Tactics for resolving a loud music problem successfully

[fhickson]

1 hour ago, johnny49r said:

Trying to stop loud music in Thailand is a futile exercise. If you succeed with one, another will takes its place shortly.

We used to have locals that drank all night and played loud music. They finally moved but a woman moved in who performs Karaoke - all night, every night. In her mind she is a virtuoso and her voice should be heard by all. 

Others stage large parties as often as possible because its a way to make extra money. Then there are the parties for the son becoming a monk. How many times can the same son become a monk? Several at least.

Then the cowboys come into town to do their all-night rodeo with loud music and betting until 7AM the next morning.

 

Thais don't seem to be bothered by the din but I think they avoid confrontation at all costs.

So the way to control loud music is to make it against the law. But then you would need to have the police become involved in law enforcement. Think that might happen? Snowball's chance in hell...

 

are they neutered?

[kensisaket]

On 10/22/2019 at 8:33 PM, wisperone said:

Guess its time to move.

If you're renting that would be my solution as well. Of course a renter always has the option of talking to the landlord; because, they sure as hell do not want to lose their cash cow.

[Don Chance]

OP probably paid a year in an advance and the LL is trying to get rid of him. There is often scams with apartment rentals to farangs. My friend says he never rents long term for this reason. You move in a next day there is a strong odor of sewage or noise or some problem so you leave and the LL continues the next day.

[Gecko123]

I'll tell you this one funny story that came out of all this. I somehow got it in my head that several of my older neighbors were secretly rooting me on in my efforts to get the son-in-law to turn down the music. That's because in the immediate aftermath of a couple of my confrontations with the son-in-law I ran into them on the street and they were all smiles and thumbs up even though I expected them to shun me out of loyalty to the other neighbors. I started to see myself as a champion for my elderly neighbors who I imagined couldn't possibly enjoy listening to pounding bass music any more than I did.

 

One of the older residents in my moo ban who I was quite certain was secretly supporting my efforts to get the son-in-law to turn down his music was Daeng. She is the eldest of three sisters: Daeng, Noi and Gaew, each of whom have their own separate homes and families, including children and grand children numbering maybe twenty people. The son-in-law is married to Sai, Noi's older daughter. Daeng used to live in a house directly across the street from the son-in-law, so if anyone had to suffer through the son-in-law's loud music sessions, it had to be her.

 

But about six months ago, Daeng moved to a new house a little way down the street. It was a surprisingly nice house, and, while still in earshot of the son-in-law's home entertainment system, it was probably more bearable than being directly across the street. I envied her escape from the son-in-law's music. When the new house was built, I was told that her daughter had built it for her. I was duly impressed that her daughter was kind enough and generous enough to do this. Daeng had also suffered a stroke around this time, but she could still regularly exercise, pushing her wheel chair from behind using it as a walker alongside the road. I always waved and stopped to briefly chat and encourage her when I saw her, often while I was leaving or returning from a bicycle ride.

 

So just this past end of Lent when tensions between me and the son-in-law were boiling over, I went over to Daeng's new house hoping to find her alone and that she would lend a sympathetic ear about the son-in-law's loud music which happened to be blaring at the time. But when I got there, I discovered that it wasn't just Daeng any longer living alone in this new one or two bedroom house any longer.  Both of her daughters, their husbands, and between them, their five children were now living there as well. In other words, ten people were crammed into this house instead of just Daeng. And everyone was sitting outside in the outdoor seating area in front of the house when I arrived.

 

So I sat down and asked them what they thought about the loud music. And, of course, as they were all family, the two daughters, who were fully aware of the history of tensions between me and the son-in-law, proceeded to tell me how much they enjoyed the music, and how it didn't bother them in the least. One of them actually had the gall to tell me that if it bothered me so much I should install air conditioning to mask the sound. So in reply, I started peppering them with 'what about' questions: what about when you're trying to watch TV? What about when your kids are trying to do homework? What about when your kids are having trouble falling asleep, or have the flu? What about if your husband has to sleep during the day because he works the graveyard shift? Nope, nope, nope, no problem with any of that in the least. So finally, I said, well what about your mother, Daeng, she's not well. Don't you think the son-in-law ought to be more considerate of her???

