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Citizen complaint of the day: Squeak, squeak, squeak, all night long
By adamg on Sun, 04/05/2015 - 10:43am
A concerned citizen reports on the constant squeaking on Chestnut Avenue in Jamaica Plain:
The neighbors have an extremely loud weather vane on top of their house. It squeaks all day and night. I'm not sure where to put this request as I've talked to some tenants and they can't go up on the roof and get it down. This is a weird request but it's noise pollution and it's so loud.
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Comments
How about some grease?
It doesn't have to be taken down, just ask them to put some grease on it.
WD 40
"Can't get on the roof"
Send it to...
...a warehouse in Pennsylvania. They can replace the defective bearings with new ones.
Use Grease
WD40 is for cleaning, not lubricating....
Read the complaint
The tenants said that they can't reach it.
*someone* can reach it, even
*someone* can reach it, even if the tenants can't.
Aaaa yuppies
Welcome to the city!
Whut?
Weathervanes are an urban thing? The u in yuppie stands for rural?
Aaaaa Yuppies
Remember Muffster from Charlestown who wanted the USS Constitution to stop firing her cannons at sunset? Shipyard living not city living.
Aaaa, you're barking up the wrong tree!
I know from city living: Was born in one, grew up in one, live in one, and so I can safely say squeaky weather vanes are not part of the normal urban background noise, and that people have a right to complain about it.
This person has a right to
This person has a right to complain about anything they want, at all -- and I and anyone else have a right to laugh in their face if they actually take the time, living in an urban environment, to fixate on and complain about this noise source. God forbid a motorcycle go by or a plane fly over!
I don't know what the noise ordinances there are, but where I live it's a fixed dB at a fixed distance, and required to be measured with an actual meter (e.g., 55dB @ 50ft). Now, if my neighbor came over and asked me nicely to do something about it, I'd be happy to do so. If OTOH I received a visit from some city bureaucrat because the neighbor snitched over something as trivial as a squeaky weathervane, I'd dig in and tell them to get bent. Come back with a dB meter and if it's so much as 1dB under the legal limit at the legal distance, get bent. Treat your neighbors with respect and you'll get it in return; act like a child tattling to the playground monitor and up yours.
The neighbor did come over and talk nicely
To those of us who understand words and their meanings, "I'm not sure where to put this request as I've talked to some tenants and they can't go up on the roof and get it down" is not equivalent to "the neighbor snitched over something as trivial as a squeaky weathervane." Given that the neighbor could only find tenants who don't have access to the roof, the landlord probably isn't around and can only be reached via "a visit from some city bureaucrat."
Why are you being such a tool?
They DID try to resolve it with the neighbor, you incredible jerk. Please tell us where you live. I'll send someone to stand outside your bedroom window and make a squeaking noise all night long at irregular intervals, loud enough and often enough to wake you up every time you fall asleep. Then in the morning we'll ask you how "trivial" it is. Oh, and then I'll tell you to "get bent".
Ask the tenants for the contact info of the landlord
Then call the landlord and request that something be done (as mentioned above, likely just needs to be greased).
Here is the place to report it
Along with the Boston Code.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/environment/airpollution/noise.asp
And you can get a pretty good decibel meter app for most smartphones. That will also be useful for checking when you need to add earplugs for protection in some places and for some tasks.
All noises are not created equal
Even if they measure relatively low with a dB meter, some noises are much more intrusive than others. A squeaking noise is going to be more annoying than a hum of the same measured loudness. I once had an upstairs neighbor who had one of those rotating clotheslines on his deck, and wind would make it turn back and forth at irregular intervals. He apparently didn't hear the groaning, squeaking noises it made, but it was right above our bedroom, and we sure did. I talked to him, and we found a solution, but that was easier than this weathervane problem.
Why waste the city's time on this?
All they have to do is find a ladder, climb up on the roof and oil the thing themselves. People are so lazy.
Who's "they"?
And when is the last time you climbed up on top of a roof? And how many apartment dwellers do you know who own extension ladders?
When is the last time you
When is the last time you tuned up your sarcasm detector?
Not recently enough, it seems
...but you have to admit, it's slightly less preposterous than much of what is said around here in all apparent seriousness.