The reasons why people upset their neighbours continue to grow:
A weightlifter has been fined £70 for exercising too loudly. Giran Jobe, 36, was charged with 47 breaches of a noise abatement order after neighbours complained that his two-hour training sessions with dumbbells left them unable to sleep. A council team investigating complaints about noise from his top-floor flat in Margate, Kent, found that at times the level hit 100 decibels – as loud as a rock concert.
I have not come across this reason for neighbour annoyance before. Anyway, in my experience, the most irritating thing about going to a gym – as I do at least twice a week if possible – is the pounding, Chavvy music that these businesses insist in piping into the rooms. There seems to be some assumption that you get better exercise if there is lots of noise assaulting the ears. Maybe it is to do with the idea that certain sounds encourage quick exercise: there might even be academic studies proving the link between a raised exercise rate and music. I suppose this makes sense; anyway, dancing is one of the best exercises of the lot. Although the JPearce dance technique is unlikely to catch on anytime soon, you will no doubt be relieved to know.
Totally agree about the annoying music, the gym I used to go to had an East European instructor – Polish rave anyone?
I thought not.
It’s not the music so much that bothers me. It’s the folks pretending to do bench presses while their partner stands over them, does most of the work, and yells “IT’S ALL YOU! IT’S ALL YOU!” at the top of his lungs.
And the women who apply makeup with a trowel in places where people might be trying to breathe. Well, not so much makeup as perfume.
And the inability to use a squat cage because people are using them as coat racks. There are perfectly good locker rooms for that sort of thing.
And that, friends, is why I lift at 2AM. A lot less nonsense. (Well, except for the night staff who tell me that deadlifting should be banned because it’ll destroy my back and is useless for ‘toning’ whatever that is.)
Although Stef has a good one: I’ve never heard Polish rave “music” but I can only imagine.
Maria Sharapova, call your voice coach.
Heh. Our downstairs neighbour recently left us a note reminding us to place the toilet seat down gently instead of letting it drop!
I do think that people sometimes need to calibrate their expectations of acceptable noise to the place they live. A badly designed block of flats in the middle of a big city is never going to be a place for peace and tranquility.
Rob: Ah yes. People who leave notes in order to avoid actual conversations. I know the type.
My favourite noise story was in Sydney where people bought some flats in a new development across the road from a container port, and then complained at length about the noise. (Sydney harbour being what it is, as well as being across the road from a container port, these flats were ten minutes walk from the centre of the city and situated on one of the more beautiful pieces of harbour, so I see why they bought them. But still). I recall a lovely sign that went up outside the port in response which essentially said that ports are noisy and there is not much prospect of this changing.
Mitch, you may enjoy this video.
One of the most elegant responses I’ve seen to Sharapova’s ugly (and technically illegal) shrieking.
Some folk are just bloody minded mind.
The first year we spent in this house, some friends from America and Cardiff turned up to spent new years Eve with us.
The flat downstairs( ours is a maisonette) had a rather miserable old couple, who hated us for just being young and having the money to buy a house (I was 26)!
Well there were 4 good musicians amongst us and as the wine flowed , a jolly acustic jam was going on.
We broke off for the Big Ben chimes, and at precisely one minute past 12, the old bag was banging on the ceiling with a broom handle!
We ignored her.
Urrrrmm…why get the government (aka “Mommy”)involved at all?
Why not just approach the big fella, offer to chip in to buy him some nice thick floor mats that would bring the noise down to an acceptable level…
I don’t like music in places where I hope for conversation. Back when I was exercising, though, I found “Who’s Next” sped me up quite a bit.
But one man’s Mede is another man’s Persian. I figger with the iPod and friends we can each have our own appropriate music. And the gym itself should just shut up, please.
You’re all raving mad you know!
To quote Peter Butterworth.
Gyms?
I hated gym at school even.
We did it in a freezing cold one, with just a pair of shorts and plimsoles on.
Mind you it did have it’s pluses.
We had to climb ropes all the way to the ceiling and stay there for a while.
Well being a weedy but smart sort of lad, instead of monkeying up the rope like everybody else, I used to wrap the rope between my crotch and around my right leg, then use the left for a brake.
I could have stayed up there for hours with no effort at all.
Except that our gym teacher, Biffer thought I was taking the piss one day and ordered my down
This Instant!
Well I forgot to unwrap the rope from my leg and…
Well the fabulous friction of the descent left me a little puddle of bliss on the gym floor.
What the hell is the matter with you boy!!??
Bellowed Biffer.
Well I couldn’t tell him, aged 11
I think I’ve just had my first sexual experience sir!
Now could I?
RAB: I’m sure you remember her fondly:-)
True, but people need to calibrate their expectations of acceptable behaviour to the place they live as well. I’ve had drummers and DIY enthusiasts upstairs, and one memorable Boxing Day, the people downstairs decided to have a sing-song round the piano at 4am.
Being the diffident live-and-let-live sort of chap I am, I always feel bad about complaining, but there are limits. And, having lived in flats all my life, I’ve heard them all broken at one time or another.
Alisa, she never writes
She never rings
She treats me like a piece of old rope!
At my gym, the free weight enthusiasts seem to supplement their progressive resistance training with operatic grunts when they lift a weight. That’s to show you how powerful their lifts are. But, when they set them down, they don’t just set them down. They drop them from as high up as possible. This reduces the effectiveness of the exercise but it makes a satisfying WHAM when the weights hit the mat. That’s to show the whole gym what heavy weights they’re lifting, especially us wimps over at the weight machines. After all, dropping the weights is what the competition weightlifters do in competitions, so shouldn’t the wannabes copy them in training? So if the weight lifter in this case belongs to the grunt-loudly, drop-the-barbell school of non-thought, I can understand the noise complaint.
Did you consider the possibility that they hated you for being noisy arrogant drunken assholes with no consideration for your fellow human beings?
It’s just a thought, you know.
Never in a million years Ian B !
Because we were not.
When that couple finally moved away, an old neighbour
told us that Phylis (the old bag) could not bear to be touched, let alone have gentle uplifting guitar music caress her soul.
Consequently she and her husband had never had sex in their lives.
Given your line of work,
wouldn’t this make you unreasonably uptight? 😉
Some people might think that these people are nit-picking, BUT even nitpickers need jobs! Think of all the work for Bureaucrats! (Incidentally, think of the fortune to be made from better noise insulation systems! Any inventors out there?)
As for RAB and the rope- you’re better off without her! I’ll bet you weren’t her first, nor last. At least the phrase, being shown the ropes, will always have a special meaning for you!
Can’t speak for RAB, but most people hate me long before they figure out that I’m a noisy arrogant drunken asshole.
But I can’t blame the old man in the story for being sore. I’m already bitter enough about marriage and that was the (relatively) functional part. I can only imagine how I’d be if I went through all that and never even got any. It would be damn ugly.
(Thus the line in the Pace Picante Sauce tv ad, “Get a rope.” Contrary to popular belief, it had nothing to do with lynching.)
100 db for a rock concert? I’m a sound engineer and the only time rock concerts stop at 100 db is because of a noise ordinance, but that’s usually regulated based on the sound that escapes the venue. The closer to the speakers you are the more db you ar exposed to.
You folks across the pond were at one point the folks that gave us Zep and Motorhead, right? What happened to that England?
YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP, KYLE, I COULDN’T HEAR YOU! WHAT DID YOU SAY??? PLEASE EXCUSE MY DEAFNESS- TOO MANY ROCK CONCERTS IN MY YOUTH!! WHAT, I”M TOO LOUD?? WILL YOU SPEAK UP?!!