Is your neighborhood quiet or noisy at night?

[ea56]

We live in a small town with a population of about 7,000, but there is also a state of Calif. university in the neighboring city, of about 50,000 pop., so its a college town in a way too.

Our 20 unit townhouse HOA is right downtown, but our complex looks like a park, lots of beautiful trees. Redwood, Sycamores and Liquid Ambers. We are almost a block from a busy street, which used to be the state highway before the ‘new’ highway 101 opened in 1957. That freeway is about 1/2mile to the West of us. So we are sandwiched between two heavily traveled roads, But the noise is only really evident during the morning and afternoon/evening commute hours. Otherwise, its just barely background noise. At night after the little strip mall nextdoor closes down there is little noise. We are so grateful to have wonderful neighbors on both sides of us. One is a gay women that was here when we bought the house in 1994, she’s been here since 90’. And our other neighbor is a single man about my age, who is quiet and a pleasure to know. There are wild turkeys that frequent our complex, and at the Walgreens down the street there are anywhere from 20 to 40 chickens that roam freely around the store and parking lot. There was a house there before Walgreens and they had a chicken coup. When they moved out for the Walgreens to be built, they left the chickens behind. The Walgreens employees have been feeding the chickens for the last 25 years!

And I can walk for 10 mins to the West and I’m out in the country. This little town is really a wonderful place to live. And the few times we have had disturbances, the police are here in 5 mins of less, and best of all, they actually take care of what ever the problem is! The PD and FD are both less than a half a mile away. There is also a goddamned Casino in the neighboring town. This place has brought way too many extra people, and a lot of grifters too, with all the problems that go with them.

We are a 30 min. drive to the Pacific Ocean and the same amount of time to Redwood forests and the Sonoma Mountain hills. The Russian River is also a 30 min drive away. The only bad thing about Sonoma Co.now is the tremendous, overnight population explosion. It used to be so much more quite and a slower pace. Also, housing costs have gone right thru the roof. But we’ve transitioned with the progress, and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Quite simply, its Home!

Eddie

 

[fan-of-fans]

Trains

I live several miles from the closest train track, but on certain nights I used to be able to hear them. Probably depended on what direction the wind was blowing. Seemed to happen most often on cold winter nights.

Plus I can hear the cars on the highway if the wind is blowing right and I'm about 5 miles from it. It's just a dull rushing sound that you kind of tune out.

When the hurricane came through last summer, had to sleep with the windows open due to the power outage. Very noisy with all of the generators running, not that I wasn't part of the cause of the noise. Even the whole house quiet generators can be heard several doors down.

 

[wayupnorth]

I have discontinued train tracks that separate 2 of my lots behind me and have to pay the state $200 just to cross my own land thru my driveway. Last State Rep fought for me and state told him that it was gravy and no way they would give up ownership of this unmaintained stretch of tracks since the late 70's. I remember as a kid, the train to Canada went thru at 6 in the morning and came back at 6 in the evening. The millions of dollars it would cost is not worth it to rehab. I can put up with crows and loons, no problem, just not a train in my back yard.

 

[superocd]

My neighborhood is almost always quiet and uneventful. Its a typical suburban cul-de-sac type of neighborhood. Most of my neighbors are retirees or working professionals that seem to never be home.

Speaking of screaming foxes, an aunt of mine lives fairly secluded in the woods. Not Appalachian secluded but she doesn't have neighbors close by and her backyard is at the foot of a massive forest. The first couple of months there she heard screaming at 1 AM. My uncle was away on a business trip or something, so she was home alone. She told me she had been watching TV downstairs when she heard it and called the police, absolutely terrified. Her home is a typical McManson where the entire front of the house is all windows, floor to ceiling, and she was terrified that the "murderer" would soon bust through one of them.

Several deputies showed up as expected when there's a terrified caller on the line who swears someone was being butchered in the forest behind her house. Some of them checked out the perimeter of her property and the immediate forest behind her home. They radioed back to the deputies still in her home that nothing suspicious was found and so they informed her that they get calls like this every once in a while from people new in the area unfamilar with the fact that the area is known to have a fox population. Before moving out into the sticks, my aunt and uncle used to live in a typical suburban cul-de-sac, so she truly believed that something BAD was happening out there and didn't think to remember that nature does have pretty odd and scary sound effects.

Even after the sherrif's department debunked her theory that someone was out there hurting or killing someone that night, she's come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories, like thinkng that a serial killer will use the woods as an "opportunity" to murder someone since the blood-curdling screams will be mistakened for just another late-night mating call by the people who live in the valley and that no one would be bothered to call the police. I'm like, that's very creative thinking, you should go make Lifetime movies. She isn't one to come up with crazy conspiracy theories, either, until after that night.

She also thinks that someone could hide across the road, in the woods, and see inside the entire house. Yes, you can see the downstairs (when the shades are open) and the upstairs balcony/hallway (which didn't have shades at the time) from the road at night, but I highly doubt that someone will actively creep out in the woods across the road from someone's house. She didn't seem to think so.

Last Fourth of July, we had a get together at her house. She had me stand across the road at dusk to see if I could see in the house from that far away. I could, but the house was 600+ feet away from the road. I could barely make out the upstairs balcony. I took pictures on my phone from that distance to show her how anyone couldn't just "peep" into the house from that far away. I show her the pictures and she just says "what about binoculars! They can use binoculars!" At that point I'm laughing and so is everyone else. I'm like, binoculars schminoculars, how could I forget?

Shortly after, she had custom motorized, remote-controlled shades installed for the upstairs windows, which had to have cost some decent money. I told her to stop watching all of these horror movies. It turned out she was watching one on the Lifetime channel when she heard that screaming that one night.

I guess one advantage to the shades upstairs is the fact that all the solar heat radiation coming through all those windows on the frontal elevation of the house would be reduced and would lower their cooling costs a bit in the summer. The house has dual, zoned Trane NG furnace/heat pumps to heat/cool 5000+ feet. She wasn't even thinking about the potential of energy efficiency, though, it was all about keeping the "crazy watcher in the woods who wants to kill people" from peeking in.

 

[blackstone]

Sure, it's quiet today. But that's following a night when I got only 4 hours of sleep.