Last night, from 9PM till at least 2AM I heard a near-incessant ‘back-up beep’ from some distant vehicle. Drove me up the wall. If I didn’t own my E5s, I’d’ve had a very lousy night’s sleep. (And it was very irritating working until I put ’em in at 2)
Tonight – same damn thing! Instantly my frustration bloomed, so I grabbed my camera and set out to find the source as I figured there was little point in lodging a noise by-law complaint until I could give a better description than “I hear beeping.”
Well I found the source – it’s the rollers they’re using to repave (“resurface”) The Transitway; The stretch between Walkley Road and Heron Road – which is actually quite far – but obviously I can hear it in my house, which is almost at Hunt Club road. >Grumble<
Since loitering around either station (with a big camera and flash) didn’t get me any attention, I called 311, The City’s By-Law Enforcement and lodged a complaint. Fiona, the girl who took my call was quite sympathetic, although when I told here there were likely several hundred to a thousand homes between the work-site and my home and that I’d be surprised if I was the first to complain… she didn’t let on that there’d been any others. She did tell me that I could call back on Monday and find out what’d happened. It turns out that if there’s no exemption filed, that By-Law can force the offenders to shutdown and be fined $305 to $5000.
A few minutes later, a By-Law Enforcement Officer called me to inquire further as to the nature of the complaint, I got all excited when she mentioned that she didn’t see an exemption filed – so I asked what might happen, she simply stated that they’d be shut down. (And she totally had the ‘tough-sh!t’ attitude about it too – awesome! 🙂
Unfortunately, she just called back again to tell me there is an exemption, but they they should be finishing this morning. $DEITY I hope she’s right. 🙁
Curiously, while researching this, I noticed in the By-Law that…
5. (1) No person shall use or operate or cause to be used or operated any exhaust fan, exhaust system, intake fan, generators, dryer in a commercial car wash or similar device which includes combustion exhaust of a high efficiency furnace, the noise from which has a level greater than 50 dBA when measured at the point of reception.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a person using or operating a portable generator in a residential area in an emergency situation.
So the cop was totally being a jerk when I was asking about running my generator back in the spring when the power around mWare went out. Probably just didn’t want to have to deal with the potential complaints. Guess I shouldn’t be so accommodating until I’m about to get in trouble.
Sigh. Don’t mind me – I’m just putting together a playlist of what to listen to tonight… and listening to beeping…
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
*gah*