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I find by far the biggest disruption in US suburbs is lawn equipment. Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and

I find by far the biggest disruption in US suburbs is lawn equipment. Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. Often for hours. Moving from Palo Alto to SF things got way quieter.

Forgeties79 5y ago
It drives me absolutely insane. I can’t record audio virtually anywhere unless I treat the hell out of the room. I shouldn’t have to turn my room into a soundproof bunker to be able to record some voiceovers. It’s ridiculous. My previous home office had spray foam insulation with double layer sheet rock and bass traps on the walls, yet I still had to have a small homemade box around the microphone when I was doing any sort of voice work that wasn’t more informal.
- gonehome 5y ago
  Yeah - the joke is people say they move to suburbs to get 'peace and quiet' compared to a loud city, but city life is so much quieter (at least where I live). I'm sure that's not always the case, but I really hated the lawn equipment. Sure in a city a loud motorcycle may go by, but that's like 10 seconds of noise? Compared to a revving leaf blower for an hour (and usually there are a bunch of them going). They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced.
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    > They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced. They only banned gas-powered blowers and they seem to rely on citizens to report use.
sarchertech 5y ago
>Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. That's hugely hyperbolic. But in the city there really are constant sirens, car horns, diesel trucks, construction noises, roadway noise etc... The most comprehensive study done on this (admittedly a long time ago in 1970) shows a clear correlation between population density and noise pollution. https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf I think the most likely explanation is that you moved from a particularly noisy suburban neighborhood to a particularly quiet urban one.
- gonehome 5y ago
  It does sound ridiculous but I’ve lived in DC, London, and SF now and all were quieter than the suburbs I’ve lived in. Mostly because of lawn stuff and garbage pickup. Also probably a factor that I’ve been in new city buildings with good insulation and not on the ground floor.
  - sarchertech 5y ago
    If the insulation isn’t the same, you can’t really compare the 2. I could take a nap in an active construction site with good enough earplugs. Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. I live a few miles from the city center, in just about the densest area where people still have lawns. There are maybe 5 houses close enough to me that I could hear a leaf blower from if I’m inside the house (loud enough to notice). Even if each one runs a lawnmower and leaf blower for half an hour each week, that’s 2.5 hours per week tops (only 2 of them actually use leaf blowers, and most only cut the grass 1x every 2 weeks). Also in most of the country mowing only happens a little more than half the year. Compare that with road noise, and sirens, which I hear far more often.
    - burntoutfire 5y ago
      > Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. Around me, there are three different recycling pickups (one for the each kind of recyclable). Combined with regular trash pickup, it means that the garbage truck is here on most work days.
      - sarchertech 5y ago
        That's definitely not the norm in the US. A quick google search shows that less than 1/3 of US houses have access to curb side recycling at all, much less weekly recycling for extra items like glass.
  - bombcar 5y ago
bogota 5y ago
They may be louder but do you have a dump truck waking you up at 4am several times a week? I really don’t know what to do anymore. Obviously they need to pick up trash that early to beat the traffic and save a few bucks /s. But the city doesn’t care and I’m constantly told that condos/apartments are a more sustainable way of living. Thats great but I’m about done with this nonsense and about to move out to the burbs so I can sleep through the night.
- oauea 5y ago
  Do yourself a favor and get some earplugs
  - saila 5y ago
    Earplugs do essentially nothing to stop low frequency sounds. I can block out a lot of noise with white/pink/brown noise, but the only thing that will stop sounds you can feel, whether it’s an idling truck or a sound system cranked up, is substantial mass and/or decoupling from the source.
    - javert 5y ago
      i got these Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling earbuds, and they are like magic, cancelling out bass noise from nearby outdoor stereos. i can't believe how well they work. I live by the beach where people play loud music---the concrete walls do OK for the midrange and treble noises, but not the bass.
      - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
        The person you're replying to is talking about feeling in their body, not hearing in their ears.
        javert 5y ago
        I see what you're saying, but I think that's too narrow of a reading of his comment, but it doesn't really matter.
angled 5y ago
