Ask Slashdot: Cost Effective Way To Soundproof My Home? 388
An anonymous reader writes: As more and more people live closer together in tightly packed subdivisions, the mental stress of noise becomes a serious issue. Noise nuisance complaints are on the rise, litigation increasing. We try to tune it out, yet the stress it causes is still present, and there's seemingly no way around it." Six months ago a new neighbor moved in next door who has two dogs, one of which barks incessantly with a high pitched yip that is driving my wife crazy and making it difficult for me to read or work on the computer. I've already talked to my neighbor and he will bring the dog inside but three days later it starts again. What is a cost effective technical solution to knock 10 or 20 dB off the exterior noise? soundproof windows, an interior acoustic blanket,a sound blocking fence, a sound absorbing fence, planting foliage or noise cancelling headphones, or something else. I'm sure I'm not the first slashdotter to have this problem. What has worked for you?
neighbor (Score:5, Funny)
what worked for me was getting rid of THAT neighbor.
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(i submitted that without finishing) i simply created an incessant flow of legal documents from local council, police, neighbors, etc. in the end, the visits from annoyed policemen and council workers became unbearable and he moved. i managed to turn the whole neighborhood against him. now we have a new arsehole in his place but this one is just messy.
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Seems a bit extreme and you are probably lucky that things didn't backfire and the neighbors and everybody turned against you and you were the one forced out.
Re:neighbor (Score:5, Informative)
That kinda happened to us. Another typical story about the stupid neighbor with incessantly-barking dog; we called the police over and over (after trying to deal with them personally), a cop came out one day, found the dog barking, waited around 10 minutes, dog was still barking, so he issued a criminal citation. The key here is that dog-barking was a crime in the city I lived in, according to local statute. So he had to go to court and tried to defend himself; he even brought in his next-door neighbors to support him. He drew up a diagram showing how all our neighbors have dogs and we're the weirdos, but of course the prosecuting attorney simple stated the law, showed he was in violation, and he was found guilty.
"We all don't like you" doesn't mean squat when you're in violation of the law and the police are willing to testify against you and the city is willing to prosecute you. He ended up getting slapped with a fine and having to use a bark collar. The fine was a few hundred dollars I think, not huge, but if he got caught again leaving his dog outside for hours on end barking its head off, the penalty of course would have been much worse. This really shut up the neighbors for a while (both him, and his next-door buddy who also had a noisy dog).
We eventually did move out, but for other reasons. My advice here: before you buy a house, check out the neighborhood thoroughly and make sure there's no noise issues like that around. Also check out the local ordinances to see what legal power you have in case it becomes a problem. Personally, I've gotten to the point where I think it's pointless to buy a house at all unless you're ready to retire and/or are going to have a lot of land around you. Renting is better: you can move out pretty quickly, and given the way the job market is for engineering, I end up moving every couple of years anyway.
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The problem is, when you get married, usually your prospective spouse tells you all this stuff before you commit to it. She tells you about her kids, family, hopefully most of the emotional baggage, etc. You usually get to meet most of these other people too. That's what the whole "dating" phase is for, and why it usually lasts from 6 months to a couple of years or more these days. Most people even have sex a lot before they get married, so they can "kick the tires" so to speak.
That must be why marriages are so long lasting and reliable in our culture...
But you're 100% correct. When you buy a house, you pay your money and you take your chances. I am among the most blessed of men as my neighbors are all very pleasant and kind. And my wife is a real jewel who is patient, kind and giving.
I bought my 1920 bungalow back in '99 and it was in serious need of work. Since then I've replaced all of the original windows with new, wooden, double paned windows and the outside noise is
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it's called despair. imagine not having a good night's sleep for a month or two.
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Re:neighbor (Score:5, Interesting)
If the police were showing up and putting heat on the other guy, it sounds like he had his paperwork in order and understood the process.
