An Email I Wrote To Sheriff

This is an email I wrote to our city sheriff on 10/2/07. I had called my neighbor G on 9/6. He had since then left his compressor on twice in the night. I felt extremely frustrated and was very afraid that he was continuing leaving his machine one and waking me up in the middle of the night, leaving me a walking corpse the next day. American constitution said that everyone should be free from fear. However, I live in fear, not knowing when I am going to be waken up by loud noises in the night. During the day, I have been anxious. In the evening, I am even more anxious if I see the light in their garage or the light in their extention is up for I don't know when they can't control their desire and have to make loud noise to finish their "schedule". I don't see why they could not do slight adjustment to their schedule so that there is no sawing, turning on the compressor or banging in the night. We all have freedom to do whatever we want whenever. However, the freedom comes when one respects another. Having a horrible or a tight schedule is not an excuse to disturb other's peaceful life. It is solely his own choice to live that way.
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Dear Deputy SA,

I have left you a message but you didn’t call back. I spoke to you last year. You mention that you have an air compressor. I would like to ask where you install your compressor and if you ever forget to turn it off after you work. Since I’ve talked to you I have off and on advised my neighbor to remember turning it off after he worked. However, every few months, I get to be waken up and lose sleep the entire night. The humming of the compressor is long and loud enough to pull me out of deep sleep into complete consciousness.

My neighbor has improved a lot and this is the only thing to complain about. However, I will give you a little history of it so that you don’t mistake me as whining at the slightest inconvenience. I don’t have the habit of bothering the authority at all.

We moved in about 5 years ago. They had two dogs. They kept the dogs at their side yard right next to my bedroom, away from theirs of course. One of the dogs barked at the slightest noise even to my turning on the bed. She also barked all day long. Whenever holiday’s near, I worried, knowing that they would leave their dogs outside and I wouldn’t get any sleep. Often I was waken up completely and started telling the dog to shut up, which did not work anyway. The lady must have heard and started training her dog. She would always do it 10:30, 11:30 in the night, whenever she felt was the right time for her. Later, she put them in the garage. However, being very sensitive, the dog would dream and bark rhythmically for half an hour to an hour. I know it sounded ridiculous, but that was what happened. Her non-stop rhythmic barking often woke me to complete consciousness. There were times I woke up crying and also times that I was so upset that I wanted to ring their door bell 2 in the morning. Thinking that the lady was already trying and I wanted to keep peace, I held any anger, which went quick away when the sun rose, and never disturbed them. I did one time mention about the dog but the lady simply told me she believed the dog belonged to the outside. Anyway, despite the disturbance, the two dogs ran out and got hit by a car and died, which was a relief. Yes, it’s incredible, but it’s true. They later got more dogs, but they put the dogs on the other end of the yard. The dogs are old so they don’t make excessive noise.

Along with the disturbance this sensitive dog was creating, there was also his compressor humming in the night occasionally. During holidays, they would be conducting home renovation. They would hammer or operate blower like machine deep in the night, say 2 in the morning. Sometimes, the lady would walk around all night and empty her trash, the latest was 1:30 in the morning. If she cat walked, I would not be upset. However, it was like nobody else existed. Anyway, the last straw was that one day the man was cutting metal like material from 3 in the afternoon until 11 in the night. I just couldn’t take that any more. I was constantly bombarded by different kinds of disturbing noise from day till deep in the night. And yet, the lady woke up at 6, some times 5:30 in the morning to feed the dogs. She would often throw the steel bowls on the cement. Yeah, sometimes I didn’t get to sleep 3 hours in the night and constantly had to nap during the day and could not function at all. When I was awaken in the morning, I often encouraged myself that it’s time to get up anyway.

The third year my father in law died, I was in great stress. I was so beat that night that I was knocked out in bed before 10. While deep in sleep, I was woken up by very loud noise. It was the lady pouring her collection of recyclables into the trash bin. It was so loud that it arise my nerve completely and I lost sleep until 3 in the morning. I went over to her house the next morning to ask her not to do her garbage that late. She held her newborn on her knee telling me that it was the only time during the day for her to do the garbage. This is of course not true, because she had been emptying trash like that since we moved in. Later, she did try to be careful, but would still put glass bottles making bling bling sound every night. I wasn’t so sensitive until being bombarded by so much for so long. So she came over one day and I didn’t smile at her. She started throwing trash making loud noise again. I called, she said that she had a busy schedule to keep, and she must throw out the shell fish they’ve eaten that night and her son was ok with the noise etc. Of course not, because the trash bins were right next to my windows but not her son’s. It wasn’t a nice conversation, but we didn’t call names. After that, I deserted my bedroom for a while and didn’t get to bed until past 11p. I wrote a letter to them, showed them our municipal code, and asked them to be considerate. She did much better, but would occasionally do her trash loud if she thought I was complaining.

During the past year, I left 2 note cards telling the man to turn off his compressor. For the 2 time, which happened within 2 week period not long ago, I called them. For a while, the couple was upset and would make noise with machine when we played or talked on the cell phone in the backyard. You probably know that cell phone reception sucks in residential area and there’s a small area in the backyard where there’s reception. I had to call the man one day telling him that nothing we do in the backyard was against them. It was the last couple weeks in the summer before the school started we just wanted to have some good time. Since then, everything has been ok. The lady would still occasionally make noise but was tolerable.

The past Sunday, I wasn’t knocked out until around 10:30p, the machine chimed at 12:30a. After that, I turned on and off the light, read books, put nasal sprays, elevated my pillow, nothing could make me fall back to sleep. I was awake for the entire night until 5 when it’s time to wake the kids up for activity. The entire day, I strolled in Sea World like a walking dead, not to mention how dangerous it was to drive like that. I called them on the way home, left a message, even gave a couple suggestions so that they could remind themselves to turn it off during the night. After all, what’s the point of leaving it on when not using it? Isn’t that a waste of our precious California energy? Now, the question is, what should I do when the next time the man “forgets” to turn off his compressor? Should I keep on calling them, or should I seek help from you? Frankly, I hate to call help from you, because they won’t be happy. They have improved a lot. However, if they are going to forget to turn it off and make me lose sleep, I would like to ask them move that thing away, maybe closer to the heart of the house in the garage so that they can hear it or feel the vibration to remember to turn it off. I need your advice.

Thanks for reading such a long email.

CM