I've got a friend that keeps urging me to go to this flylady site; (I'm going to have to stop letting her drop in for tea if she thinks I need help cleaning my house!!) so I finally went and took a look. Not for me - not that she has a method that will work for night shifters, and I've got enough people around here nagging me without getting nagging e-mails anyway; but one thing that I saw there - to turn the radio on loud to get yourself moving - got me to thinking. I hate noise - well, inside noise anyway. The hum of the computer and refridgerator annoy me, I hate the TV, and someone driving my car and leaving the radio on so it blasts at me the next time I drive it guarantees them a blasting of a different sort!!

It's funny that Hubs wants the TV or radio on all the time (except when he's sleeping) but then complains about the dog barking at night or the coyotes howling or chickens squawking in the morning - and I don't even hear them! I can't stand to sit in the living room or out in his shop and read if the TV is on; and there will NEVER, EVER!! be a TV in my bedroom - I don't even want a clock radio!

So, how about you folks? Do you "need" noise, or do you prefer peace and quiet?

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

Answers

Funny you should bring this up, was contemplating the same thing myself. There was something going, t.v., radio, tapes etc. every minute at my daughter's house. They even have music on to sleep by. It drove me crazy!!! I am even regretting getting the fish tank cause of the sound. The "natural" sounds of the outdoors never bother me. Gary will sit there reading with the radio on, but I can not. Is is a man thing?? Just wondering.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

Well, I'm mixed on noise. Sometimes I can't stand to have any. But I'm sometimes listening to CD's while I'm on the computer, and sometimes the TV. I have the radio on (on a timer) in the bird room all day. So I can either hear that at least faintly, depending on how close I am to the bird room. I run the radio for them because a totally quiet environment in the wild means danger. If something dangerous is around, everything goes silent. Plus the birds tweet, chirp, talk, scream and holler all day long. They start in the morning before I am ever up. I can mostly sleep through it, but it's not a terribly unpleasant way to wake up (better than the alarm clock). I also have a humidifier and an air filter running in their room, so that makes a little noise most the time too.

I like the sounds of the birds, even when they're being loud, except for some of the more piercing screams from Lily the sun conure or loud calls from Mariah the African grey parrot (she can perfectly mimic the cockatiels' alarm call, only her volume is about 3 times theirs, and then everyone panics and screams and flaps). They're quieter than macaws or cockatoos though, maybe even quieter than Amazon parrots!

Still, once they're "in bed", the quieter atmosphere IS nice.

There are certain sounds that I hate though. Power machinery being run near my dwelling. All the traffic I can hear when walking the dog (before I get to the quiet spots anyway). Vacuum cleaners! I don't like to vacuum, but if it has to be done, I'd rather be running it than listening to someone else do it. Don't know why that bothers me so much -- perhaps conditioning from my mother's habit of trying to wake us up by running the vacuum in the bedroom hall and bashing it into our door. She only vacuumed once a week -- try to convince me that it HAD to be Saturday morning, instead of the weekdays when we were up and out the door at dawn, before she'd even rolled over in bed!

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

There can never be too much peace and quiet!!! I get annoyed (yeah, so I get annoyed easily about noisy things ;-)) when the neighbor goes up and down our dirt road one too many times a day with his loud, jacked up four-wheel drive "Bubba truck", for pities sake, if he can afford the gas it guzzles, he can get a newer muffler! But perhaps it is because it sunders the peacefulness of the homeplace here, because at times noise is expected or even strived for, like when we go riding on the Harleys and rev up the throttles on the straight piped, "you can hear 'em a mile off" machines. But that is done out on the paved highways and "big roads", not here in Podunk where it would annoy the neighbors ;-)!!!

I guess noise is entirely relative to whom it would be annoying.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

One of Jes's favorite tongue twisters when she was little was:

A noisy noise annoys an oyster.

Thay that real times three fast!

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

Annie dear, you really do NEED some chocolate. :>)

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

I'm with Annie. If my neighbor is running a power saw, it annoys me. But if I am running a power saw, it's ok. I think that is the same thing that Annie is saying. Sometimes there are so many planes going over my farm, that I want to shoot them out of the sky. And all because of the noise they make. Especially those small ones that just drone on and on. And oh - my favorite - Sunday afternoons when it seems the whole world is target practicing. I am a peace and quiet person - indoors and out. Just love the nature sounds.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

ROTFLOL Dianne.............all these years and I thought I was the only one that felt like shooting those little puppies out of the sky!!! I am more inspired to violence by those little planes droning around and around over my property that most anything else I can think off. We have a flying school about 13 miles from us and they all come around here to practice. The one truly wonderful thing about 9-11 was that we had two full days without them!!!

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

After working twenty years in environmental testing labs, I have somehow developed the ability to tune out noises. While enjoying the natural sounds of my surroundings, I find it disturbing if it gets "too quiet".

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

I like it quiet. Tho we're not too far from town its a pretty quiet neighborhood. Once in a while the neighbor fires up one of his atv's and they go buzzing around for a while then things quiet down again.