In my State if a dog barks for over 15 minutes, that is disturbing the peace and you don't have to wait for them to get annoyed with the complaints, you can escalate them and ultimately have the dog removed. The only thing the authorities can do other than help you with the process is to pretend they're too busy, but that doesn't work every time; and if they do that you just go to Court and end up with an Order, and now if they violate it they have to move or get rid of the dog.
And if it is a rental and the dog is repeatedly violating the noise laws, sometimes you can force the property owner to give them a short term eviction notice to avoid shared responsibility for the ongoing legal violations.
It all depends on local law. Without that information, you're just making a false accusation. You can do that here with no penalty, but if you're playing the game he is of calling the cops over little shit and you tell a cop about a false accusation, that becomes a crime. We can assume that isn't the case, because of whose door the cops kept coming to.
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That would've been fine in my book — assuming, you try to talk the offender first, and only "go G" if he flips you off.
But the GP didn't do that — he, in his own words: "created an incessant flow of legal documents from local council, police, neighbors, etc". Such abuse of legal process makes one an arsehole in one's own right.
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And if it is a rental and the dog is repeatedly violating the noise laws, ...
The obvious solution is to rent a different dog.
Re:neighbor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:neighbor (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. It doesn't surprise me at all that I'd get a response like that from some narcissistic asshole on Slashdot (of course, from an AC).
In my case, the big problem was all the narcissistic assholes who left their dogs outside in their treeless, grass-less back yards, in Phoenix, in 110-degree heat, all day long. Sounds like animal abuse to me. In my case, after the asshole was convicted in court, he kept his dog inside a lot more (where I could still hear it barking, but I had to be in my back yard and it wasn't that easy to hear it).
Re:neighbor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: neighbor (Score:3)
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Only for the next person to move in with a bigger dog. Getting rid of the neighbour is not the solution if the neighbour is doing nothing wrong, especially since it can itself land you in trouble.
How about picking your house based on what you want? Find an apartment complex that bans animals. Move into a house. Move out of the city away from the noise.
What you have here is a lifestyle choice.
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Re:neighbor (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting rid of the neighbour is not the solution if the neighbour is doing nothing wrong.
And the corollary, of course: Getting rid of the neighbor is a great solution if they are doing something wrong, like chronically violating the law in a way that prevents you from the peaceful enjoying your premises. "Peaceful enjoyment of the premises" is a legal right in my State that applies to all residences, both homeowners and renters have that right. If the properties have the same owner, you can actually force the landlord to get rid of them.
Lifestyle choice isn't only something you have on the run. Many people desire to make a lifestyle choice when they select the home. Moving when people break the law in a way that impacts your property is not a sustainable, scalable solution the way that making the person breaking the law move is.
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Mr. Converse: Hello kids, I'm Mr. Converse. I'm a misleading fallacy of logic. You may have seen me before, while you were taunting your best friend for being fat. While it is true that if you eat like a snooty porker you will become fat, it is not logically true that if you are fat you had necessarily eaten li
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Ms. Inverse: Hello you little kids, I'm Ms. Inverse. I put the word "not" in front of both halves of a logical statement, to come up with something that looks right but isn't true. Let me give you an example... White people are good, therefore black people are bad. Isn't that easy?
Well, it is easy, but you still failed at it. Putting "not" in front of both halves of the logical statement "white people are good" would result in "not white people are not good" which, adjusted for proper grammar, would read as "people who are not white are not good", black people are only a subset of "people who are not white" and bad people are only a subset of "people who are not good", so even if your original statement had been correct (which I don't believe it to be), your corollary was improperly
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:D :D) wrote the term corollary when he was actually talking about the inverse.
First, that was a joke.
Then, Ms. Inverse's logic is supposed to be flawed anyway, just like Mr. converse's. You cannot talk about corollary in those cases, because the propositions are independent from one another. The GP (hi! we know each other from another post
Finally, black people are a subset of "people who are not white", but I have a hard time finding "people who are not good who are not bad" to show that bad people are on
Re:neighbor (Score:5, Interesting)
If the next person has a bigger dog and the city laws prohibit barking dogs, then you call the police and let the city deal with it again.