Relevant New Yorker article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback
mechanical_bear 5y ago
I fucking loathe leaf blowers. I can tell what day of the week it is by which neighbor is going for an hour or two straight with the leaf blower. Get a damn rake!
- pjerem 5y ago
  Ah, leaf blowers. The planet is warming and still, the little hooman burns oil to move leafs forward, waking up the entire neighborhood. Those things should be banned worldly.
  - ungamedplayer 5y ago
    I can't find it, but I remember the story of an individual who lead a crusade against leaf blowers and was somewhat successful.
- sicromoft 5y ago
  Leaf blowers are the worst. Several cities in CA have banned them. I don't know why more haven't followed suit. There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them, but the city of LA reported that costs didn't significantly increase after banning them.[1] [1] https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-leaf-blowers-spreads-word-to-homeowners-and-gardeners/ https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-le...
  - mechanical_bear 5y ago
    I’m in Folsom, Ca. I wish they were banned here.
  - grvdrm 5y ago
    I live just north of NYC in suburbs and leaf blower bans are never enforced. Not worth the time of the town or the city to bother dealing with the rules they create. It stinks.
  - moduspol 5y ago
    > There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them A... myth? Have you ever used a rake, and a leaf blower? How about for many hours? If there's no change in costs when switching between the two, it's getting hidden or absorbed somewhere. It takes substantially less time and effort to use a leaf blower than a rake for the vast majority of tasks that call for either.
calvinmorrison 5y ago
This is a joke right? I should keep a diary. Someone did a study and apparently the 'city that never sleeps' (NYC) has better sound quality than my city (PHL). Between inept and behind by 115 years and counting on gas line repairs and ATV squads... not to mention the broken exhaust fan of the corner pizza joint, one cannot exist in Philadelphia and expect a modicum of peaceful bliss.
CalRobert 5y ago
Nevermind giant pickup trucks rumbling down the streets.
Donckele 5y ago
Leaf blowing to the other side and then another leaf blower needed to blow it back. Madness.
wellthisisgreat 5y ago
It baffles me that cars with ultra-loud stereos that trigger car alarms are legal and people who drive them aren’t fined regularly. The tradition of speaking in public using phone’s loudspeaker is the close second in terms of cultural inadequacy
dghughes 5y ago
In my small town pop. 50,000 Sundays were super quiet no stores open, no lawnmowers. But the lawnmowers not running wasn't a law it was an unwritten rule agreed upon by all. Now everything is open on Sundays and Sundays are noisy with lawnmowers. To me it changes the mental end of the week cleanse. When the routine of nearly everyone gets changed it affects everyone. My generation going back to my father's and before kept Sundays quiet. Nothing to do with religion it was just a day everyone seemed to agree was the quiet day. Now in the past 10 or 15 years it's changed dramatically.
nickjj 5y ago
> Often for hours. It really is, if you're on a block where a bunch of people use a maintenance service it's very possible to have 2-3 hours of commercial leaf blowers at least once a week for a few months. It could be twice a week if you happen to have a situation where let's say the east and west side of your block each have 4-5 houses who use a service but the middle doesn't. That usually means 2 different crews will independently do it at different times. The block itself might only be a few hundred feet (10x quarter acre properties on each side) so it's extremely noisy for everyone on the block. Then factor in being kind of close to a fire house and there's a massively loud siren every day at noon and random sirens / fire trucks for emergencies. Oh you live 3 miles from a small airport? Ok, there's going to be planes flying in / out almost all the time. Oh yeah, did you know they do helicopter training every Monday and Thursday night from 8pm to 10pm, so now you get to have your house shaken every 10-15 minutes while a helicopter flies a few hundred feet over your block while doing laps. And you have trees too where Blue Jays love to pretty consistently squawk. That sounds like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js, but it carries far. Once one of them starts, it's like a chain reaction for 15 minutes. Even with windows closed and headphones on it's easy to hear it. I've had to stop recording videos because even a dynamic mic (very directional) will pick it up. Suburbs are really loud.
- mannykannot 5y ago
  I feel the average leaf in our neighborhood gets blown off a lawn four or five times before it decays or gets bagged. It's a great business model! I suck up and chop the thicker drifts with an electric vacuum device, and mulch them. There is some noise, but no-one can hear it over the blowers. Two sound sources that don't bother me at all are songbirds and kids playing.
albrewer 5y ago
Don't forget circular saws, nail guns, and your neighbor's project car that hasn't had a muffler in 3 years.

