Summer In Detroit Neighborhoods

**evergreen** · May-19-10, 09:07 PM

I hate summer in Detroit. Much as winter wears you out physically, summer has a set of issues that are even more dispiriting. Years ago, I looked forward to summer weekends, but the noise level in my neighborhood is such that I pray for rain on weekends. I cut back on planting flowers etc etc because it's impossible to enjoy the outdoors when at any given point - at least after about 12 noon - some of my neighbors may begin blasting music at volumes which are inconsistent with any sense of sharing a community with other human beings.

I've had the walls rattled in my home at 2 or 3 in the morning and actually on one occasion had to get up and get dressed to ask the humanoid to turn his stereo system down [[I had elderly relatives spending the night). It is so enraging, actually an act of contempt and disrespect.

I laughed today when I read in the New York Times that Hank Jones, a grammy award winning jazz pianist, would practice for hours at home using an electronic keyboard with headphones on so as to avoid disturbing his neighbors' peace. I love him for that alone. As I write this, it's about 10:00 p.m. on a Wednesday night and one of my neighbors' music is audible throughout my home. I typically work an 8 to 11 hour day and when I get home I just want a little peace. In the winters and cooler months I can get that rest, but in the summer it's a little dicey.

Don't say call the cops because they have never once responded to a noise call in my neighborhood. This is Detroit.

Detroit is hell with harsh winters and never more hellish than in the summer.

Retroit · May-19-10, 09:15 PM

Ghetto people tend to be loud. Get used to it or move to the suburbs like everyone else.

**Fury13** · May-19-10, 09:48 PM

Get yourself an old hooptie. Remove the mufflers. Start the engine and rev it up to about 6,000 rpm constantly in your driveway for hours at a time. If your neighbors complain, just say, "I'm just trying to fine tune my car. Besides, I didn't think you'd be able to hear it, your music is so loud."

And as you said, the cops won't respond to any noise complaints about your car. It is Detroit, after all.

**Jimaz** · May-19-10, 10:05 PM

Total posts: 4

Welcome to the forum, evergreen. Invest in some earplugs. You're going to need them.

**eno** · May-19-10, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by Fury13

Get yourself an old hooptie. Remove the mufflers. Start the engine and rev it up to about 6,000 rpm constantly in your driveway for hours at a time. If your neighbors complain, just say, "I'm just trying to fine tune my car. Besides, I didn't think you'd be able to hear it, your music is so loud."

And as you said, the cops won't respond to any noise complaints about your car. It is Detroit, after all.

That's what guns are for. Kill the noisemaker, kill the noise.

**evergreen** · May-19-10, 10:36 PM

I bought earplugs years ago, they are largely ineffective. Tonight it appears I will be evicted from my own bedroom as the party is on on that side of the house.

I have a dream, God willing, to be out of Detroit in about three years. Because the level of civic morality in this city is below zero. It's not just the noise, you see it in a million ways, the litter, the dumping, the gratuitous ugliness of the environment. [[I know poverty can explain some things, but leaving the garbage can in your front yard - come on!)

I will hate to leave here though I have been in this community for decades and there are still some great folks here, but I do not intend to spend my retirement in this hellhole.

By the way, it's past 11 p.m. and it's still going and yes, I asked them earlier to turn it down.

God bless you all and have a good night.

**Jimaz** · May-19-10, 10:47 PM

I bought earplugs years ago, they are largely ineffective.

No they aren't. They're quite effective today. They've been effective for years. I've tested them myself. BS. Other arguments might have worked better. Move on.

Don't start threads with only four posts under your belt unless you're sincere. The first two words out of your mouth in this thread were "I hate." That's a dead giveaway.

**wolverine** · May-20-10, 12:21 AM

Man, what a shame. I've been in this situation before. Does your neighborhood have any other residents that share your concern? Form a block club to help regulate noise? I'm not sure. I'd think it would be more difficult to combat this problem if you are talking about a neighborhood with single family homes whereas an apartment building is property operated by someone else who sets the rules.

DetroitDad · May-20-10, 12:55 AM

Evergreen... I feel you. I just had an issue in my apartment building...

How about the next time this happens you call the cops, and if they don't show, then maybe post here for help, and whoever is up and on the boards will be willing to help you hound the cops about it. I certainly would do that for you.