 

No sooner were these words out of my mouth, than every head in the family swivelled towards Daeng and everyone had a quizzical or suspicious look in their eyes as if to say: "That sounded an awful lot this farang fool thinks you don't like listening to the son-in-law's music either. Any idea where he might have gotten that idea, missy, I mean Mom? Unless you want to start sleeping in the chicken coop or finding only pickled cabbage in your khao tom, you better not be talking out of school griping about how loud we play our music." I looked over at Daeng who seemed to be silently protesting that she had no idea what I was talking about. It was then that I realized that older relatives who have become dependent on their kids either financially or for care giving probably aren't in a position to join coalitions against loud music.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by Gecko123

[GreasyFingers]

We have loud music from many surrounding 'resorts' but mostly only on weekends when they have customers so nothing can be done. But across the the road (80 metres) is a little shop where the son, or grand son, likes his karaoke and cannot sing for sh8t. It would not start until 9pm and would go until all the drunks fell asleep.

Like the OP I did not know how to handle the problem as we were new to the area and me the only farang. But the wife solved the problem by giving fruit and vegetables to the grandmother and being good neighbors to her.

We still get the occasional karaoke but it now stops about midnight.

[Stevemercer]

I live on the outskirts of a town, but am slowly being surrounded by housing. So far we have been lucky in avoiding excessively noisy neighbours. You can certainly hear the public concerts that occasionally occur about 3 km away, but most public events end at midnight.

 

To be honest, I think noise can be a problem in any country. I remember being kept awake by barking dogs, loud music or yobos many times in Australia. As you grow older and gain some wealth you can, hopefully, afford to move somewhere quieter. Wealth and education seem to help in lessening noise pollution in 1st world countries.

 

However, no matter who you are, you can get stuck with a noisy and inconsiderate neighbour. You can either try to negotiate an outcome, start a war or hope the person moves or dies. Few would want to be forced out of their own home. Of course, in a western country you would probably have the law on your side and some means to enforce it.

 

I think it is a big problem for many of us in Thailand and there seem to be few solutions. But I don't think it is unique to Thailand.

[Mexlark]

On 10/23/2019 at 8:44 AM, Chazar said:

Do what the Thai  guy  did years ago , a  story  on Thai  Visa I  believe, he asked them for years to turn it  down, they didnt, one  day he went round and shot them all dead.

As far as I know he is still locked up. I don't even know if they gave him a death sentence, but if they did I figure there are people who would not relish the thought of carrying it out. One thing is certain though: He has been almost completely forgotten locally. I live quite close. Try to talk about it and no one seems to remember any longer. The shame in that is that it means that there is no one who you can now point to as an example of what goes around, comes around. Younger People don't know or were never told; so automatically think it will never happen to them.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Mexlark

[Mexlark]

40 minutes ago, GreasyFingers said:

We have loud music from many surrounding 'resorts' but mostly only on weekends when they have customers so nothing can be done. But across the the road (80 metres) is a little shop where the son, or grand son, likes his karaoke and cannot sing for sh8t. It would not start until 9pm and would go until all the drunks fell asleep.

Like the OP I did not know how to handle the problem as we were new to the area and me the only farang. But the wife solved the problem by giving fruit and vegetables to the grandmother and being good neighbors to her.

We still get the occasional karaoke but it now stops about midnight.

Over a year ago, I took a very short break at a resort in a fairly remote province; the idea being to get away from the ear-ringing urban noise pollution for a bit. I was with Thais who genuinely wanted some peace and quiet themselves, and the proximity of a white-water river was actually very therapeutic. Just the usual countryside noise at dawn. Unfortunately, the resort next door ( a few hundred meters away) decided to play techno at max volume about 30 minutes after dawn. So other urbanites say they want to get away from it all, but have to get their daily fix of noise in order not to get too bummed out by the loneliness of the dawn chorus. Last time, i go there. It is a province with an immigration office for reporting your stay, but I doubt the owners would want to bother when it is so much easier to pander to the urbanite noise junkies. It might actually be better to stay at home and expand into the partial noise vacuum left by noisy weekenders retreating to some rural noise. Not amazing!