Forgeties79 5y ago

It drives me absolutely insane. I can’t record audio virtually anywhere unless I treat the hell out of the room. I shouldn’t have to turn my room into a soundproof bunker to be able to record some voiceovers. It’s ridiculous. My previous home office had spray foam insulation with double layer sheet rock and bass traps on the walls, yet I still had to have a small homemade box around the microphone when I was doing any sort of voice work that wasn’t more informal.

gonehome 5y ago
Yeah - the joke is people say they move to suburbs to get 'peace and quiet' compared to a loud city, but city life is so much quieter (at least where I live). I'm sure that's not always the case, but I really hated the lawn equipment. Sure in a city a loud motorcycle may go by, but that's like 10 seconds of noise? Compared to a revving leaf blower for an hour (and usually there are a bunch of them going). They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced.
- cgriswald 5y ago
  > They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced. They only banned gas-powered blowers and they seem to rely on citizens to report use.

sarchertech 5y ago

>Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. That's hugely hyperbolic. But in the city there really are constant sirens, car horns, diesel trucks, construction noises, roadway noise etc... The most comprehensive study done on this (admittedly a long time ago in 1970) shows a clear correlation between population density and noise pollution. https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf I think the most likely explanation is that you moved from a particularly noisy suburban neighborhood to a particularly quiet urban one.

gonehome 5y ago
It does sound ridiculous but I’ve lived in DC, London, and SF now and all were quieter than the suburbs I’ve lived in. Mostly because of lawn stuff and garbage pickup. Also probably a factor that I’ve been in new city buildings with good insulation and not on the ground floor.
- sarchertech 5y ago
  If the insulation isn’t the same, you can’t really compare the 2. I could take a nap in an active construction site with good enough earplugs. Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. I live a few miles from the city center, in just about the densest area where people still have lawns. There are maybe 5 houses close enough to me that I could hear a leaf blower from if I’m inside the house (loud enough to notice). Even if each one runs a lawnmower and leaf blower for half an hour each week, that’s 2.5 hours per week tops (only 2 of them actually use leaf blowers, and most only cut the grass 1x every 2 weeks). Also in most of the country mowing only happens a little more than half the year. Compare that with road noise, and sirens, which I hear far more often.
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    > Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. Around me, there are three different recycling pickups (one for the each kind of recyclable). Combined with regular trash pickup, it means that the garbage truck is here on most work days.
    - sarchertech 5y ago
      That's definitely not the norm in the US. A quick google search shows that less than 1/3 of US houses have access to curb side recycling at all, much less weekly recycling for extra items like glass.
- bombcar 5y ago

bogota 5y ago

They may be louder but do you have a dump truck waking you up at 4am several times a week? I really don’t know what to do anymore. Obviously they need to pick up trash that early to beat the traffic and save a few bucks /s. But the city doesn’t care and I’m constantly told that condos/apartments are a more sustainable way of living. Thats great but I’m about done with this nonsense and about to move out to the burbs so I can sleep through the night.

oauea 5y ago
Do yourself a favor and get some earplugs
- saila 5y ago
  Earplugs do essentially nothing to stop low frequency sounds. I can block out a lot of noise with white/pink/brown noise, but the only thing that will stop sounds you can feel, whether it’s an idling truck or a sound system cranked up, is substantial mass and/or decoupling from the source.
  - javert 5y ago
    i got these Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling earbuds, and they are like magic, cancelling out bass noise from nearby outdoor stereos. i can't believe how well they work. I live by the beach where people play loud music---the concrete walls do OK for the midrange and treble noises, but not the bass.
    - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
      The person you're replying to is talking about feeling in their body, not hearing in their ears.
      - javert 5y ago
        I see what you're saying, but I think that's too narrow of a reading of his comment, but it doesn't really matter.

angled 5y ago

Relevant New Yorker article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback

mechanical_bear 5y ago

I fucking loathe leaf blowers. I can tell what day of the week it is by which neighbor is going for an hour or two straight with the leaf blower. Get a damn rake!

