[Lil Dancer]

We have a house where our lanai backs up to our neighbor's lanai. They spend all their time out there, eating meals, entertaining until midnight, etc. In addition, they keep their TV which is inside their house, on loud all day long. I sit on my lanai and have to listen to their TV programs, my neighbor on her telephone inside her house. The sound really carries, and they must be hard of hearing, because their voices are very loud and their inside television is very loud. When she does an exercise tape in the morning, I close all my doors and windows and I can still hear the tape in the front of my house. We've explained to them and asked them to quiet down, but it doesn't seem to register with them. They're nice people, but the noise is starting to drive me crazy. I feel like the space between the 2 houses is community space, and they act like its their personal living room. Anybody have any suggestions?

[Talk Host]

Wow, I do want to respond, but I've got to think about it. I can understand your exasperation. You have got to go about this in the right way, and you've got to have a reasonable solution. :dontknow:

[rathanasiou]

There are two issues with noise in The Villages. The first is neighbors such as you describe. The only way to deal with that is to let them know that they are polluting and ask them, politely, to knock it off. You may very well have to ask several times before they 'get it.' Offering sublte clues like cutting out hearing aid adds and pinning them to their front door in the dark of night is a last resort...

The second issue is lwan mowing. The thrum of mowers and blowers goes on day in and day out and is very annoying. My suggestion is that we have lawn mowing on the days after garbage collection and encourage (require) mowing companies to restrict their activities to those days only. That way we'd get th noise over with and they would be more efficient in allocating their time.

[Kitria]

Your plan for the lawn mowers might be efficient for the noise..but not for the mowers. They have to make a living. They have a certain amount of people a week. To then tie them down to a rigid schedule might mean less people in a certain area due to less time in htat area they can mow. It is tough enough for a lot of them.....even though there seems to be thousands of them, to maintain the client base..or increase the base if necessary as it is.

No, I don't own a mowing business. But I do have a terrific couple that takes care of our lawn and shrubs. We chat most weeks. It is not as easy as some of us think to time the client base each week.

Yes, I agree that the noise is sometimes bothersome, but it sure beats me having to go out and cut my lawn..and blow my leaves out of my carport. Come to think of it..if we all did our own lawns..there would still be noise all the time..as we all don 't mow on the same day. Holey Ned..having to be ordered to cut my lawn on Wednesdays? No thank you!!!!!! I would not like to be told when to do things.

[Kitria]

Lil dancer..as to your neighbors..do the other neighbors also complain.. perhaps a petition..or... get them all together and a noise war..*chuckles*.. if all are doing it for a day..mayhaps 2...wouldn't the offending neighbor get the hint... *sighs* perhaps not..but it if a petition doesn't work..fight fire with fire..??but then again..if you do that.. DO NOT BLAME ME.... twas not my suggestion..honest..and I would only resort to it as a last measure.!!!!!!! I am a very peaceful person..

[Lil Dancer]

I was hoping maybe someone had run into the same problem. Don't suppose The Villages will do anything about it if I complain. I did put a request in to the Architectural Review Board for us to put a screen enclosure on the front of the house, so we could get away from the neighbors out back, but I think its going to be rejected. I'm at my wits end. We'll certainly talk to them again, but they just don't seem with the program.

I agree with the post about the mowing. I was thinking of bringing it up with our neighborhood association. Maybe give the mowers an option of 3 days a week, vs. 7 days a week they now have. It might be a good compromise - At least we'd get some quiet time, and they'd have some flexibility in their mowing schedules.

[Lil Dancer]

Hi Kitriak, thanks for responding. The problem is our house is directly lined up behind theirs, so the sound shoots right across the lanai's into our house. The other neighbors are offset, and their houses are designed a little differently so they aren't in a position to hear the noise the way we do. My husband said something about fighting fire with fire. I personally hate to get into that type of situation. I'm a peaceful type of person too!! :-*

[REDCART]

When you think about how close the homes are in the Villages, it's very easy to image how intrusive a noisy neighbor could be. The fact that others haven't experienced it, would suggest that most people here are reasonable. Of course given the numbers it's also likely that somewhere down the road, there will be a few unreasonable people in any group of 100,000 people. The covenants and restrictions specifically address unreasonable noise. Since the Villages imposed these rules, you'd like to believe they're prepared (and willing) to enforce them. Good luck.

[Talk Host]

Call the "Deed Restriction" office and ask them for advice. I have talked to them in the past about dog issues, and they are VERY helpful. If you can't find their number on the inside of the front cover of the Villages phone book, call the regular villages operator and ask for the "Deed Restriction" office. They will send somebody out to the offenders house and talk to them. Only problem is, that the offender will likely guess who complained. But sometimes you have got to suck that up.

[JohnZ]

There is a legal approach. The Villages restrictive covenants aside, do some research with regard to your property rights regarding county nuisance ordinances. If you must, you may be able to take this to the county level. A police officer knocking on a door has a profound effect. If you've already talked to them and they remain recalcitrant, I don't know how you can effect a solution with damaging relationships.

[Lil Dancer]

Some good ideas, thanks. We're up north now, so its not a pressing issue, but when we go back, I'm going to talk to them, and if that doesn't work, I'll go to The Villages Deed Restriction office and see if that makes anything happen. If that doesn't work, it'll be the legal route. At this point I don't give a hoot if they like us or not. Does anybody know anything about soundproof windows? Maybe we could enclose the lanai. The acrylic windows don't seem to keep out much noise though.

[robinsdw]

We have the same situation and I really would like to know how to handle it without causing a controversy because the folks are actually nice people. In our case we are below them and they have a 3 sided lanai so the noise bounces off the wall toward us. The old neighbor behind them tried the route of The Villages but to no avail. We have essentially quit having anything to do with this neighbor in hopes they would get the idea but that hasn't worked either. This is so annoying and I think sometimes they do it in spite for the neighbors.