beatricemor
Nov 25, 2007, 10:14 AM
Post #16 of 49
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Re: [jsandrock] sound ordinance in ajijic?
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I read all these posts with great interest because I, too, am struggling to adjust to a new family that has moved in within a couple of houses of us that plays their radio VERY loud, night and day, 6 a.m. till midnight (and I'm grateful they turn the bloody music off at midnight). My beautiful garden and the twittering birds and our splashing fountain have to compete with this unrelenting and unwanted background noise, night and day. We also have an evento place nearby that has weekend parties with music so loud that it literally rattles your teeth. We can't have a conversation in our own living room on many occasions when the evento is having a party, the noise is so loud and so obtrusive.
I think your problems with the inconsiderate neighbors and the evento are even worse than, say, a commercial establishment such as an adjacent taller creating noise pollution. This is just my personal experience but I would be very hesitant to approach the neighbors and ask them to turn down the music since they are not obliged to honor your request and are as likely as not to react negatively and turn the volume up even higher. I don´t believe your Mexican neighbors would dare complain to these new neighbors and, in fact, our best friends in Ajijc are a Mexican family living in Upper Ajijic whose next door neighbors have teenage kids who blast loud music all day long every day. I asked them how they could stand it and they just shrugged and said something to the effect that that´s life. To them it is culturally inconceivable that they would confront their neighbors in this fashion no matter how polite their approach. Actually, their solution is to just turn up the volume on their own equipment and the whole street is incredibly noisy with music and children playing all day long. For a foreigner to object to this would take take chutzpah and remember you still have to live as their neighbors.
Good luck to you.
As for the evento, you´re not going to do anything about that except during late night hours.
If anything, it´s quieter around here than in Southern Mexico. In the almost entirely Mexican neighborhood we live in in Chiapas, street noise and music are almost constant during the day although, at night, neighbors generally respect each other´s right to peace and quiet except during the commonplace fiestas and then you can forget it.
I´m sorry I can´t think of any solutions for you but I point out to those contemplating a move to Mexico that even if you move into a quiet neighborhood that doesn´t mean it will stay quiet. You can move into a gated community with strict rules governing noise pollution but everything is a trade-off and many of us dislike these restricted neighborhoods. You can also increase your chances of peace and quiet by moving into a middle class rather than poor neighborhood. There are some very quiet neighborhoods all around Lakeside but when you move in it´s a coin toss.
I suggest (for newcomers):
*Be cautious about where you consider buying above the carretera as in some really fancy neighborhoods, traffic noise can be really bad - especially those engine-braking trucks.
* If you want to be near the plaza with its charming church, be prepared for loud church bells and cohetes and endless noisy fiestas. Believe me, our home in San Cristóbal is so close to our barrio´s plaza and church that the noise has to be heard to be believed when the fiestas are underway. We are helped by thick adobe walls and segmented, closeable quarters surrounding a courtyard in the Spanish style.
* Don´t buy without knowing the proximity of the nearest eventos or nightclubs or other noisy businesses. Remember there are no disclosure laws so the seller doesn´t have to tell you there is an evento next door and is unlikely do do so.
* Be cautious about buying adjacent to vacant land because you have no way of knowing what might go in there in the future from residential subdivions to squatters to noisy, six day a week machine shops. Remember that brick manufacturer I talked about earlier? Well, when we were able to get rid of them, they just moved up the road and re-established themselves next to other homeowners with adjacent vacant land.
Finally, while we live in a middle class neighborhood at Lakeside with a mix of relatively affluent foreign and Mexican homeowners, in Chiapas we live in a crowded Mexican neighborhood mostly populated by lower middle class residents. In the Ajijic neighborhood there is general agreement that neighbors value peaceful surroundings. In Chiapas, there is nothing to be done about the noise so one doesn´t worry about it thereby gaining a certain serenity and this is not unique to Mexico. When we lived way back in the woods in Northern California, the least noise would disturb us and when we moved to a hill overlooking Chinatown in San Francisco, the constant urban racket was actually rather soothing sort of like white noise. This was not a neighbor´s blasting radio, however.
For newcomers, I say, be careful where you buy and be sure what you are looking for. That, unfortunately, cannot assure you you will not have some bad luck once you move in. Maybe it´s best to rent and, if you find your neighbors unbearable, you can move.
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