How would you "land in trouble" for using the legal system the way it's meant to be?
Moving into a house doesn't work: all my dog-barking experiences have been in houses, not apartments. Why should I move out of the city? In my experience, people in the country are even worse. You'd have to move somewhere where you can afford tens of acres around you, which is unrealistic. Why shouldn't I expect people to obey the laws of the city they're in? Why do you dumbass dog owners all think that laws shouldn't apply to you?
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Why should I move out of the city? In my experience, people in the country are even worse.
I live out in the country and what really grinds my gears is when someone from the city moves into the country and starts calling the cops about every little thing trying to control everything their neighbors do.
I'm surrounded by neighbors with barking dogs and the sound of gunshots. I've never been a big fan of the wanna-be dictators that live in cities so it actually brings pleasure to my ears to hear the report of liberty ringing through the woods and my fellow freedom loving country dwellers don't mind
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Only for the next person to move in with a bigger dog.
Doesn't necessarily mean a bigger / louder problem.
When I was young we had two German Shepherds who stayed outside in the back yard most of the time (we lived in Virginia Beach) and were normally pretty quite, unless something was wrong. Once, they *really* startled a guy who climbed over our six-foot privacy fence to retrieve a Frisbee, then vaulted over it w/o it when they started barking and running toward him. Two minutes later, there's a knock on the door by a very embarrassed guy asking for his d
Good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from the real estate market still being quite soft around the country, moving every time there's too much noise just isn't practical. It's expensive to move even with just getting help paid by pizza and beer.
And the thing is, no matter where you are, you have to deal with leaf blowers and other lawn equipment, motorcycles, people who insist on having car stereos that can be heard a mile away, people who have those loud pickup trucks and of course the dogs that were mentioned.
We live in a narcissistic obnoxious society that has no consideration for others.
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And the thing is, no matter where you are, you have to deal with leaf blowers and other lawn equipment, motorcycles, people who insist on having car stereos that can be heard a mile away, people who have those loud pickup trucks and of course the dogs that were mentioned.
We live in a narcissistic obnoxious society that has no consideration for others.
Do you live in Phoenix by chance? This sounds exactly like my experience in Phoenix. What really fixed things was moving the hell out of the southwest, and t
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False dichotomy, excluded middle.
Take your pick, moron.
Re:neighbor (Score:4, Funny)
With a sound proofed house, "getting rid of the neighbor" is even easier.
Get an anti bark device (Score:5, Informative)
Otherwise what I have found the most effective is outside vegetation around your property border. Gives you privacy from both sight and sound. Also pretty....
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Both Smith & Wesson and Glock make excellent anti-bark devices.
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Someone beat me to it. I was going to suggest .22 LR, there are cheap sub-sonics and ways to further reduce the sound. Not for the dog, the dog is innocent. It's the human that's leaving the dog outside and barking. Chain me up and leave me outside and I'm going to be a bit more of a problem than a dog barking.
Re:Get an anti bark device (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Get an anti bark device (Score:5, Interesting)
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Depending on the size of the dog, it would be more fun to have a cat big enough to eat it. ... and I don't like going for warks, either. Especially not when I'm actually doing something where the barking disturbs and annoys me! The owner would need to be an ectraordinary attractive and simultaniously very promising woman, to with her dog and her on a walk with a dog. :) to approach such a problem.
Honestly, I don't like dogs
But nice unconventional idea
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Take the responsibility of owning a dog away from the dog owner? No thanks.
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I doubt many people would willing hand their dog over "for a walk" to the neighbor who "always complains" about their precious dog and who "obviously" hates its presence and/or continued existence.
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In my experience, it was mostly right-wingers who had the barking dogs. Not necessarily the gun-nut kind though. The gun-nut kind (like the ones who have arsenals) actually seem to care a lot more about getting along with neighbors.
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Re: Get an anti bark device (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet if your neighbor is an asshole who is abusing his dog by not feeding him and keeping him outside then call police and society for the prevention of cruelty to animals
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Presumably they use ultrasonics, that's not going to work very well through a wall.
