Let's see if we can come up with some advice for "Sleepless in Montclair," who writes in about neighbors who keep him awake regularly with their loud carrying on.
Very curious to get your readers' opinion on this - how late is too late to be outside in your yard or front porch at night being loud in Montclair? Is it different on a weeknight vs weekend? If your homes are on top of the neighbors (as so many are in town), does that count? If it includes underage drinking and lots of cars on the street, does that change the equation?
We have been tormented by our neighbors for years and it goes on an average of four nights per week. We've tried everything and the cops, whom we have only engaged twice, seem more annoyed with us than the neighbors (and we've limited our calls to the times when the parties continued past 2am).We hate to take law enforcement resources away from what really matters, but we will live an otherwise quiet street, we paid a lot for our home (like many in town, obviously) and, it goes without saying, our taxes are high. i guess we foolishly expected a certain type of neighbor in this town and maybe we've just gotten very unlucky, but anyone who has had to deal with something similar? we'd love the advice!
Thanks -
Sleepless in Montclair
Of course, Montclair does have a noise ordinance. Click here for a PDF. Bottom line: it's a "nuisance" if it annoys someone, and can be punished by a fine up to $2,000 and 90 days in jail. Maybe since the police are tackling quality of life crimes like public urination and failing to yield to pedestrians, noisy neighbors will be next.
UPDATE: Here's a tip that comes in from someone who'd prefer to remain anonymous:
This is how I stopped a loud neighbor.Neighbor next door, top part of window didn't close and he'd play his music loud during day, and I could hear it loud and clear in house. I didn't think he knew how it was loud, he kept it within noise ordinance in Clifton, so forget police calls (Clifton does enforce noise complaints.)
What I did is I have a large wind chime with 1 inch metal pipe as chimes. I never used it because to be realistic, I knew it was not fair to neighbors, sucker is loud.
I put it outside, and prayed to the good lord it would be windy every night around 2 am in the morning.
Three days later I see landlord out there measuring window to replace it and solve my problem.
I did apologize to neighbor on other side about chime, worked like a charm!
Off the top of my head, I'd say after 10 PM on a weeknight is fair, maybe 11 PM on the weekend. I'm not talking about people's normal conversations, but loud music, raised voices, screaming.
But sometimes noise is a tricky thing. We live next door to a family we adore but the father has a penchant for LOUD tools: saws, leaf blowers, sanders. And always on Sunday afternoon. But these folks never said boo about our backyard wedding with music and cars on the street, so we cut them some slack.