The effect of noise on the human body.

Leaf blowers are a real nuisance near us from autumn onwards and strimmers also that these contractors use. We live in a road full of very old large trees.Every autumn for weeks on end once the leaves start falling various different contractors ...some council...some private...some sub contracted ..drive us absolutely mad with these damn things. The men who use them are like boys with toys and can always manage to find MORE leaves to blow when to our eyes all leaves seem cleaned up ages before they switch them off. They also go between the pavement cracks with a motorised strimmer ...equally noisy and equally dragged out like a toy. If leaf clearing and weeding the pavements were done manually ie: brush /shovel and a hoe like it used to be we would all feel better for it. No noise pollution and done quicker. They would,nt want to drag the jobs out the old fashion ways.

Having lived with tinnitus in both ears for years, I would love to hear absolute silence again. I have been known to ask for music to be turned down on restaurants/cafes, pointing out that working in it for prolonged periods could be damaging their ears!

We are lucky with just a moderate amount of noise around us - passing cars but not many, noise from next door who have small children, a sweet little pair aged about six and four, and of course playing is right and healthy and ends at around five or six when they go in for dinner.
However, my absolute hate (apart from building contractor's 'open air' radios) is the moron in a car with all windows down and deafening music belting out as he pulls alongside or stops at the lights. I long for a fire extinguisher to drown driver and music in foam. In fact how about some ready mix concrete tipped in to driver's waist level? That ought to silence the racket and keep said moron busy for a while chipping himself out. Oh dear - the heat is getting to me rather badly this year - sorry!

Also if you go to a wedding reception or any sort of dance/ party ( rare these days for me!) the music seems to be much too loud and prevents any sort of conversation . If you try to talk you have to shout and end up hoarse. At my daughter's wedding we requested not too loud but his idea of not too loud and ours were not the same!
I suppose we are lucky as we live in the country and have quiet nights generally, though lately have been woken up early by loud baaing from the sheep in the field at the end of our garden!

Meandashy, I sympathise. I had this next door for almost 9 months at all hours because the girls father had called in favours from all his builder mates. They of course were staying at their mothers.

Why do people play music at full blast in their cars, and then open all the windows? Do they just wish to share it with everyone, or do they do it to drive others mad. And no, it's not just youngsters who do it, a few days ago I swear one driver was about 70. Maybe he had left his hearing aids at home.

My big bear is visiting someone and they don't turn the tv off - or even turn down the volume! One of my lovely neighbours has the tv on so loud that we have to shout to be heard. I wait until she goes to make tea before grabbing the remote control and sneakily turning the volume down.

BUG BEAR not big bear - damn autocorrect

I've been to the cinema today, I was tempted to take my hearing aids out as was nearly deafened by the adverts. Seems the same with TV at home, need to turn sound down when ads come on

I live in a downstairs flat, and a couple of years ago had noisy neighbours, although the word "noisy" doesn't even come close to describing them
Their flat was basically an open house; music playing all day and night, hoards of people coming round at any time, shouting, hanging out of the windows, thundering around the flat. Arguments, fights, laughing, screeching. It was an absolute nightmare; I had no idea what effect it could have on my mental health. Just a living nightmare!

My neighbour with his petrol driven strimmer (to which he seems permanently attached in the summer) drives me nuts. Restaurants who have their music so loud that you can't hear yourself think, let alone speak and people talking too loudly into their mobiles on trains also irritate me too.

Apparently, the ageing ear starts to lose the upper and middle registers but to compensate we hear the lower registers more loudly. This is one of the reasons we become more sensitive to noise as we grow older. So, in a shop or restaurant we often hear the 'thudding' background music more loudly than young people with good hearing. I detest being forced to listen to someone else's choice of music wherever I go, especially in a medical setting or on a plane where there is no escape. The good news is that some businesses are beginning to recognise the problem. M&S has turned off the background music in all their stores and Waterstones in the vast majority of their branches. All the big supermarkets are experimenting with 'quiet' times at the request of autism groups and Action on Hearing Loss has started a Speak Easy campaign against noisy restaurants. If you hate enforced background music, please consider joining Pipedown, a group campaigning against it!

We have a Polish family who live across the back of us ( separated by a small car parking area) they are the noisiest family I have ever come across and can't seem to talk to each other without screaming at the top of their voices .On top of that the father runs a small building/joinery business and he obviously doesn't have a premises as he seems to carry out the majority of the very noisy cutting/sawing/planing etc. In the car park opposite his back gate . I am sitting with my door open (Saturday afternoon) as it's very humid, but the noise ( which has gone on now for almost 3 hours) is driving me around the bend ! My DH has been at work himself since 7 and just come home, hoping to have a little rest before dinner. Fat chance. Grrrrrrr

if things get too bad on a regular basis, you can involve the council's Environmental Health department who will supply you with recording equipment and advice. When the E.H. people come to collect it,if they think the recordings prove nuisance as defined by their rules, they have powers to act and ensure you (and your neighbours) can go back to having 'quiet enjoyment' - a legal term - of your own home. Worked for us.

I'm beyond intolerant where noise is concerned.
When we lived onboard we had a neighbor who woul go sailing, come back and leave all his rigging flapping against the mast ( very bad etiquette)
I asked him several times in a nice jokey way to tie them up... nothing.
I then started to tie them up myself.... nothing.
Then I got angry. I tied the rigging up with those awful sticky fly catcher things... nothing.
Then the red mist came down.... I cut his rigging.
He tied up his new rigging.