Unless you want to point an ultrasonic speaker at his window I don't see a way to avoid massive attenuation.
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And what ever you do make sure you're not using bakers chocolate as the theobromide content is close to 10x more than Snickers.
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And don't even think about planting a flowerbed filled with poinsettias, oleanders, foxgloves, and azaleas right next to your neighbor's yard....
But seriously, if you have single-pane windows, moving to double-pane or triple-pane windows will do more than anything else you can do. And for maximum benefit, choose a window with a high STC number. You can also often get window inserts that add another pane of glass outside your existing windows, which can be cheaper than replacing everything.
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And this is why I don't contribute organizations which help people. They're not worth the effort.
Overall sound-reducing strategy... (Score:3)
.
As you get closer to your ears, the sound reduction becomes less selective and you wind up reducing the level of sounds that you want to hear..
Re:Overall sound-reducing strategy... (Score:5, Funny)
In other words, build a soundproof box around the dog.
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Adding noise (Score:2)
Reducing the sound transmission is good, of course, but usually difficult and expensive. Adding more absorption inside the space is always good, will gain you a few more dB, and improve the environment for listening.
But the best and cheapest method is to add noise.
How can adding noise improve the situation? There's already too much noise! This has to do with the nature of hearing and attention - the so-called invisibility of the familiar. Ever notice that when the AC or a fan turns off you suddenly noti
Contact bylaw enforcement. (Score:5, Informative)
Document the noise and contact your local bylaw officers. Present them with a clear explanation of what's happening. Video will help. In most jurisdictions, there are restrictions on outside noise that lasts longer than a certain duration and that occurs after a certain cutoff time at night.
This is not a problem you should attempt to resolve by wrapping your house in 3 feet of bubble wrap and duct tape.
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In our area it is 5 minutes of continuous barking in any 15 minute period max. Call your local animal control, get a video or audio recording.
There are two warning visits before a modest fine.
Expect to piss off your neighbors, but the alternatives are much more expensive.
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But what if you work nights and have to sleep during the day?
That's been my situation for many years. If sleeping is the problem, it's easily solved with earplugs. The OP is plagued during the day. He could use earplugs, but I suspect that's not what he wants. Ten to twenty decibels is a lot of sound-proofing, and that would cost some real money, (and you may never achieve that level of sound reduction).
OP:
You could go with heavy curtains on the side of the house where the noise originates. You'd be amazed how much sound the right curtains will absorb. Blackout curta
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Even with very good ear plugs, you would still hear a loud barking dog.
Perhaps ear phones with noise cancelation would help?
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These worked for my noisy office. (Score:5, Informative)
We created a few "quite spaces" in our loud office with Acoustic Soundproofing panels. You cover the doors, walls, and ceiling, and nothing gets in or out. They worked wonders.
www.amazon.com/Mybecca-12-Pack-Acoustic-Soundproofing/dp/B00TP7C9YY/
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Those wouldn't work for us, where the noise is external and structural and VERY low frequency. Following your lead I poked around a bit and found these, which seem like they might serve the purpose much better. Might....
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate... [amazon.com]
Noise-cancelling headphones (Score:4, Informative)
The Bose QC25 are the best ones available right now.
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Two problems:
1. "No highs, no lows, must be BOSE."
2. Noise-cancelling headphones generally do not work well for vocal ranges; they work well for constant noise as others have pointed out; generally lower-frequency and/or constant sounds like ICE and turbine engines, road noise, HVAC, and so forth. It actually has the reverse effect on vocal ranges which are intermittent sounds; when the background sound is removed conversational and animal vocalizations become more noticeable. A better solution is sealed
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Right, meanwhile the warmer and more purple sound coming through the Monster cables makes the music taste more like bananas and less like bat poop.
The reality is the vast majority of people simply cannot hear the stuff that audiophiles claim to be able to hear. An oscilloscope can't either, apparently.
