- Joined
- Feb 1, 2015
- Messages
- 9,622
I am fortunate to have my nearest neighbors a half mile away. We had an incident with one of them over noise once. He was a mechanical engineering professor at UW and had an ongoing extracurricular project going with a group of students involving souping up off road vehicles. He set up a 1/3 mile dirt track for testing and several times during the summer, he would have the group out for eight hours of testing. The nearest curve was 200 yds from our house and the constant noise from unmuffled engines couldn't be drowned out by the lawn mower.
My wife called up to complain and spoke to his wife. She told my wife that it was a University project to which my wife replied, " fine, I know the chancellor" Five minutes later, the wife was over and five minutes after that, the professor stopped in. His response to the noise we were hearing was that he didn't realize it carried so well. He moved the event to his brother's farm and that was that.
We live in a rural area and noise is a common occurrence. Everyone heats with with wood and has a chainsaw, including me. I have had a couple of three hour sessions this year. We understand that. It is part of the trade-off for living where we do. A couple of neighbors a firearm enthusiasts. One buys ammunition for his AK47 a thousand rounds at a time. Another likes target shooting and some days there is a constant repetition of shots for an hour or more at a time. In winter, there is a snowmobile runabout 200 yards from the house. Although it is set up for public use, we are fortunate that there is little traffic and so far none at 3 AM. Wisconsin got tough on drink sledding some years back so bar hopping on snowmobiles is way down. Being well off the beaten track helps as well.
My biggest complaint is the weekend bike races and tours that stream past our house. Some years ago, when it was thought that Chicago might have a shot at the Olympics, Part of the "Tour" was to have run on our road. Cyclists from all over the midwest started running on our road. An Illinois based company set up a for profit race running past the house. A Madison race called the "Horribly Hilly 100" makes not one but two loops past the house. We would have races or tours every weekend. Off duty cops would be hired to police the events and they would stop regular traffic to let cyclists run, sometimes shutting a road down to all regular traffic. One of our neighbors who farms was told that he could leave his driveway to go to his field with his tractor. For the most part these are people from cities, towns, and suburbs. I can only imagine the uproar that would occur if someone decided to have street drags outside their houses. We finally managed to slow things down. We have a couple of meetings with the county board and some ordinances were passed to regulate these events. The number of events is limited now and permits are required.
The strangest thing though was an event I ran into (nearly literally) coming home from work one evening. I came around a corner to see herds of people on modified skateboards with push poles to simulate cross country skiing. There were several hundred and they were all over the road, four and five abreast and there was no way to pass them. I had to follow them for about a mile to the next intersection where they turned off. I'm not sure what would have happened had there been oncoming traffic. Fortunately, it was a short-lived fad.
My wife called up to complain and spoke to his wife. She told my wife that it was a University project to which my wife replied, " fine, I know the chancellor" Five minutes later, the wife was over and five minutes after that, the professor stopped in. His response to the noise we were hearing was that he didn't realize it carried so well. He moved the event to his brother's farm and that was that.
We live in a rural area and noise is a common occurrence. Everyone heats with with wood and has a chainsaw, including me. I have had a couple of three hour sessions this year. We understand that. It is part of the trade-off for living where we do. A couple of neighbors a firearm enthusiasts. One buys ammunition for his AK47 a thousand rounds at a time. Another likes target shooting and some days there is a constant repetition of shots for an hour or more at a time. In winter, there is a snowmobile runabout 200 yards from the house. Although it is set up for public use, we are fortunate that there is little traffic and so far none at 3 AM. Wisconsin got tough on drink sledding some years back so bar hopping on snowmobiles is way down. Being well off the beaten track helps as well.
My biggest complaint is the weekend bike races and tours that stream past our house. Some years ago, when it was thought that Chicago might have a shot at the Olympics, Part of the "Tour" was to have run on our road. Cyclists from all over the midwest started running on our road. An Illinois based company set up a for profit race running past the house. A Madison race called the "Horribly Hilly 100" makes not one but two loops past the house. We would have races or tours every weekend. Off duty cops would be hired to police the events and they would stop regular traffic to let cyclists run, sometimes shutting a road down to all regular traffic. One of our neighbors who farms was told that he could leave his driveway to go to his field with his tractor. For the most part these are people from cities, towns, and suburbs. I can only imagine the uproar that would occur if someone decided to have street drags outside their houses. We finally managed to slow things down. We have a couple of meetings with the county board and some ordinances were passed to regulate these events. The number of events is limited now and permits are required.
The strangest thing though was an event I ran into (nearly literally) coming home from work one evening. I came around a corner to see herds of people on modified skateboards with push poles to simulate cross country skiing. There were several hundred and they were all over the road, four and five abreast and there was no way to pass them. I had to follow them for about a mile to the next intersection where they turned off. I'm not sure what would have happened had there been oncoming traffic. Fortunately, it was a short-lived fad.
