Willow Glen, California Since 1992
Opinion
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I'm tired, I'm deaf, and I'm darned cranky now 
By Deborah Taylor-Hollis It was Saturday morning. I had been up until 2 a.m. working online for an article, doing my job, minding my own business. At 6:50 a.m., I heard that sound. I went from a deep sleep into a mind-numbing state of alert. The beeping was off-key, loud, and right outside our house. It was a backup beeper. The noise was piercing. I had to get up. Another chance for eight hours of sleep, shot. All night, every Monday through Friday, I can hear the faint beepers in the distance. There is a construction materials industrial site about one mile from my house, and the noise from the graveyard shift echoes through the neighborhood. Every Wednesday at 6:50 a.m., the garbage truck beepers awaken me. The garbage company says that changing the route is impossible; apparently its drivers are incapable of learning another route or even changing direction. On weekends there is the occasional leaf blower, and always the beepers on the pickup trucks. So, even though I give my work time at night, I have no sleep time. I am getting cranky. For 20—yes, 20—years, I have been asking the city for a noise ordinance, a way to stop the constant disturbance of the peace, for even just my due right to sleep past 6:15 or so on any given morning. I hear the same thing from the city that I hear from every yahoo contractor: "Hey, we got work to do, and you better just get over it, baby!" Since when, I ask you, is someone else's work more important than what I need to do? Since when is the noisy outdoor stuff allowed to be given priority over what needs to be done indoors? The insurance world heard those obnoxious beepers and made demands that trucks have to have them, and the police think they are the hottest thing since sliced bread; after all, who could be run over when the vehicle coming at you is screaming at a fever pitch that makes monkeys lose their bowels, concrete walls drip sweat and the skin peel off your eyeballs? There will never be a way to get rid of these beepers. That I have to concede. But I refuse to concede that it is acceptable to allow the delivery of concrete at an unreasonable hour, waking up everyone for two blocks in any direction. The city must stop this nonsense. Now. Let's pass an ordinance that keeps all those noisemakers off the streets before 7 a.m. on weekdays, 8 a.m. on Saturdays, and noon on Sundays. Let's draw up an ordinance that makes it illegal to wake up the neighbors by revving unmuffled vehicles in the driveway all evening while "tuning them up" (which is a euphemism for getting drunk and messing around with a piece of machinery one has no clue about). I'm tired of the low-panted, parked-the-truck-across-a-driveway, hired-25-guys-to-work-all-day-without-a-Port-a-Potty-so-they-use-the-neighbor's-fence, gotta-yell-at-everyone-on-the-job-site contractors looking at me with that smug "There is no ordinance" grin while they tell me that their business is the most important thing on the block and all of us peons better get used to them building whatever suits them for weeks on end, all the while spreading the dust, blocking the streets, cutting the power and tearing up the water lines in the process. I am tired of city leaders—who get a good night's sleep and all the staff they need to perform another study—promising me they will look into it and then blowing me off for another four years until they are out of office and it is their replacement's job. I am tired of being annoyed in my own home, not just occasionally, but almost constantly, and having a bunch of civic leaders trying to make me go away so that the contractors, the businessmen, can continue to support their re-election. I am tired of the city zoning, permits and building departments making friends with their contractor buddies and making us "nonentities" feel like we are interfering with the normal process of raping the land when we complain. I want to ask, "Is there anyone who wants to make things quieter, more relaxing, less stressful? Is there anyone in charge of that?" I wish these people would come out of their offices and stand up with me and give a loud yawn, and then set some basic noise standards—if not for industrial areas, then at least for residential neighborhoods. I would really like to get a good night's sleep. Deborah Taylor-Hollis can be contacted atDTHollis@svcn.com. |
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