[Mexlark]

4 hours ago, unamazedloso said:

get a db meter and if its over the limit of whats acceptable tell the mayor.

one things for sure is if you manage to stop the loud music something else will annoy you. Your neighbours will make sure of it. Its what childish Thais do.

Thais dont have to listen to farang and the police will side with them but smile and be polite to you. If the DB meter doesnt work you can take it to civil court or try complaints hotline to complain that officials arent doing their jobs which will take time but eventually work.

 

Good quality db meters were on special offer in Amorn a few weeks back. (They obviously think there is a market for them. ???? You might also want to submit your data to an urban neighborhood health clinic. I have some evidence that they take mass neighborhood complaints quite seriously. That happened here. The whole street was p'ed off with one establishment; none of it instigated by my 'alien' self. The clinic got the message and the place eventually disappeared, despite uniformed patronage. What leverage was applied, I haven't the foggiest idea. I doubt they would relish transparency.

[Mexlark]

2 hours ago, MAGA 2020 said:

I used insulated wire cutters once. Make 2 cuts, cutting a section out so can't be easily spliced 

Reminds me that an Oz did just that on mosque speakers in Penang decades ago. He was in court the same morning, and given a jail term for ..... disturbing the peace. But seriously, he appeared in court almost immediately for fear it might lead to an interracial fracas. No doubt the silly sod was staying in a Chinese hotel. They wouldn't have appreciated having their hotel ransacked either.

[Chazar]

12 hours ago, mlkik said:

Loud music is certainly part of the culture when it comes to funerals in Issan

even 50 years ago.......?

[mickylongtime]

 You maybe try acoustic foam to help with the noise I did use some myself it helped but I invited next door into my condo and they asked why I had this foam on my wall, I said I can't stand the noise after that worked and they keep the noise down and we're best of friends now, starting a war does nothing unless you kill them first, lol

[brokenbone]

its not expensive to employ directional typically 30 degree field sound back (LRAD)

https://m.alibaba.com/product/60682270775/Long-Range-Acoustic-Device-For-Crowd.html

Edited October 24, 2019 by brokenbone

[The Theory]

On 10/22/2019 at 7:17 PM, Gecko123 said:

It seems to have finally broken the ice. This might have been the best move all along. It was actually quite a moving moment for both of us. I really hope that this proves to be the beginning of improved relations.

You are lucky if it works long term. 

Perhaps the guy is mentally fine otherwise even friendly ideas won’t work since “selfishness” is in power. 

We have already tried this with a “disease”, but our guy was that kind who used bass, noise and loudness as a drug for his satisfaction. Even his car sounded and looked like an aircraft. 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by The Theory

[fhickson]

 

6 hours ago, Gecko123 said:

I'll tell you this one funny story that came out of all this. I somehow got it in my head that several of my older neighbors were secretly rooting me on in my efforts to get the son-in-law to turn down the music. That's because in the immediate aftermath of a couple of my confrontations with the son-in-law I ran into them on the street and they were all smiles and thumbs up even though I expected them to shun me out of loyalty to the other neighbors. I started to see myself as a champion for my elderly neighbors who I imagined couldn't possibly enjoy listening to pounding bass music any more than I did.

 

One of the older residents in my moo ban who I was quite certain was secretly supporting my efforts to get the son-in-law to turn down his music was Daeng. She is the eldest of three sisters: Daeng, Noi and Gaew, each of whom have their own separate homes and families, including children and grand children numbering maybe twenty people. The son-in-law is married to Sai, Noi's older daughter. Daeng used to live in a house directly across the street from the son-in-law, so if anyone had to suffer through the son-in-law's loud music sessions, it had to be her.