They should at the least send a car out like they do here in Downtown. I've had no negative experiences with DPD.... so far.

**Detroitnerd** · May-20-10, 07:49 AM

I use a loud fan in my bedroom. Usually, for me, the white noise is enough to drown out the occasional screaming. When I lived in New York, some of my friends had devices called "white noise generators," which helped them sleep.

Just some suggestions. I've had some hard neighbors before. Sorry for your suffering.

**SWMAP** · May-20-10, 09:26 AM

I feel for you about this. My neighborhood is really quiet at night except for an occasional party. There isn't an all-night culture here because most Mexican people start leaving for their work at 6:00 AM. However, I have a mentally-ill woman right next door who is eternally angry at her [[distant) family, at fate, at the DPD, at the City, at her dead husband, at her poverty. She takes it all out on me with loud rap music all day pouring into my house because she knows how much it bothers me.

I find ear plugs hard to use. I do wear construction ear muffs, use fans [[they are a great help); had my house retro-fitted for air-conditioning [[that I don't care for). I sometimes take half a Tylenol PM to fall asleep.

Unwanted, uncontrollable noise will raise your blood pressure. I agree that you should move away from it as soon as you can. I hope my neighbor kicks the bucket soon. I see that she's behind on her taxes and her house is on the internet as a pre-foreclosure - so there is some more realistic hope.

**Johnlodge** · May-20-10, 09:39 AM

First we had the Detroit loving, suburb and whitey hating greenfield stirring up trouble... Until he got banned.

Then suddenly comes the Detroit hating, fleeing to suburb evergreen showing up and starting a questionable thread.

Can't wait to hear what schaefer and hubbell have to say.

**mkhopper** · May-20-10, 09:39 AM

Originally Posted by Retroit

Ghetto people tend to be loud. Get used to it or move to the suburbs like everyone else.

That statement of moving to the suburbs doesn't ring true much anymore, at least in my neighborhood in Redford.

I dread summer because as soon as it gets warm, out comes the group of white-guys-acting-like-black-thugs that hang out [[in)conveniently at the house right next door.

Drinking, drugs, language and the odd, seemingly completely random ROARing at nothing. Yes, I mean roaring as in yelling as loud as possible for no apparent reason. 3am may as well be 3pm to these fools and not a one of them has a job or goes to school.
I've had calls into the cops many, many times, but unless someone is actively in the act of killing someone else, they hardly ever show up.

There are some families I've talked to in the area who are afraid to even come outside and enjoy the day when these idiots are around. Not, they don't want to have to listen to them, but actually afraid.

**ct_alum** · May-20-10, 09:46 AM

Evergreen:

Call DPD and tell them there is a wanted murderer in the problem house..............SRT will take care of them, especially if you tell them that they'll be on t.v. For good measure, tell Grandpa Evans that there will be a photo op.

**SWMAP** · May-20-10, 09:53 AM

Feel kind of horrible to call the police when there is so much real crime and not enough police in any precinct. I always think they have bigger fish to fry. There is a certain price to pay for living in a big city and noise is probably part of that price.

**jackie5275** · May-20-10, 09:54 AM

[quote=mkhopper;147545]That statement of moving to the suburbs doesn't ring true much anymore, at least in my neighborhood in Redford.
quote]
You're not the only one. I'm in Dearborn with one neighbor to my left who is outside from about 8 am to near midnight either blasting out his stereo in his garage and/or constantly revving his motor cycle and one neighbor to my right who will also rev his motor cycle on a daily basis. These neighbors aren't teens or college age people partying. These guys are both in their 50s, an age where I thought that by then you'd like to have some peace & quiet.

To add insult to injury, I have 3 neighbors across the street who are seniors who all think their lawns have be manicured like the TPC. They all hired the same landscaper who cuts their lawns & uses a leaf blower to blow the clippings in the street. This landscaper comes twice a week to work on all 3 of their lawns each time, and averages about 45 mins at house. That comes out over 2 hours straight of nonstop machinery noise.

