kati1337
2021-08-03 18:54:52
- #1
Yes, but you had already mentioned that you don’t want to take this path.
I’m really not sure if the music is objectively loud enough for that.
What does your husband actually say about it? Does it bother him as much?
It doesn’t bother him that much, I think – he’s not as sensitive when it comes to music, he can have background noise on while working.
What does bother him is how much it bothers me. He notices how stressed I get because of it. He sees that I lie awake all night and can’t get out of bed in the morning and that I’m overtired every day. The whole thing is so fixed in my head by now – precisely because I’m constantly going back and forth wondering if I want to invest any more time in the garden at all or not. Leaving the house again is quite a drastic decision, it’s driving me crazy and costing me sleep. And that, in turn, bothers/depresses my husband.
We shouldn’t immediately portray the neighbor as the villain. As Kati already wrote, it probably doesn’t bother the average person. For example, I know it from Poland. There, there are no quiet hours and it’s often noisy. At my mother-in-law’s place in an apartment block, every Sunday, really EVERY Sunday, the upstairs neighbor pounds schnitzel for about 1-2 hours nonstop.
Personally, I would not allow anyone to forbid me to play music in the garden on my own property. Sure, not with the bass turned up full and not very loud, but why did I build it? To only listen to music at home like in an apartment block? I think the “problem” lies somewhere in the middle: with Kati, because she’s so sensitive, and with the neighbor, who could maybe turn the music down a bit, not turn it off.
But it’s very hard to judge all this from afar.
That’s exactly what I’m saying: I don’t want to portray him as a villain either. The coin has two sides, even the forum is divided on this. There are people who find music in the garden okay. And there are people who say "I wouldn’t do that myself except for parties." Apparently, that includes all other households in our new development — just not my neighbor.
That doesn’t mean he’s necessarily doing anything wrong. Just that it’s extremely unlucky that someone who reacts sensitively to music bought the adjacent plot.
I don’t understand the connection now.
Is it so that you hear the music inside the house with doors closed or is it more a feeling?
No, I definitely hear it inside the house with the door closed, the windows closed, and the shutters down.
The bass clearly goes through, and when I’m in the bathtub and have to mentally follow some kind of rhythm, I might as well just pour the bath additive right down the drain. It gives me zero relaxation.
You once wrote about 45 dB outside.
That’s what my phone app showed me, I don’t think that says much.
I would have expected the expression “annoying” rather. Instead, anger is again a reaction/feeling that you can actually reverse with exercises.
Annoying comes before anger. Basically, “anger” is the emotion behind when people say they find something annoying. I’ve learned in my few years of gestalt therapy that we humans have many words to describe our emotions. But basically, there are only five: joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. And annoying almost always stands for “anger.”
The anger comes from feeling controlled by others. I want to bathe, want my peace, built my own home, and still can’t decide myself when I can take a relaxing bath. That makes me angry.
Now I’m a bit unsure. It’s rare to be able to block out “background noise.” The brain can do that. Controlled noises maybe too, but then the mind gets involved and asks “does this have to be?” “can’t they…?” etc.
Let me just ask: do you mean it like that? It affects everyone who can hear – everyone is affected in some way.
I can actually block out a lot quite well and don’t mind many noises at all. Playing children, circular saws, soccer fields, cars, garbage collection … many things I can leave in the background. But if I have to hear bass / a rhythm somewhere, then I actively listen without control. That stresses me out because I find it exhausting to listen to music for hours.
I can imagine it’s hard to empathize with, since it surely doesn’t affect everyone. But I assure you it’s true, and I find it so disturbing that I’ve had sleep problems for weeks and am considering selling my home built in 2020.
I would be a little careful now. Kati has our sympathy because we “know” her here. But we can’t estimate the volume or the neighbor’s mood. Also, I have not read anything about frequency or duration.
That doesn’t matter. The neighbor isn’t “to blame,” I don’t want to find anyone guilty. Maybe I just need a more suitable living situation for myself.
I’ve now found the old thread with the soundproof fence but could only read the last two pages.
It wasn’t actually defined that way, except in the other thread, that he set up the speaker in the middle of the garden. That would be basically similar to ?
Strictly speaking, he moves the speaker around every now and then. I don’t see it that way anymore because we put up a wooden fence. But I also consider that secondary.
Nothing beats hours of string trimmer noise. :)
I recently saw a new, private soundproof wall on a very busy road; the wall consisted of a grid structure – similar to gabions – but was filled with earth and coconut mats – the whole thing was then planted with ivy and honeysuckle. Looks very nice and should almost completely eliminate noise.
Funny enough, I recently looked into coconut mats / coconut mesh myself because I read they eliminate sound very well. I’m thinking about reinforcing our wooden fence with that.
Does anyone know where to buy such mesh as a private person, preferably thick and in large rolls?
Kati, how long and how often does the music play, have you already said that?
Hmm, different. When they’re working in the garden (they’re not finished yet), basically all the time.
Today, for example, I was in the garden for 3-4 hours and wanted to do some bed planting, which I did, but I also heard 3-4 hours of country background music again, and the holiday day didn’t relax me at all. Strictly speaking, I stopped at some point because it annoyed me too much.
But I also couldn’t go over and complain. It was actually fairly quiet, and I know he sets it that low because he knows it annoys me. They’re nice people really. I’m just not made for this.
The duration by itself is accompanied now by fear. I no longer have anticipation / can’t plan ahead. My “On vacation, you go out to the garden every day, I have so many projects to look forward to” has now turned around; I only think “will it be quiet for a few hours tomorrow so I can go outside in peace?” …
Today I tried, and the first day was already a failure. :(