Which means in a blind listen I'd bet most people will never be able to tell highs/lows/Bose thing.
If you're someplace where you want noise cancelling headphones, you're p
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So I suppose you hear no difference between radio trash full-range speakers and Klipsch reference series or palladium series speakers?
If you can't hear the difference, I truly feel sorry for you because you really are missing out.
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Yeah, I use three layers: 1) over-ear hearing protection like what chainsaw guys use, 2) in-ear earphones, 3) brown noise or rainstorm sounds, turned up as loud as need be.
I sold my $300 noise-cancelling headphones because they didn't do any better, and were much more fragile and harder to replace. (and I'm not an audiophile, I just wanted the noise-blocking)
What they do for airport noise... (Score:5, Informative)
Not only does it make your home quieter, it makes it more energy efficient. It may not eliminate all outside noise, but at least bring it down to a less distracting level.
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Walls & insulation (Score:3)
My house has 2x6 exterior walls, with insulation in them. My interior walls are 2x4, but are also insulated. Outside noise is so reduced, when there is an accident on the super sharp corner we live on, we don't hear it - hte neighbors 100 yards further away do and they are the ones that call the cops/ambulance. We notice when we see the flashing lights outside...
Leo Kottke, Pepe Hush (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Acoustimat (Score:4, Informative)
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That sounds really useful for a multi-story building, but not really not so much for the submitter since the dog isn't in his basement :)
For a dog next door, double paned (or even better, laminated) windows and acoustic insulation/etc in the outer walls would probably be a much more effective first step.
Talk to the neighbor again (Score:2)
Of course there are other ways you could fuck with them. Feed FiFi the dog some ex-lax. Explosive diarrhea will result. You could also experiment with narcoleptics and benzos too. Maybe even some Prozac for the pooch.
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All of which stands a pretty decent chance of you having the police show up at your door.
Pretty sure if you go around poisoning your neighbor's dog you'll find that is frowned upon.
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Safer alternative:
http://www.petmd.com/dog/care/... [petmd.com]
Dog Benadryl. Will make the dog sleepy with no other side effects. Just have to start small with the dosage, and up it slowly until it's right.
Just use it when the dog is being especially annoying.
Did it to my house. (Score:5, Informative)
It's all about physical isolation, and mass.
1. Stagger your studs on shared walls. This will mean that the sound hitting his wall and your wall won't pass through the shared studs.
2. Sound isolating drywall. It's not that much more expensive than regular drywall. Its heavier and has a membrane sandwiched in between: http://www.quietrock.com/ [quietrock.com]
3. Hat Channels and clips. The clips get screwed to the studs and the hat channel sits on the clips. The channel sits on the clips, and the drywall is screwed to the channel. This means sounds hitting the wall will not transfer to the studs (and vice versa)
http://www.soundproofingcompan... [soundproofingcompany.com]
4. Wrap your electrical boxes for outlets and switches with quiet putty, seal up and joits where air can move with acoustic sealant. Anyplace air can move, sound will leak through.
http://www.soundproofingcompan... [soundproofingcompany.com]
5. Fill the walls with insulation. The more mass you can cram in there, and the more airflow you can stop the better.. regular R-21 will work.
6. Double up your flooring. Put acoustic sealant between the layers. Get a mass loaded under rug foam pad.
http://www.soundproofingcompan... [soundproofingcompany.com]
I did this all to my TV room, cost about $600. I can crank it up in there, and it can't be heard in the rest of the house.. Its on the second floor above the kids room
Apartment or house? (Score:2)
For an apartment you are somewhat limited. Wall hangings made of heavy fabric are helpful. You can add inexpensive moving blankets behind the decorative layer to aid in sound control.
For your own house added insulation is really effective. Insulate the exterior walls, blown in is pretty effective.
If you really need quiet ripping out the interior walls and putting in isolation walls with fiberglass or cotton batting will be much much more effective, both as insulation and soundproofing. You only need to
Carpet (Score:2)
When I worked at the AV dept at our local community college back in 1979 the resident engineer sound proofed a recording room by glueing shag carpet to the walls. I was surprisingly effective.