 

But about six months ago, Daeng moved to a new house a little way down the street. It was a surprisingly nice house, and, while still in earshot of the son-in-law's home entertainment system, it was probably more bearable than being directly across the street. I envied her escape from the son-in-law's music. When the new house was built, I was told that her daughter had built it for her. I was duly impressed that her daughter was kind enough and generous enough to do this. Daeng had also suffered a stroke around this time, but she could still regularly exercise, pushing her wheel chair from behind using it as a walker alongside the road. I always waved and stopped to briefly chat and encourage her when I saw her, often while I was leaving or returning from a bicycle ride.

 

So just this past end of Lent when tensions between me and the son-in-law were boiling over, I went over to Daeng's new house hoping to find her alone and that she would lend a sympathetic ear about the son-in-law's loud music which happened to be blaring at the time. But when I got there, I discovered that it wasn't just Daeng any longer living alone in this new one or two bedroom house any longer.  Both of her daughters, their husbands, and between them, their five children were now living there as well. In other words, ten people were crammed into this house instead of just Daeng. And everyone was sitting outside in the outdoor seating area in front of the house when I arrived.

 

So I sat down and asked them what they thought about the loud music. And, of course, as they were all family, the two daughters, who were fully aware of the history of tensions between me and the son-in-law, proceeded to tell me how much they enjoyed the music, and how it didn't bother them in the least. One of them actually had the gall to tell me that if it bothered me so much I should install air conditioning to mask the sound. So in reply, I started peppering them with 'what about' questions: what about when you're trying to watch TV? What about when your kids are trying to do homework? What about when your kids are having trouble falling asleep, or have the flu? What about if your husband has to sleep during the day because he works the graveyard shift? Nope, nope, nope, no problem with any of that in the least. So finally, I said, well what about your mother, Daeng, she's not well. Don't you think the son-in-law ought to be more considerate of her???

 

No sooner were these words out of my mouth, than every head in the family swivelled towards Daeng and everyone had a quizzical or suspicious look in their eyes as if to say: "That sounded an awful lot this farang fool thinks you don't like listening to the son-in-law's music either. Any idea where he might have gotten that idea, missy, I mean Mom? Unless you want to start sleeping in the chicken coop or finding only pickled cabbage in your khao tom, you better not be talking out of school griping about how loud we play our music." I looked over at Daeng who seemed to be silently protesting that she had no idea what I was talking about. It was then that I realized that older relatives who have become dependent on their kids either financially or for care giving probably aren't in a position to join coalitions against loud music.

 

 

thats just the kind of thing that could turn into a really bad scene that i would not want to be involved in, where you dont understand why someone lost face, etc., but im only interested in laying low, not going native.

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by fhickson

[lucifer666]

Buy a larger amplifier and play the most obnoxious music you can find. Played at full volume of course.

[brokenbone]

30 minutes ago, lucifer666 said:

Buy a larger amplifier and play the most obnoxious music you can find. Played at full volume of course.

i used to play jimi hendrix on the jukebox when the cafe in the school

was fully seated and i needed a chair and table,

people would invariably flee the menace

Edited October 25, 2019 by brokenbone

[canopy]

 

 

20 hours ago, Gecko123 said:

the traditional use of amplified music for communal gatherings or to mark special occasions

Speakers systems are not traditional. It's not like they are unearthing them in archaeological sites. Traditionally a local Thai band of artists would have performed using traditional Thai instruments dressed in traditional thai attire with magnificent dancers. The sound level was tasteful, the entertainment exquisite, and you could both enjoy splendid live music and be able to hold a discussion at an event unlike today where it is so loud no one can talk to each other. Musicians all over Thailand would have had all these occasions to make their livelihood that encouraged the cultural arts that now disappear to a few canned events for foreigners. It must have been so wonderful back then before the age of speaker systems.

 

 

 

[Tom89]

On 10/22/2019 at 7:53 PM, PatOngo said:

I always had the impression Thai's are spooked by silence. Need to up the noise to scare off all those evil spirits! 

I dated a Chinese girl from Shanghai for a while. She was scared to death of silence for that very reason.

[Beggar]

On 10/23/2019 at 8:50 AM, canopy said:

My house has double pane windows with full weatherstripping, 9-inch thick walls, and soundproofing top to bottom. When I close the house, the loud speakers and motorcycle noise is all gone. It's silence. 