pjerem 5y ago
Ah, leaf blowers. The planet is warming and still, the little hooman burns oil to move leafs forward, waking up the entire neighborhood. Those things should be banned worldly.
- ungamedplayer 5y ago
  I can't find it, but I remember the story of an individual who lead a crusade against leaf blowers and was somewhat successful.
sicromoft 5y ago
Leaf blowers are the worst. Several cities in CA have banned them. I don't know why more haven't followed suit. There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them, but the city of LA reported that costs didn't significantly increase after banning them.[1] [1] https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-leaf-blowers-spreads-word-to-homeowners-and-gardeners/ https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-le...
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  I’m in Folsom, Ca. I wish they were banned here.
- grvdrm 5y ago
  I live just north of NYC in suburbs and leaf blower bans are never enforced. Not worth the time of the town or the city to bother dealing with the rules they create. It stinks.
- moduspol 5y ago
  > There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them A... myth? Have you ever used a rake, and a leaf blower? How about for many hours? If there's no change in costs when switching between the two, it's getting hidden or absorbed somewhere. It takes substantially less time and effort to use a leaf blower than a rake for the vast majority of tasks that call for either.

calvinmorrison 5y ago

This is a joke right? I should keep a diary. Someone did a study and apparently the 'city that never sleeps' (NYC) has better sound quality than my city (PHL). Between inept and behind by 115 years and counting on gas line repairs and ATV squads... not to mention the broken exhaust fan of the corner pizza joint, one cannot exist in Philadelphia and expect a modicum of peaceful bliss.

CalRobert 5y ago

Nevermind giant pickup trucks rumbling down the streets.

Donckele 5y ago

Leaf blowing to the other side and then another leaf blower needed to blow it back. Madness.

wellthisisgreat 5y ago

It baffles me that cars with ultra-loud stereos that trigger car alarms are legal and people who drive them aren’t fined regularly. The tradition of speaking in public using phone’s loudspeaker is the close second in terms of cultural inadequacy

dghughes 5y ago

In my small town pop. 50,000 Sundays were super quiet no stores open, no lawnmowers. But the lawnmowers not running wasn't a law it was an unwritten rule agreed upon by all. Now everything is open on Sundays and Sundays are noisy with lawnmowers. To me it changes the mental end of the week cleanse. When the routine of nearly everyone gets changed it affects everyone. My generation going back to my father's and before kept Sundays quiet. Nothing to do with religion it was just a day everyone seemed to agree was the quiet day. Now in the past 10 or 15 years it's changed dramatically.

nickjj 5y ago

> Often for hours. It really is, if you're on a block where a bunch of people use a maintenance service it's very possible to have 2-3 hours of commercial leaf blowers at least once a week for a few months. It could be twice a week if you happen to have a situation where let's say the east and west side of your block each have 4-5 houses who use a service but the middle doesn't. That usually means 2 different crews will independently do it at different times. The block itself might only be a few hundred feet (10x quarter acre properties on each side) so it's extremely noisy for everyone on the block. Then factor in being kind of close to a fire house and there's a massively loud siren every day at noon and random sirens / fire trucks for emergencies. Oh you live 3 miles from a small airport? Ok, there's going to be planes flying in / out almost all the time. Oh yeah, did you know they do helicopter training every Monday and Thursday night from 8pm to 10pm, so now you get to have your house shaken every 10-15 minutes while a helicopter flies a few hundred feet over your block while doing laps. And you have trees too where Blue Jays love to pretty consistently squawk. That sounds like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js, but it carries far. Once one of them starts, it's like a chain reaction for 15 minutes. Even with windows closed and headphones on it's easy to hear it. I've had to stop recording videos because even a dynamic mic (very directional) will pick it up. Suburbs are really loud.

mannykannot 5y ago
I feel the average leaf in our neighborhood gets blown off a lawn four or five times before it decays or gets bagged. It's a great business model! I suck up and chop the thicker drifts with an electric vacuum device, and mulch them. There is some noise, but no-one can hear it over the blowers. Two sound sources that don't bother me at all are songbirds and kids playing.

albrewer 5y ago

Don't forget circular saws, nail guns, and your neighbor's project car that hasn't had a muffler in 3 years.