Noise is one of the major stressors of urban living, so almost all residential estates include a clause about noise in their Code of Conduct.
Community Living / Bio Design
Arabella Country Estate
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
Noise is one of the major stressors of urban living, so almost all residential estates include a clause about noise in their Code of Conduct.
But there is more to noise pollution than traffic, loud music and raucous parties. A friend, who does not live on an estate, told me about his method of dealing with neighbours who regularly held loud parties till the early hours of the morning. They had responded to frequent polite requests to keep it down after midnight with – basically – a middle finger. So, after a really long party that lasted till about three in the morning, my friend got up at six, feeling a little sleep-deprived – but still in much better shape than the neighbours – and proceeded to run his brush cutter full bore right against the boundary fence for half an hour. He stopped for tea, and then started the lawn mower, and tidied up all that was left with a leaf blower. They got the message, and the following weekend undertook to stop the music at midnight.
And that just goes to show that gardening and landscaping equipment – while undeniably useful – can be used offensively as well as constructively. In fact, even when they are used constructively, they are still pretty irritating, and it can be hard to sleep, work, talk, watch TV or even think when there is a noisy leaf blower or brush cutter at work outside your window.
A 2011 report by the World Health Organization( WHO) entitled Burden of disease from environmental noise found‘ overwhelming evidence that exposure to environmental noise has adverse effects on the health of the population’. These adverse effects, the study found, ranged from the expected sleep deprivation, tinitus, hearing loss and general stress to childhood cognitive impairment and serious cardiovascular diseases. In Europe alone, the study
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