I rarely work around home with the radio going but on my paying job I listen to public radio all day, or most days anyway. A buddy stops over sometimes and almost always comments that there's no radio going and asks how can I stand it.

When I was in the USAF I lived in Savannah Ga. The place where we lived was formerly a WWII housing district for the GIs stationed nearby. Our place was "furnished", with utilities and heat for $40./month.

The walls were very thin. On one side the neighbor was a sunday morning drunk and would get pretty loud and blasphemous. Thats when he would fight with his wife and swear alot.

On the other side was Charlie, 18, and his child bride, Vicky, 15. Sunday mornings were their time for loud, passionate sex, with alot of laughter and giggling.

About 1/2 block away was the weekly tent revival meeting. The preacher had a bull horn calling the faithful to REPENT, REPENT! You're going to hell for certain if'n ya don't REPENT!

Quiet is good!

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

John, fess up, which of your annoying neighbors in GA in the cheap housing was the worst ;-)??? That had me rolling on the floor picturing all that in my brain!!!

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Now the truth comes out!!! We all know why john hates fundies!!! ;>)

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

That GI housing you described, John, reminds me of my first apartment after I graduated from high school. It was one room with the bathroom down the hall. In the room across the hall was a chain smoking older man who would start coughing at 4 a.m. and next to my room was a young couple with the squeakiest bed :-)!!!

Anyways, for me sometimes noise is good...sometimes it's not. I really enjoy listening to Bob & Sheri when I wake up (hate alarms!) and I have a barn radio so that I can continue listening to them while I milk. When I do housework, I usually do listen (loudly!) to one of the directv commercial-free music stations OR my Elvis cassettes. He keeps me moving!! I absolutely cannot read with either the t.v. or radio on...has to be quiet for me. That's strange, too, because I remember when I was in high school always having my "transistor" radio blasting while doing homework!! I do like listening to Deliliah when I go to bed...kinda relaxes me I guess. Once the radio shuts off and I'm sleeping, most any kind of noise will annoy me and wake me....hubby's snoring especially! I even have to pen my ducks up at night 'cause the sounds of their quacking outside my bedroom window early in the a.m. aggravates me! While outside either around the house or in the garden, all I want to hear is nature sounds. Fortunately, we live far enough away from any major highway and have no really close neighbors. Sometimes at night while sitting out on the porch, the silence seems deafening especially when there's a blanket of snow on the ground!

Diane...I remember when I had my fishtank, I'd get so mad at the sound the pump made. I never minded the soft sound of the water bubbling in the tank, but I'd go to extremes to "muffle" that d... pump!! Heck...I pitched one out the back door once :-)!! My next tank will be in the hallway...where I can just stop and look at it occasionally and not have to deal with the pump!

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

I remember some "cheap housing". My neighbor hung a picture using a 4 or 5 inch nail in her bathroom. I could use the point of it to hang my toothbrush on my side of the wall. I still cring when I think of the early morning "whale song" generated by her husband (I hope :>)

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Sounds of civilization bug me,especially traffic. Until recently we lived in the columbia gorge and if it wasn't train or planes it was automobiles. Or the one that really made my blood boil....the neighbors barking dogs. I love animals so i guess I was upset at the neighbors who would let them bark for FOUR to SIX consecutive HOURS. Thankfully we moved over a hill about 1500 feet high and now all we hear are the coyotes and maybe a car every hour or two. We do like our tunes but that doesn't include much in the way of rap or heavy metal.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Oh wow, base housing! John, our situation sort of combined yours. The gal next door would yell, DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL! I did not want to know. Way too much information for me. And when we lived in Toledo, a supermarket was built behind our house. The dumpsters were emptied and SLAMMED down right outside the fence behind our house at 5 o'clock every morning. It was time to move once again.

Give me the sounds of nature any day. Except for skeeters when I'm trying to sleep.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

I make my living listening to sound all day (wav.files of dictation...). So I like to give my ears a rest when I can. However, that logic flies in the face of my nightime radio listening (sometimes even after I've fallen asleep! Wonder why I have nightmares? Could it be the BBC?!)

I am tolerant of most sounds, but the very low timbre of some large aircraft depresses me! It's a low, minor note thing. Anyone else notice it?

I also detest those subwoofer speakers in cars, esp. with rap music pulsing out the windows. Those drivers must be completely deaf!

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2002

Thats funny Jay. Talk about cheap housing, when we moved in there, there was a hole in the ceiling. We called the property manager and he said he's send someone over. A coupla hours later this grizzled old black guy was knocking on the door. Said he'd come to fix the cieling. Wow, that was fast I thot.

The old guy brings his ladder, comes into the living room, sets his ladder up, climbs to the top, pulls out his extra wide roll of masking tape and "fixes the ceiling". Said we'd have to paint it our selves. Took about five minutes!

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2002

Well I absolutly ruined my ears by listening to loud rock music in the 60s and 70s. when I got older and wanted some guite I moved to the forest and to my dismay the quieter it is, the louder the ringing in my ears!!!! We pay the price for foolish youth!.....Kirk

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2002