Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: noise-ways to deal with it

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Re  Katherine G. Hamils  Noise questions:

Biggest noise issues I know of are kids and barking dogs.  All else is 
temporary.

--How loud is too loud?

Varies with individual tolerance and perspective.  I have two kids and 
have grown accustomed to their noise.  A non-parent adult might find 
their noise very loud and intolerable.  A parent with two louder kids 
finds my kids to be very quiet.


--How much freedom have people been willing to give up to respect
                their neighbor's need for quiet?

Odd notion, giving up freedom.  In our community our quiet hours have 
little impact on folks ability to do things. We made them flexible.  
Sunday mornings are for sleeping in.

--Do you have quiet hours and how are they respected, and enforced?
Yeah we created quiet hours. Can't remember the details other than 
Sunday morning no noise until 9am, and also if you are going to party 
loudly after 10pm let your neighbors know.  They are enforced, as are 
most all our few rules, by each other.  The other day the guy doing 
some road work showed up with his truck at 6:30 on Sunday.  I didn't 
even hear it but it woke up one of my neighbors and she marched over 
the contractors house in her bathrobe and slippers, pounded on his 
door,  and chewed him out.  Needless to say, the next time the truck 
came on Sunday morning, he didn't show up till 9.
        
--How has your group dealt with:

stereo and TV noise?
N/A  We have separate houses
power tool and lawn mowers?
Not a problem as long as they are not in the quiet time
                        
        
--What sort of things have been problems and how have they been
                dealt with?

We had a renter who had a barking dog. We talked about how unpleasant 
it was and the renter didn't leave the dog out when they were gone 
anymore. In terms of site design issues I would be aware of locating 
areas where kids play. I have heard several comments from closely 
designed groups that kid noise is the biggest noise issue.  There is a 
balance between locating kid play areas within site distance and also 
mitigating noise.  Its a tradeoff.

--Has conflict resolution been helpful in resolving problems?
People seem to deal with noise issues in person with the noise maker.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood