cogitoergodoleo
Junior Member
I'm at my wit's end. My husband and I bought a house in a small town about two and a half years ago. About 4 months after we moved in, our next door neighbor started waking us almost every night by turning up his stereo so loud it made us think we had moved next to a night club. We tried to talk to him, and he promised to keep it down - only to turn it up again 20 minutes later. So we started calling the police. We live at the edge of the county, so it usually takes them about 30-40 minutes to get here. The first year they caught him several times when it was really loud, but kept telling us that they had to warn him first before they could do anything else. Then he got a scanner (we didn't know at the time) and they couldn't catch him any more. They started implying that we were making this up. (There are other neighbors, and they do hear the noise, but we are by far the closest to him (only about 10 feet between our houses) and some of them are his drinking buddies, so they won't help or call the police even though they claim the noise annoys them, too.
But it gets worse: I live in a township that does not have a noise ordinance. One would think that playing loud music in the middle of the night would be considered disturbance of the peace but our county sheriff doesn't seem to think so. We tried to sell our house last year, but we weren't able to because we can't go really low with the price (because we can't afford to lose more than a couple thousand dollars on it). We also contacted a lawyer who said he needed 2500$ to file a lawsuit and who was honest enough to tell us that it was really hard to prove a nuisance and that there was a good chance our money would be wasted.
Meanwhile I've been going to work with little or no sleep for over 2 years. I cannot afford to rent an apartment on the side just to sleep, and I can't think of anything else to do. The only time I feel safe from disturbance in my own home is when my neighbor is in jail for one of his numerous dui offenses ... (about 2 months out of the last year). Is there ANYTHING I can do? Please help!
But it gets worse: I live in a township that does not have a noise ordinance. One would think that playing loud music in the middle of the night would be considered disturbance of the peace but our county sheriff doesn't seem to think so. We tried to sell our house last year, but we weren't able to because we can't go really low with the price (because we can't afford to lose more than a couple thousand dollars on it). We also contacted a lawyer who said he needed 2500$ to file a lawsuit and who was honest enough to tell us that it was really hard to prove a nuisance and that there was a good chance our money would be wasted.
Meanwhile I've been going to work with little or no sleep for over 2 years. I cannot afford to rent an apartment on the side just to sleep, and I can't think of anything else to do. The only time I feel safe from disturbance in my own home is when my neighbor is in jail for one of his numerous dui offenses ... (about 2 months out of the last year). Is there ANYTHING I can do? Please help!