Mexlark

2 hours ago, MAGA 2020 said:

I used insulated wire cutters once. Make 2 cuts, cutting a section out so can't be easily spliced 

Reminds me that an Oz did just that on mosque speakers in Penang decades ago. He was in court the same morning, and given a jail term for ..... disturbing the peace. But seriously, he appeared in court almost immediately for fear it might lead to an interracial fracas. No doubt the silly sod was staying in a Chinese hotel. They wouldn't have appreciated having their hotel ransacked either.

4 hours ago, unamazedloso said:

get a db meter and if its over the limit of whats acceptable tell the mayor.

one things for sure is if you manage to stop the loud music something else will annoy you. Your neighbours will make sure of it. Its what childish Thais do.

Thais dont have to listen to farang and the police will side with them but smile and be polite to you. If the DB meter doesnt work you can take it to civil court or try complaints hotline to complain that officials arent doing their jobs which will take time but eventually work.

 

Good quality db meters were on special offer in Amorn a few weeks back. (They obviously think there is a market for them. ???? You might also want to submit your data to an urban neighborhood health clinic. I have some evidence that they take mass neighborhood complaints quite seriously. That happened here. The whole street was p'ed off with one establishment; none of it instigated by my 'alien' self. The clinic got the message and the place eventually disappeared, despite uniformed patronage. What leverage was applied, I haven't the foggiest idea. I doubt they would relish transparency.

40 minutes ago, GreasyFingers said:

We have loud music from many surrounding 'resorts' but mostly only on weekends when they have customers so nothing can be done. But across the the road (80 metres) is a little shop where the son, or grand son, likes his karaoke and cannot sing for sh8t. It would not start until 9pm and would go until all the drunks fell asleep.

Like the OP I did not know how to handle the problem as we were new to the area and me the only farang. But the wife solved the problem by giving fruit and vegetables to the grandmother and being good neighbors to her.

We still get the occasional karaoke but it now stops about midnight.

Over a year ago, I took a very short break at a resort in a fairly remote province; the idea being to get away from the ear-ringing urban noise pollution for a bit. I was with Thais who genuinely wanted some peace and quiet themselves, and the proximity of a white-water river was actually very therapeutic. Just the usual countryside noise at dawn. Unfortunately, the resort next door ( a few hundred meters away) decided to play techno at max volume about 30 minutes after dawn. So other urbanites say they want to get away from it all, but have to get their daily fix of noise in order not to get too bummed out by the loneliness of the dawn chorus. Last time, i go there. It is a province with an immigration office for reporting your stay, but I doubt the owners would want to bother when it is so much easier to pander to the urbanite noise junkies. It might actually be better to stay at home and expand into the partial noise vacuum left by noisy weekenders retreating to some rural noise. Not amazing!

On 10/23/2019 at 8:44 AM, Chazar said:

Do what the Thai  guy  did years ago , a  story  on Thai  Visa I  believe, he asked them for years to turn it  down, they didnt, one  day he went round and shot them all dead.

As far as I know he is still locked up. I don't even know if they gave him a death sentence, but if they did I figure there are people who would not relish the thought of carrying it out. One thing is certain though: He has been almost completely forgotten locally. I live quite close. Try to talk about it and no one seems to remember any longer. The shame in that is that it means that there is no one who you can now point to as an example of what goes around, comes around. Younger People don't know or were never told; so automatically think it will never happen to them.

One of my neighbours blazes away to scare away the local addicts from the khlong, at night.

1 hour ago, sweatalot said:

Try noise cancelling headphones. I've got Sennheiser bluetooth NC.

Heavenly silence.

Another trick might be white (or pink) noise from a speaker, combined with sounds (rain eg), if you like it

It rains here enough already. But seriously, I have noticed that the rainy season helps to cancel out some of the aural damage of the cool and hot seasons.  Noise-generating cretins don't really like rain much, either.

6 minutes ago, Oztruckie said:

You could try out a setup with a CB radio,connected to an extremely powerful amplifier and in turn connect amplifier to a high powered speaker,I believe it works wonderfully well with offending speakers.

Is that like degaussing? I have wondered if it was possible; but decided not to waste my money when I would also have to put up with the meltdown-level speaker screech myself. I have a whole host of sadistic ideas to get my own back, but none of them are really at all practical.

Let the nearest local rich & influential people do all the work for you. But don't expect fast results. At least that way, as a farang, you get to live a bit longer.

The problem here is not so much young people, but actually adult club/bar owners running money-laundering operations. The singer (usually not young either) is paid by something like an annual contract to turn up, come hell or high-water. several days a week and sing the same old boring songs. I am almost offended more by the repertoire than the volume; but the volume definitely interferes with sleep patterns and other health. The singers are expected to turn up the volume as publicity, to pull in just enough punters to appear like the owner is running a real business. The business is open-sided for the same reason. Direct profit perhaps isn't really that important, anyway. But then there are all the other illegal things/services that either you or your underpaid staff can sell on the side to your clientele. And of course there are often uniformed investors in the business anyway. The ordinary cop can do nothing about any of this. There is also a noise problem from the clientele. They tend to spend all their time ranting on about how bad the government, chao bahn, farangs and the police all are. They have to shout to be heard over the top of the over-amplified singer, whose repetoire has become so boring no one really bothers to listen to it at all (except the chao bahn. ????) When the cops eventually get around to imposing a closing time, the clients (usually a bunch of alcoholic/ pill-popping spoilt-rich under-employed male tossers will sit outside with gold-digging female staff members laughing both their stoned heads off until just before sunrise. And then depart home to sleep off the rest of the day, making a massive row with their pimped-up rides. Sleeping it off is quite acceptable to Hun Maa & Khun Paw, but they are expected to take their obnoxious anti-social habits away from home, where the neighbors can't afford to complain.

