Vibrating ninnies

When numerous residential properties are subject to vibrations causing cracks to appear, due to deep intense vibrations from a club venue, and its associated acts usage of coaches parked less than 9ft from residents premises, and after growing complaints from residents - many of whom have lived here for years - you really would think a council would take a pro-active stance, that a council would even turn up and take not only normal 'a' or 'c' weighted measurements but also conduct specific low frequency analysis so keeping up with the increasing trend for deep low bass bone-jarring music replacing the normal higher dulcet tones as venues side-step noise regulations by not peaking the previous and now outdated normal monitoring ranges.

Indeed, as low frequency travels further through the ground and structures, a growing tide of disaffected residents should provide sufficient stimulus so that officers can finally show that they really are looking out for the 'little wee guys'; instead of which, here we appear to be the meat flung to the lions.

Perhaps concern for residents is the norm in many other boroughs.  Even in this one, reports of churches and bars being taken to court, shows such concern obviously occurs here too - except for (and i might have mentioned it before) this peculiar little triangle, where the cry seems more akin to "liquidate the residents, especially those who dare complain", and as staff boy racers treat the little street like a race track, the venue treats the area like an open air park, bus drivers  treat it like an exhaust testing site, and coaches for acts at the venue treat it like a vibration testing pad, i sometimes wonder what role the old ted knight & co's days played in rendering the situation as badly as it is.

One good thing appears to be coming out of this (if having your health harmed can be viewed as a good thing), is my decision to do an environmental course; so i can work out - instead of just wondering - exactly who officers in environmental departments are supposed to be protecting, as in this case they don't appear to give a damn about the people who live here.

A case in point.  What effect does a 12+ ton coach have, when parked less than 9ft from your living room, with engine on and running for hours at a time with associated vibrations and belching out noxious exhaust?  

Sadly despite numerous years of complaints to the council, apparently not one measurement has been taken by them, as apparently there is no records showing that any complaint has been investigated, that any visit to the premise has been done, that any action by the council has occured (over 20 years), nothing. So a quick peek, at a foi request, showed up. Nothing. We both sat there in hysterics at the slapstick nature of it all.  But there is, however, an air monitoring station on the main road where the nearest residential property is hundreds of metres away.  Naturally they could have positioned it down and round the corner, but do you really want residents to know just how badly polluted the area really is? After all, they might want you to do something.

You generally can't expect an entertainment venue to do or know any better, it's like a dog that has the urge to lick, it does what it does.  The council on the other hand should.

BA²

One observational swallow does not indicate a good summer; but it can (where's that hedge trimmer) indicate change!

Last night (saturday) i wondered whether this mythical swallow had made an appearance?  I was actually able to sleep, without being bounced around or woken up; perhaps a sign of the end to the may madness which struck the venue earlier in the month, or simply an indication that things are finally improving and they might have installed sound-proofing or a limiter.

Yes, it's another one of those three-nights-in-a-row, 'hey guys we're open till 4am.  Neighbours?  We see no neighbours? Yippiee, a freebie' events occurring less than a stones throw, skip and a jump away, at the venue.

Before i crashed at 1am saturday morning, there were moments when the sound would cycle through those deep bass pulsating peaks and troughs – just the sort of thing you should be playing in a field hundreds of metres from people who live there and, not 28ft from residents and certainly not until 1am let alone 4am on a morning. 

The music was audible, with beats and individual notes easily distinguishable more than 200ft away.  Even the bits of environmental law i’ve read (that stays floating around chasing after tumbleweeds), indicates that if individual notes can be heard (i just didn’t realise there was a clause saying heard from the moon, which must be the location lambeth’s using to gauge whether they should do anything), then it’s loud – especially if its penetrating through shut double-glazed windows/doors and earplugs at 2,3,4,5,6am in the morning.

So what's it like here? 

Who said hell? … Ah, the escapees!

Here's a quick rundown on living here with a, more or less, out of control nightclub on the one hand, bus drivers who seem to have lost the ability to switch off their engines when stationary for more than 2 minutes at at a time - think 9 tons of bus-rumbling vibrations through all your rooms, then multiply that by 100’s of terminations per day, on the other.  But a rundown would take far too long, so the fun happenings and goings on since 1930s to the present day, will be in a lovely pdf, produced by yours truly and will probably make an appearance at the same time as when the noise-chart’s completed.  

In the meantime, a very quick rundown comprises of: earplugs, earplugs, earplugs, headphones, earplugs, earplugs, headphones playing static noise, and noise-cancelling headphones which sadly don't stop the vibrations, and earplugs.

Even the governments (“we’ve run out of money – ha haha ha”) recent noise maps are inaccurate, as they don’t take into consideration the noise generated at night by the venue.  Which when that is taken into consideration and combined with other measurements and indicators  leave this as one of noisiest and most air polluted areas in london, and that's (pollution measurements especially) official!

To date, despite numerous requests from other residents, the council seem strangely un– but i’ll leave that for another time.

Unlike the 3am trio at the start of the month, this bank holiday 4am triptych started off less noisier, but soon raced up the noise chart, with penetrating deep pulsating, bone vibrating, brain shaking bass low-notes and slightly more annoying, slightly less bass low-notes. 

So, the 2nd night?

I can sum up by saying, BA²!  For those who haven’t already guessed, it’s short for brixton academy's backside. 

Problems? What problems

We see no problems!

… and it’s nearly over …

What a busy start to the month this has been, which will no doubt make up for the vast desert expanse of the remainder of the month – unless something else slimes onto the moan-o-meter.

I would have loved to have a gushing report about how, on the last night of merry-making there was no reasonableness and they played louder than ever. 

Actually, for a brief smidgeon of time, it appeared as though they were going to show a semblance and nod to the fact that residents exist.   And until 00:34hrs it seemed to be the case.

Then it hit 00:35hrs and up the levels went.

So I will stick withy my nothing, nada, nought, zilch consideration shown towards resident, shall though call the council but won’t bother asking for anyone to turn up, because by time they do, the volume will be back down again.

Now, where’s my little wheel…

Two noisy, one more to go!

Yes, this is part two of the three nightmares of may.

Just when, up until 23:32hrs, it was looking so promising; sadly, it just wasn’t to be.  How can I describe it? It would be akin to heathrow throwing open a third & fourth runway, both opened especially for the night time with the loudest planes they could find, with all holding patterns full, all landing slots taken and a stream of buses reaching back to the centre of london, with engines revving fit to bust all the away.

So the club could (for a while at least) keep the noise within levels that didn’t have residents tearing their hair out in frustration, the question is why they don’t do so normally, and then why the council isn’t more proactive in finding out why people are so ticked.

Up until 23.32hrs it was tolerable, then it slowly increased to at 00:30hrs now have the pulsating thud, thud, thud, thudding away, like your own private tuning rave in your front cortex, where, strangely, each thudding tune emanating from those speakers is easily recognisable – something which is part of the environmental subjective “is it loud enough, do we really have to do something?” strategy; so either someone’s left and been seen driving away or it’s been saved specifically for after midnight and beyond, and someone has looked at their watch and gone “oops, time to whack it up”.

No, the whole thing really is a nonsense, they obviously have no consideration towards their neighbours; and just in case there’s a bit of doubt - they really don’t care, they (and this is from the evidence of sitting here and experiencing the noise, the vibrations) shows that really, when all is said and done, they have none, nada, zilch, zero consideration unless it’s the front facing face that’s twice facing backwards.