Back to the question... (Score:2)
...about soundproofing, not poisoning dogs, I believe it was.
Nobody's mentioned that soundproofing and heatproofing are largely the same thing. If your walls are well-insulated, your primary entrance for sound is through the windows. The questioner didn't mention his climate, but if he doesn't have double-pane glass, that's your major problem there. And you're probably cheaper to go to triple-pane or just two sets of double-pane before you start coating all the rest of the walls with another layer of acou
Move (Score:3)
To an actually nice neighborhood where the setbacks and minimum building lots are sufficient.
Anti Barking electronics work.
From the sounds of your area do you have a HOA to abuse and thus abuse him, those fun things like 3 people show up to elections so get 2 neighbors and vote yourself in.
Check the laws abuse him with those, if you can't abuse him while staying within the laws. I suggest ICP blasting as max legal decibels as early/late as possible. Put a sign on speakers that it's dog barking abatement. Another good one is enough security lights to make sure it's daylight coming through his windows sporadically 24/7 you obviously live far to close to your neighbors thus making thus effective.
Fake it get a lawyer to threaten to sue for the lose of use/value of your home, the cost of soundproofing etc etc. I am not saying it will stick just that many view the threat very seriously.
Do not use a gun were a nation of insane anti gun laws, often crossbows and other non firearms are just as effective and remember in many places an animal in your yard is fair game to kill check with a lawyer first obviously.
If you can get away with it kidnap the dog bring it to a distant no kill shelter after checking and removing any microchips. Probably a better life that living with these tools.
Realize that in everything but moving your going to have to deal with a pissed of neighbor for at least awhile. Suggest a good full coverage CCTV spread to capture any repercussions. I do firmly suggest moving to someplace that has reasonable zoning not these built on top of each other to make the developer happy places.
Get a dog silencer (Score:5, Informative)
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My initial use of a battery powered (four D cells) dog silencer had limited success despite placement beneath an eve within 20-30 feet from a neighboring large attack dog in a neighborhood with small lots and small tightly spaced homes. Later I tried a high powered a dog silencer powered by a 110V outlet under my back patio in a neighborhood with 1/2 acre lots and it worked instant wonders on two large loud dogs nearly 100' away.
Know Yourself (Score:2)
If these kinds of things bother you, the next neighbor will just as much as the current one.
I can't stand that kind of living (grew up that way). The other morning my big noise complaint was a moose bugling from across my field, but that's pretty rare. Once in a while a helicopter goes over or a logging truck rolls by, but compared with barking dogs and hourly sirens, there's no contest.
First be happy, then get rich.
Don't hurt the dog (Score:2)
It's not the fault of the dog. It can't express it's desires in any other way. The owner hasn't trained it properly so it is just doing what it's natural instincts are telling it to do. To poison the dog is completely unfair to the dog as it hasn't done anything wrong. The fault is entirely with the owner. If they trained the dog properly and paid attention to the dog then it wouldn't be making a whole lot of noise to annoy the neighbourhood.
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Harming the dog in any way (unless the dog actually attacks you) is neither the answer nor is it right. I once heard an experienced trainer say "We train the owners as much as the dog."
How much do you want to spend? (Score:2)
Because soundproofing is not a simple process, it's construction. It may be cheaper to hire a lawyer than to improve the soundproofing of your house. Acoustics 101 [acoustics101.com] is a good resource despite late 90s appearance (full disclosure, Auralex is the company that makes the site, I sell Auralex products as well as other manufacturers products). The cheapest way to improve your soundproofing is to use something like their SheetBlok, but a 4'x30' strip runs over $400 and it's really meant to be put in between laye
Hedge (Score:2)
Leyland cypress is fast growing, dense, and looks interesting.
Insulation or Indoor/Outdoor Carpet (Score:2)
Indoor/Outdoor carpet is fairly cheap, and deadens sound pretty well because it has both fuzzy stuff to deaden high frequencies, and also a rubber backing to deaden low frequencies, as in suspended lossy mass.
