Folks who move into areas that are inherently noisy and then complain about the noise get no sympathy from me.

I can't help but wonder sometimes that people want everything. They want to live where the action is but then complain about the noise next to them, above them and down the street, the action is closed and another bank opens.

Me, I like to visit the action and then go home to someplace under the radar.

Bepsf - I think it is situational. I live in the east village (because I like the bar scene among other things) and have a bar that recently opened that has a completely open front (the windows role away) that they leave open all night. Other bars in the neighbourhood close street patios, and similar windows at 10:30 - 11pm. I love the bar and its clientele, but I dont like trying to go asleep at 12:30 with my room filled with the bar sounds. Its all a question of what is reasonable....

We live on a busy street. There is construction, there is traffic. This past weekend our city hosted one of the biggest college football rivalry games in the country (TX/OU) and so there was noise above and beyond.

I can now sleep through/tune out the following: sirens, bass, air brakes, talking buses, general chatter, jackhammers.

When I opened my window and yelled down at the street to Please Stop Yelling - it was 3am on Friday -- roughly 8 hours before kickoff and an hour after the bars shut down -- and someone who clearly didn't realize he was walking outside a residential building was yelling obscenities veiled as cheers for his team.

The only time I've called the authorities was about a year ago when 3 cars blocked the intersection outside of our building in the middle of the night - back up traffic in 3 directions - to open their doors, crank up their radios, and party in the street. There were horns, there was yelling, there was music....it was 2am and ridiculous. All three drivers were actually arrested that night.

The rest of it -- specifically during "business hours" I ignore. I knew that I was trading a peaceful street for the privilege of being walking distance from the main library, the farmer's market, and a zillion restaurants and boutiques.

The best example I know is when neighbors near Tucson International Airport banded together to attempt to impose legal restrictions on the overall noise levels, hours for takeoff & landings and types of planes.

The judge tossed the complaint out because the airport was built in the 40's - when there was no civilian housing for miles in any direction. Every one of the residences in question was built after the 40's and knew that they were building/purchasing/renting very close to an international airport in a growing city.

I chose my neighborhood in San Francisco because it was close to the action. The person who chose that neighborhood should've done more research before moving in.

I agree with bepsf and art : the street I live in is noisy, the city has a quartier of its population composed of students between 18 and 30 years of age. Every thursday is bar/party night.

Apartments just outside the city center, or in more tranquil neighbourhoods, are just as expensive. I don't understand why young couples with babies move into this street and then complain, the fact of having young children seems to justify anything, and I agree with the feel that people want everything and a piece of cake. This is kind of like houses that don't have windows on the street, for some reason I find it actually anti-social (in my case at least).

I'm saying this, even if since I moved in ten years ago a bar opened in front of my building. They have hard rock concerts on weekends (of course it couldn't have been a nice jazz lounge, or a cabaret, oh well...). Sometimes it is annoying but I got used to wearing ear plugs. Festivals that last all night long only occur once a year.

It's not like if in a usually quiet nieghbourhood you have all night outdoor parties or peolple yelling, that IS annoying and disrespectful, in that case Clairepetrol I agree.

For the anecdote, the local archives have written complaints dating from the early years of the university, that is from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, saying that the students make too much noise in taverns at night and keep the good bourgeoisie from sleeping. When you know this, it doesn't seem like it could change tomorrow just by yelling out the window.

You've aired my favourite rant! Thanks! People who buy or rent cheaply near an airport and then campaign to change the flight paths; people who move into gay-friendly retail and clubbing districts and then complain about their children seeing men holding hands; people who move next to a popular outdoor venue and then go to court to close it down; people who call the police about low-key parties at 10pm on a Saturday ... these people should all be living on large, isolated properties in the country. Leave the cities for those of us prepared to (considerately) share!

seems to be a matter of 'renter beware'

Forget bars, try having a neighbor who swears at the top of his lungs all day--literally. ):

If you buy the property, you buy the area. If it isn't out of the ordinary for late night noise then who are you to demand that it changes just because you live there? Next you'll be complaining about how there's nothing to do in the area.

clairepetrol, i live in the Lower East Side and live near a similar bar. they open their wall of windows on warm nights and blast away until 4:00 am. i've had to call 311 to complain a few times but only after calling the establishment first and kindly asking them to turn the music down. sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

i don't know about other cities, but in New York, noise pollution is such a serious problem, we have a special Quality of Life complaint line we can call. if the complaint isn't deemed warranted, no action is taken. if the noise is indeed too loud, the place will first get a warning.

i moved to this area just before it became as hot as it is now. it used to be a quiet street i lived on until that bar opened up. they're the ones who moved into MY neighborhood if we're splitting hairs here.

