Help: my neighbor is killing my music....


I have a truck driver neighbor that has a tendency to leave his diesel truck idling for hours and hours and hours. One time it idled for nearly 20 hours, no kidding. He parks his rig across the street from where I live and sometimes the low frequencies are in-escapable in my home. Forget about listening to music. On ocassion, depending on where exactly he parks, my bedroom sounds like a running refrigerator.

An idling engine is illegal in a residential area in the state of California. I know, I checked. I have called the police several times and they have shown up several times. The idling stops and then starts up again. Whatever fine he is getting from the police does not seem to bother my neighbor very much. Either he pays it or ignores it. Whatever he gets fined must be worth leaving his engine idle for hours.

I am posting this note now as my neighbor's truck won't let me get to sleep. I am at my wit's end. Calling the police doesn't do any good as the idling is still goes on. I don't want to comfront this guy face to face and start some kind of hassle. I just want him to park his rig in a truck stop where it is supposed to be parked.

I need my sleep.

I want to be able to hear my music, again.

Any ideas?
matchstikman

Showing 2 responses by prpixel

Did you sign a complaint against him? Most times the police will just ask him to turn it off and leave. They don't want to be bothered with such a "minor" infraction. So, the next time he does it, walk up to the Police and demand to sign a complain/ticket. They will have no choice but to issue him a ticket which you will have to sign. Of course, you will have to testify in court.

I had a similair experience a while back. I live in a fairly new sub division. A truck pulls up in front of the house at 5am with a pre-fab house on the back of it. So, after the truck sits there idling for about 15 minutes I put on my pants and went out an informed him that this is a residential neighbothood and asked him to turn it off. He flipped me the bird so I called the Police. The Police gave me some lame excuse why they couldn't come out. So, I told them that I would sign the complaint/ticket and demanded that they come out. About 20 minutes later they arrived. After they got him to turn off the truck, they tried to talk me out of signing the complaint but I insisted. A few weeks later I appeared in court. The driver was from Ohio and did not show but he wrote some lame ass letter. The Builder, and an Attorney, showed up to represent the absent truck driver. The Judge gave him a ticket for making a delivery before 6am ($500) and leaving a vehicle idling ($3000 in NJ!) plus court cost. The Builder paid the fine and I didn't have any more problems after that.

On a side note, trying to get the Police to enforce the handicap parking is worse than pulling teeth. I have signed many compaints on people illegally parking in the Handicap spots. Some of the excused: "I was only running into the store to buy cigerettes, milk, etc", "I did not see the blue lines and Handicap sign", "Nobody was using it at the time", "I would have moved if a Handicapped person wanted to use the space", and my favorite "I drive an Audi, I don't think the law applies to me".

Good luck with an unpleasant situation,
Yes, 15 minutes is not a long time. But, I was the only house on the street and he had to pull up right in front of my house. In addition, he was blocking our driveway. He wasn't the first sub of the builder to do something like this. There was a drywall delivery truck who wanted to unload at 2am and a bulldozer that wanted to grade a lot in the middle of the night.

I would warn him then sign the compaint the next time he did it. He knows that his neighbors are ticked off at him because the Police have been there numerous times.