NYT article posted today about this exact topic (Score:2)
Step 1 fix your holes. (Score:5, Interesting)
do not even bother with wall soundproofing until you replace all your windows with triple pane and seal up every single air leak. adding a storm window to the outside of the triple pane will also help as each air gap will significantly reduce the sound levels transmitted into the home. after you do all that, THEN have the wall insulation replaced or actually added. Most homes in america have little to no wall insulation as most homes are older than 1950 when heating costs were cheaper than insulating.
now fix all your doors, bet you that every single one of them has crap seals that all need replacing. Door seals need to be replaced every 4-5 years, 99% of all homeowners do not do this. if your doors are really old wood panels replace the whole door and door jam with a modern steel/fiberglass wood core door with at least a double pane window in it.
A typical home, expect to spend about $10,000 to bring the windows and doors up to at least current and dramatically reduce the noise incursion.
Easiest way (Score:5, Funny)
You guys are so funny with your various poisons, sound proofing techniques, intimidation and legal maneuvering. All you need is peanut butter. I guarantee that dog will be gumming a golf-ball sized ball of peanut butter for at least 15 minutes straight, and once it's done getting all the peanut butter out of its mouth, it will be too tired to bark. Works every time.
Oh boy, slashdot sure has changed... (Score:2)
Not so long ago, this thread would have been full of technical solutions, but now mostly its like, call cops, look before you rent... blah blah
For your windows, you have to get double glass windows for soundproofing. For the walls get Acoustic foam. Something like this
http://www.foambymail.com/ACS-... [foambymail.com]
or this
http://www.foambymail.com/NE/n... [foambymail.com]
Not too expensive, and will take care of the noise.
That said, if you are in a concrete building, the sound comes in through doors and windows.
If you fix your doors and wi
.22LR (Score:5, Funny)
A .22LR will do the trick, or if it's a particularly large dog a .38.
Effects of Noise Pollution? (Score:2)
It seems to be an overlooked part of city life, but I believe noise is a major contributor to general stress and fatigue. And not just noticeable noise like dogs barking or loud music, but the background noises you forget about until it's switched off.
Have you ever worked in an office building when the aircon goes off and all of a sudden there's an eerie silence? That buzz is in your ear 8 hours a day, but you don't notice it. Background traff
Foam Board (Score:2)
My vote is for something else (Score:3)
Obligatory [xkcd.com] xkcds [xkcd.com].
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I opened that link. That firearm is right straight retarded. I think I may order one when I get back home.
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WTF is that thing? Is that a bullpup shotgun with two barrels? How'd they even get the barrels long enough (I think the minimum shotgun barrel length is 16" for it not to be a "sawed off" shotgun which is highly illegal without some special license)? And does it fire both barrels or alternate? Wacky. I've never heard of the manufacturer either, which seems worrisome.
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Dual pane windows help (Score:2)
I replaced the single pane windows in my old house with double-pane, and they do help reduce noise from outside, when they are closed.
Adding wall insulation, usually blown in, should help, too.
The least expensive solution is to wear foam ear plugs, however.
30db quieter, on average.
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Fuck city dwellers who move to rural areas and then complain about livestock and pets.
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Fuck city dwellers who move to rural areas and then complain about livestock and pets.
Fuck country bumpkins who move to the city and have feral animals as "pets" that bark nonstop because they didn't go to doggy-preschool and now it is Lord of the Flies.
Just because those city-slickers don't look so tough, don't think they're powerless to deal with these sorts of problems. They may have a lot more process backing them up than you imagine.
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I can almost guarantee that if you pay a lawyer to write up a nasty cease and desist order (even if it's kind of BS) than any noise YOU produce will be met with paying a lawyer that would write up a nasty cease and desist order to YOU. Especially if you live in USA. Please understand that if the dog lives there it performs the security function that is necessary for your neighbor, and that it's more expensive for him to move or hire a security than to countersue.