Years ago when i first started working in the real estate business an older, very sweet West Indian man who was walking with a cane came into the office. i was on floor duty so i immediately welcomed him in and sat him down at my desk. He was very soft spoken and really the kind of person that didn’t want to make a fuss.
He apologized for having to complain before he even began his story. i asked him what the problem was and he began his tale of woe. Twenty years earlier he had finished paying for a piece of land in a part of the island that was not heavily developed. It was zoned residential so he set about immediately building his dream house. For a few years after it was completed all was well.
More houses were built and the community slowly grew. The lots were small, just quarter acres, and many used up all the land to build two story homes. My little old man was fine with all this. Families moved in and someone put a small grocery store in the bottom of one of the homes. He was fine with that too, even with the lady and her sewing shop.
But one day an owner of property on the corner of the street opened a bar in the bottom of his home. The little old man watched at first but then became concerned when music started blasting out of the bar until all hours of the morning. Every night the music would start and every night it would go on until 3 or 4 in the morning.
He personally went to the bar owner and asked him to turn the volume down so he could sleep. Sometimes the owner would but mostly he wouldn’t. After a few years he came into our office and spoke to someone else who had originally sold him the property. That broker told him that the bar was illegal and to go complain to Licensing He went and complained, not just to Licensing, but to every government office he could…nothing happened.
He and his family continued to suffer every night from the noise. He lobbied neighbors and friends, called the police and tried to find a way to get the bar to tone down the volume. He was fine with the bar not the noise. Nothing worked.
After he told me his story he asked if i knew of anything at all that he could do or try. Since he had exhausted all government agencies and they had done nothing for him i was at a loss. i asked if he wanted to sell his home and he said no…it was his dream home.
i asked if he wore ear plugs and he said he did but the noise still got through. i expressed my dismay at his predicament and really felt bad that there was nothing i could do to help him. When he stood up to go he told me that he knew i couldn’t help him but that he wouldn’t stop trying to find a solution.
The waste product(loud music) of that bar was ruining my little old mans life. How many other lives were also being impacted by that waste was a question i asked myself after he left?
Noise is all around us. Wind howling, rain beating on our roofs, the ocean pummeling our shores and birds chattering are just a few of the natural sounds we hear or don’t hear every day. Lawn mowers, loud music, bushwackers, cars, airplanes, and all sorts of mechanized items invade our ears daily.
Aural trash, sound contamination, noise pollution, and aural litter are just a few of the terms used to define that waste product.
You may think i’m going to do more complaining about all the community noise that surrounds us but you would be wrong. Where i’m actually going is to ask you all to look around when you are outside and notice all the people with ear buds in their ears and phones in their hands. No one looks up anymore, no one looks around, hardly anyone really listens any more.
The waste product that is noise is no longer seen as an annoyance. Now people actively implant noise makers in their ears to block out natures call. We no longer hear Mother Earth…we don’t hear the birds, we don’t hear the wind or waves…we can’t hear Mother Earth because we actively try not to.
Children today have very little contact with Nature and this is a huge problem for us as a species. If we stop listening and watching Mother Earth we will destroy her. Think about those ear buds, think about the kind of noise you may want you and your children to listen to.
See ya next week
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