**daddeeo** · May-20-10, 10:31 AM

I used to live in Livonia years ago and this problem came up. Called the cops and they did their job and things returned to normal.
Never had a problem with load noise again.
When you have a situation where people don't respect the law or their neighbors, you're going to have a problem. I've heard Belle Isle [[in the summer) often gets ruined with loud music and trash throwing people. Too bad.
Idiots live in the suburbs too but there is usually less tolerance of them. White trash, black trash, it's all the same. No class and no respect of others.

**GPCharles** · May-20-10, 10:54 AM

Out here in Grosse Pointe it is the tinkling of ice in the cocktail glasses that gets me revved up. You get 2-3 Grosse Pointers together and you would think they were the Baja Marimba band. Can't people just drink their spirits neat and be done with the ice?

And everyone wants to show off their new golf swing. It's worse than living next to a windmill farm, all the arms and legs moving around...

**ggores** · May-20-10, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by GPCharles

all the arms and legs moving around...

Yeah, and what I really used to hate about summer in the neighborhood was, for example, you'd be walking down the street, all peacable and stuff, minding your own beeswax, when, all of a sudden {and you could hear it coming twenty feet away, them things were loud like a kamikazi coming in}, um, and out of nowhere, PLAT! Adhered to your backside would be a praying mantis, the most-feared flying bug of them all. You'd scream "AH!!!!" and yell for your friend to get that damn thing off of you. Well, your chicken-assed pal would take a couple steps, lean forward, and try "flicking off the monster". This never worked. So eventually, your friend would have to gather up some gusto and reach in for the clutch and tear the bug off your back. Meanwhile, you could feel that bug digging in even deeper, getting set to bite into a chunk of flesh. Them mantis' had horriffic clutches, what with their prickly legs and sticky toes and all. But a captured mantis was not a bug to discard, or throw down on the ground and smush. No. So you'd take it home and throw it in the insect aquarium and enjoy its antics for a few days before releasing it back to the wild. There was just something about those bugs. Now, one time I took one home and put it in an empty aquarium along with a Venus Flytrap that I'd bought at Frank's Nursery. The experiment proved fruitless as the mantis gave up the ghost after about six days. As for the plant, it just kinda hung on for a month or two. I hated when THAT happened! But I digress.

**5speedz34** · May-20-10, 01:05 PM

Moving from Woodbridge to Islandview my neighbor to my left is young and renting and plays music so loud sometimes during the day that I can't believe he still has his hearing.

This "noise pollution" is the same in the suburbs though; at my parents house in Shelby it's all the people that get their lawns cut. Actually thinking about it Detroit is definitely quieter. We have one neighbor who insists on cutting his grass with a commercial grade lawn tractor which I swear has no exhaust to speak of.

**bailey** · May-20-10, 01:09 PM

Summer pet peeve: Ice cream trucks. Blocks and blocks of that same damn music....over and over....and over.

**Johnlodge** · May-20-10, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by bailey

Summer pet peeve: Ice cream trucks. Blocks and blocks of that same damn music....over and over....and over.

Either "The Entertainer" or "Turkey In The Straw" until madness creeps in.

And the worst... the one that lets out a creepy "HELLO?" between loops of the music.

**Detroitnerd** · May-20-10, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Johnlodge

Either "The Entertainer" or "Turkey In The Straw" until madness creeps in.

And the worst... the one that lets out a creepy "HELLO?" between loops of the music.

In Hamtramck it's "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" My friends call the "HELLO?" truck the "hip-hop ice cream truck" because of its chunky beat.

**5speedz34** · May-20-10, 01:22 PM

Who hates on ice cream trucks?! Honestly?

**DetroitScooter** · May-20-10, 01:37 PM

After a long day of listening to "Turkey in the Straw" on the ice cream truck, I was tired, so I headed home. After listening to some loud angry-rage rap for an hour or two, I remembered that I had some scooter tuning to do. Into the garage I went to rev the snot out of some scooters when I realized that all was quiet. So I turned up the music to ear-damage levels and continued working on the bikes, bouncing them off the rev-limiter for good measure. Then my realized that my lawn needed mowing so I mowed and clipped and hedged and blew it all in the street. I later finished out the evening [[well, 3AM) with drinking, drugs, foul language and seemingly completely random roaring. Good times in the big city.

What were we talking about, I can't hear. ;-)