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Ask Slashdot: Cost Effective Way To Soundproof My Home?
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?
Exactly, this has happened to me too, twice. Once my wife and I ended up going to court over it (same thing as you: if a dog barks for at least 10 minutes, it's disturbing the peace and a criminal citation by city code, so the owners were prosecuted and a cop testified the dog barked for more than 10 minutes), and another time it was a renter who had a vicious pit-bull which bit several neighbors (!), so we contacted the landlord and he was evicted. Of course, the pit-bull owner insisted it was everyone else's fault for his dog biting them.
My conclusion is that dog owners are generally narcissistic assholes and the sound of a dog barking its head off for hours on end is music to their ears.
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.