 

I have special windows with several cm of glass. But against really deep frequencies from big speakers this doesn't help. I hear only the deep frequency noise since all other frequencies are blocked very well. But these deep frequencies still drive me crazy and not even additional ear plugs block them completely.

 

Blocking sounds with windows is not simple. There are many things to take into account like glass thickness, distance of the panes, glass size. glass form, frames and others. Normal double pane windows might not help much if they need to block a wide frequency range. 

[Gecko123]

55 minutes ago, Beggar said:

I have special windows with several cm of glass. But against really deep frequencies from big speakers this doesn't help. I hear only the deep frequency noise since all other frequencies are blocked very well. But these deep frequencies still drive me crazy and not even additional ear plugs block them completely.

 

Blocking sounds with windows is not simple. There are many things to take into account like glass thickness, distance of the panes, glass size. glass form, frames and others. Normal double pane windows might not help much if they need to block a wide frequency range. 

I've looked into retrofitting the house with double pane windows, but didn't seem practical because that low frequency bass goes right through the single brick walls as well. Also comes straight through the cement tile roof and drywall ceiling as well.

[TTL2]

Try using electro magnetic vibration speakers. Small compact and yet powerful. It could last longer almost never age. ????

[Beggar]

26 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

I've looked into retrofitting the house with double pane windows, but didn't seem practical because that low frequency bass goes right through the single brick walls as well. Also comes straight through the cement tile roof and drywall ceiling as well.

The deeper the frequency the more expensive is it to block it. The noise of a mosquito you can block with a paper sheet. But powerful subwoofer noise is a different story. 

[ChakaKhan]

On 10/22/2019 at 8:44 AM, Don Chance said:

You farang, go home. You no thai.

You tink too mutt.. you no unnerstaan thai pee-pole!!  555

[ChakaKhan]

On 10/22/2019 at 8:56 PM, Orton Rd said:

Nothing like each other

but still different.

[ChakaKhan]

18 hours ago, PETERTHEEATER said:

Forget him, he's a has bean.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

wish our folks would lettuce marry since the say we cantaloupe...

[ChakaKhan]

2 hours ago, Tom89 said:

I dated a Chinese girl from Shanghai for a while. She was scared to death of silence for that very reason.

I am in awe of china gals, any secrets or tips?

[Tom89]

I'm guessing you mean tips for meeting them. I met her in Tokyo. Being caucasion and not Japanese was enough. I will tell you they can be a pain in the ass, very stubborn and think they know everything.

[DaRoadrunner]

4 hours ago, Tom89 said:

I will tell you they can be a pain in the ass, very stubborn and think they know everything.

Sounds like most women to me

[canopy]

On 10/24/2019 at 6:48 PM, Stevemercer said:

but...end at midnight

I never understood this and yet is such a common thing that is mentioned. The people in villages go to sleep around 8pm. Kids have school the next day. Normal folks rise at 5am. Having 50, 100, or a thousand infants, students, adults, and elderly not being able to sleep properly for half the night because of one moronic idiot is somehow something to cheer about? This is nothing good at all. People should not have to tolerate even one minute of their sleep being robbed from them by an arrogant, childish, selfish, despicable individual. Nor one minute any other time of the day. AT LEAST IT STOPS AT MIDNIGHT...BFD!

 

On 10/24/2019 at 6:48 PM, Stevemercer said:

But I don't think it is unique to Thailand.

Couldn't disagree more. In the developed world you are not bombarded with loud speaker noise every part of the day everywhere you go at levels disturbing to health and ruining the peace. In Thailand it is normal. Everywhere there is speaker noise. Just one pickup truck driving around with speakers selling their wares disturbs 100% of the population for something most people don't even want. And these things are everywhere like roaches crawling around. It reeks of arrogance and would not be tolerated elsewhere. Here you are supposed to just take it. For what? All this stupid unnecessary noise and some people think other countries are this way. They aren't all this way, wake up.

 

Edited October 26, 2019 by canopy