can do are to buy a white noise machine, or nature sound machine for their bedroom so the early morning noise isn't as annoying. A fan or a radio left on (even to static) are alternatives that most already have on hand.

The outdoor alternatives mentioned get much more expensive and labor intensive.

[Doug_Tipple]

For a number of years I rented an apartment on a busy street. The house was built long before automobiles were all that common, so the house sat very close to the street. The fire station was one block away on the corner. In addition to the trucks that literally shook my whole house as they went by, the fire trucks had got up to speed when they were passing my apartment, and they often gave a blast on the air horn, day or night. Then there were the motor cycles and little 2-cycle screaming scooters.

Thankfully, now I live in blissful serenity in a sheltered neighborhood right in the middle of a large city. Except for the few aircraft on approach to the airport, we have very little traffic on our street. I am so thankful for this respite from the noise of urban living.

[s1m0n]

For a while in Montreal I lived in a flat with a firehall across the street out front, a biker-owned high-performance motorcycle shop across the alley out back, and a strip bar next door-but-one, although thankfully it was only a two-storey building, and we were on the third floor of three. Halfway through my year there, someone objected to being thrown out of the bar, and came by after closing and firebombed it. Luckily, being about forty yards from the firehall, the boys were on the scene pretty promptly and the fire didn't spread.

[hans]

What is a Humane Officer?

Noise is a pain.
Not likely to get any better till we used up most of the fossil fuels.
Dreaming of a world without combustion engines...

Instead of these backing beepers some trucks have speakers giving an automated voice message "Attention! Reversing!" or such. It is a less penetrating noise. I suppose it needs a campaign to ban beepers...

[MTGuru]

What is a Humane Officer?

Animal Control officer, Animal Welfare officer, dog catcher.

[I.D.10-t]

Some times Noise Ordinance laws have times that are more stringent than others. Minneapolis has several covering the times some sporting events, snow plowing equipment, and construction equipment can be run (all are different). Long shot, but often businesses choose to ignore these laws.

[Redwolf]

I second the idea of a fan or white noise machine. Those soft ear plugs they sell for travelers to wear also work pretty well, and are quite comfortable.

It's funny how sounds that keep some people awake don't bother others. I guess humans have differing levels of sound sensitivity. I remember when I first moved to North Carolina...my first summer there, I could hardly sleep because of the noise the insects and frogs made at night (summer nights in the south are much, much noisier than here out west!). By my second summer, though, my mind had turned it into pleasant background music.

When I was in Dublin, I stayed at a hostel that was right next door to a very busy tourist pub. I had heard several complaints about the music that went on until the wee hours of the morning, and I do have to say that it was quite loud, but strangely enough, it didn't bother me. Other than waking up briefly once in a while, groaning "not the feckin' "Wild Rover" again!, and rolling over to go back to sleep, I barely noticed it.

Redwolf

[missy]

I grew up in the country. When I first moved to my apartment in the "city" I thought I'd never be able to sleep through the traffic noises, the police and fire sirens, the air planes, and the lights (never see stars here).

I adjusted.

While I still live in the "city" and have all those noises - we also have woods behind us. So we also get the occasional screaming, fighting raccoons, snorting rutting deer, and barking dogs.

The dogs are the worst (ours don't bark).

But I still adjusted.

About the only thing lately that has gotten to me was when a house one street over had it's alarm go off, and the police couldn't shut it off without having the power pulled (homeowners were on vacation). It went off for 2 days straight. I slept in the basement that night, with hearing protection.

[MusicalADD]

Thanks for all the thoughts and observations.

I'm surprised at how many people seem to say, more or less, "Live with it, you'll get used to it." Sometimes that's appropriate, but sometimes it's more appropriate to fight, if you're faced with excessive "sprawl"... well, I could go on but it would bore anyone not living on my street.

I do sleep with an air filter, which is not very quiet, so I do have white noise. Even with that on, and with the windows shut, the backing-up beep is still loud enough to wake me up, and I'm not a light sleeper. So, I think the noise is excessive and if this continues I'm going to have to do something.

But, today, for a change, there is no beeping. Perhaps the last couple of weeks were not business as usual, but some special project that is now done? Fingers crossed!

[BillChin]

Thanks for all the thoughts and observations.

I'm surprised at how many people seem to say, more or less, "Live with it, you'll get used to it." Sometimes that's appropriate, but sometimes it's more appropriate to fight, if you're faced with excessive "sprawl"... well, I could go on but it would bore anyone not living on my street.

I do sleep with an air filter, which is not very quiet, so I do have white noise. Even with that on, and with the windows shut, the backing-up beep is still loud enough to wake me up, and I'm not a light sleeper. So, I think the noise is excessive and if this continues I'm going to have to do something.

But, today, for a change, there is no beeping. Perhaps the last couple of weeks were not business as usual, but some special project that is now done? Fingers crossed!

How exactly do you plan to fight? Ban the trucks? Close the business? Change the zoning? If other neighbors all agree with you, there is strength in numbers. If you can get all the neighbors together, the group might be able to change the delivery schedule. However, the stress from heading up that kind of battle may be worse for a person's health than anything related to some few minutes of minor noise, a few days a week.

A person needs to choose their battles carefully. Fighting over a minute or two of beeping trucks a few days a week sounds to me like a waste of precious time and energy, but it is up to the person. All that time and energy dedicated to that kind of fight might go a lot further in terms of other projects, other goals. If you think it is a good idea to fight go for it, but try to find lots of allies. Even with allies, a likely result might be a slightly different schedule. The problem with that solution is that current schedule is upsetting to you, a new schedule may be upsetting to one of the other neighbors.

Perhaps you might be more objective if you try to solve my problem. I live two blocks from a Fire Station. Fire trucks roll by with full sirens all the time, often in the dead of night. Even in the day time it is more than irritating. How would you propose I fight? Do you think I would have ANY chance of changing the route of the trucks (thus making them take longer to get to the emergency), moving the fire station, or having them run silent? I think you may have a better chance in your battle, but not by much.

[MusicalADD]

How exactly do you plan to fight? Ban the trucks? Close the business? Change the zoning? If other neighbors all agree with you, there is strength in numbers. If you can get all the neighbors together, the group might be able to change the delivery schedule.

Yes, you answered your own question. I was thinking of at a minimum changing the truck schedule to at least start later in the day, at least on weekends. And no, I wasn't thinking of changing the zoning, but rather, investigating whether the zoning that is there is being respected now. I know that it is the town's intent to see to it that there is a buffer between business and residential areas, and I don't know if this business has established enough of a buffer because I don't know the details of the laws.

As for the firetruck example, that is a completely different situation. My previous house, which I lived in for 10 years, was around the corner from a firehouse. I never attempted to change anything about the firehouse operations. I don't think that's especially relevant to my current situation. If I objected to living near a firehouse, back then, then I wouldn't have bought that house, back then.

Meanwhile, back in the present: businesses have a tendency to do what is most profitable, even if it is harmful to the community. If no one in the community every pushes back, you end up with, for example, urban sprawl and WalMarts extinguishing mom-and-pop stores. So, there are times when it's appropriate to push back. Not yet clear whether my current situation is one of those times.