There are some people trying to get the totally awesome Thai Sunday brunch at the Wat Mongkolratanaram Buddhist temple in Berkeley closed down, and it's the same thing. I can't find the article now, but I read a quote from some guy who lived in the neighborhood saying it was cool when he moved in, but once he realized it was every week he got annoyed at the noise and crowds. So, if you do not properly research the neighborhood you're moving into, you get to ruin things for hundreds of people who enjoy them. Good job!

I accidentally moved onto a rather noisy street in the middle of a downtown shopping district a few years ago. I didn't know the city at all before I moved and and was surprised to find that even though there weren't any bars or restaurants on my street, there was constant drunken foot traffic outside my window in the middle of the night. It was made worse by the fact that the whole area had brick street and building, which just made the sound bounce off the whole area.

I never complained. If I didn't want a bunch of drunk people yelling outside my window, I should have moved somewhere else.

I can see getting upset if the bar or other venue is new and it is the only noisy thing in your area, though. If I specifically picked an apartment 5 or 10 blocks away from the action and the suddenly it was in front of my home, I'd be annoyed.

As someone who enjoys the nightlife downtown NYC is known for, I'm tired of new residents contributing to some amazing venues being shut down. Between everyone trying to put up condos everywhere and jacked up rent, too many indie, experimental venues have been lost. There are other places to live if you can't take the atmosphere, so stop killing our town's flavor!

When I rented my first apartment and my landlord said "the boys next door like to have the occasional party", I didn't realize that meant four nights a week of music reverberating through the entire building. I have definitely learned from that horrible experience.

if you lived in the quiet neighborhood for years and then they built a big amphitheater next door then I could understand the complaints.

what about when your neighbors are obnoxiously noisy, not the neighborhood itself? i live in one of the most notoriously party-centric neighborhoods in the nation and it doesn't bother me at all (my apt is off the street and i am lucky enough to have parking); it's just my neighbors who are loud, slamming doors and pounding around all the time, yelling on their cell phones. they've even tried multiple times to come into my apt sometimes late at night drunk off of their asses, mistaking my apt for theirs, pulling and shaking the door!

it's hard to find housing in major cities these days and difficult to move on a dime. i don't think it is realistic to say that someone should move just because something is noise pollution. you can check out the 'hood every which way before you move in (and if you are sensitive to noise and move near an airport you're an idiot), but you can't allow for disturbances like disrespectful neighbors.

I'm definitely in the third category - it depends on the situation.

My husband and I live on a street with ~20 restaurants & bars (one lively bar right below us and one restaurant directly across the small, narrow street) on a pedestrian street, which means that there is seating set up on the street outside. We live in Paris, where dinner is eaten late (one place around the corner serves until 6 a.m.) and drinking can go even later.

We knew that when we applied for this apartment. We also made a point of walking past it at all hours of the day and night so that we could determine if the noise would be too much for us. Fortunately, it's just fine (and noise reducing windows make a *huge* difference). The bar downstairs shoos patrons to the corner so that they're not standing directly under our windows (and we stop in for drinks frequently - relationship building is always a good idea no matter where you live).

The few times my husband has shouted out the window, it's been b/c some drunk was shouting/screaming at about 5 a.m. while running up the street, which isn't normal behavior here. Oh, and the time the neighborhood drunk got ahold of a bunch of firecrackers and spent about 2 hours setting them off - one by one. ugh.

I lived here in SF during the dot com boom. This scenario happened en mass with disasterous results.

Lofts were what people wanted so they moved into industrial areas. What they didn't want was noise and went to court to shut down a lot of activity vital to the neighborhoods. Early morning deliveries, nightclubs and musicians' rehearsal studios were all shut down. And artists were priced out of their work spaces.

In my opinion, SF has never recovered the amount of culture that was lost in that short period of time.

Veering OT, a town I stayed in had all its hotels along a railroad where the trains went by every half an hour all bloody night long! My husband had a job interview the next day and I was just livid. The least they could have done was provide ear plugs.