I'm listening to this racket right now. You sort of get used to it, eventually. Whatever you do as a farang, never try visiting the place to reason with them or threaten them. You really do not want to identify yourself for cheap target practice Keep a low profile during their working hours, and they probably won't even realise you exist. Complaining to the authorities is a total waste of time.

Unfortunately, Richard, that is a rather non-PC four-letter word word that is often considered hugely derogative of the other gender/s; even though it is now most often applied to male politicians. I never voice it myself, but it frequently passes thru' my mind when I see a convoy of VIPs on their way to ..... yet another conference.

Sounds a bit like a narcissist. (Now where else have I heard that word recently?;-) Narcissistic skeptic might be better.

The skepticism might well be no bad thing. I am sure that the various forms of cannabis all have their uses, but right now the whole subject is little more than a fashion statement. I might consider putting it to good use the next time I have a terminal illness, the trendy wendys have already made a fortune out of it, the price has dropped to practical levels and they have moved onto the next fashionable cash cow.

See you ten years in the future, if you haven't already moved on to promoting something more current.

7 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Finally a good question.

 

I guess it's because I'm a curious person, I want to know why I am the way I am. That includes my upbringing, my relationships to my parents, the psychological strategies I developed growing up, how all that influences me and my surrounding. 
The deeper you go, the more you find. And when you go deep enough, you'll see that we are not living in a bubble, cut off from the world, but we are all connected. Everything is connected.
Spirituality is just a word that describes this quest for knowledge. 
To find yourself is to find God.

If that is your personal experience, i can connect with that. Temporarily, at least. But probably not for infinity. (Here endeth the inadvisable forum posting session of the day/week/month/year/lifetime)

10 minutes ago, gunderhill said:

Well you  cant question something that doesn't exist.

i can if I want, ..... and will. But most dogs here seem to be barking up the same tree, anyway

22 minutes ago, gunderhill said:

You cant really rely on "personal experience" thats  how  many  of these crackpot  religions started in the first  place.

Now try to stop me. ???? It's a fundamental human right to <deleted> up and have crackpoint ideas. I am also free to call my own ideas crackpot, and frequently do. You can always do the same. I am at least partly responsible/answerable for my actions. God's actions are unquestioned, ..... by some. Although not believing in God/god, why I should want to question his/her/its/their actions, *** only knows! 'Right' is a bit open to debate as well. But if I want to rely on something I naively perceive as 'personal experience', who can stop me. :-) It might give you something to laugh about, but that is always a positive thing.

No! Why not? Infinity probably excludes any concrete proof. So perhaps infinity is due some respect, at least, and might even be that the nearest we ever get to God/god. (Review that term in reverse.) When talking on this site about our own widespread incompetence, we are probably still better off talking about the role of commonsense/personal experience rather than wittering on about the hand (paw) of God.

9 hours ago, chrisinth said:

When the last hype about changing work permits was in the news (by a small English law firm) I can't remember seeing anything mentioned about changing the retirement visa.

 

I do remember reading some drivel in the article that if a person was issued a work permit, this would allow the person to work at, for whoever and and do whatever they wanted. For this part of the article, I would call bovine manure.

It was a particularly bad article. But it did perhaps indicate some slight change of mind is afoot. I'm hugely skeptical myself. I've often said that I would probably go to my grave with some sort of job still on the go, but I now strongly doubt that work ethic is worth a damn. Doubtless that is exactly how the Bannons of this World want us oldies to react, but screw them anyway!

10 hours ago, Scottjouro said:

Why would they do this as why would a retiree need a work permit ?...they are retired !....if a retiree has a work permit he is no longer a retiree !...therefore one suspects there is no legislation to change 

Nothing is ever really that cut-&-dried in the gig economy /free market lie era. But might as well have a good laugh about it, nevertheless. ?

Cheers all! There are some indications that the 'do nothing, but let the local poo-yais take the strain' approach is gradually having an impact. But let's not take anything for granted here.

Thanks for confirming the as-yet vague news reports, Joe.

Apologies if this is already covered by a thread somewhere. A link to any such thread might help. I've searched for one, but haven't yet found anything useful. Early days, I suppose!

A few months ago, a retired senior civil servant told me that the necessary legislation had already been put in place to make work permits more readily available to retirees. And just a few weeks back, there was a news report on Thai Visa confirming that. Now having been told that some sort of employment might be possible in future, I think now is the right time to investigate if anyone has yet to experience these new regs; and how they are working out in practice. As most employers in Thailand know very little about employment law, and probably don't want to go through a specialist company, it may be necessary for me to steer them in the right direction. I'm interested in doing things to the book.

Cheers!

On 8/5/2018 at 7:58 PM, sloperating said:

Agreed. Apart from the split infinitive, which is probably acceptable these days, it's a piece of gifted writing. I might have included a comma or two but, dotpoom, full marks to you for drawing attention to this refreshing contribution amidst a sea of illiteracy. 

One must suffer for one's art. But it makes the sarcasm easy to bear, at least. ? As for moving, I wouldn't give the barstaff the satisfaction. ?

16 hours ago, KittenKong said:

If you are in a town then your local City Hall should have a public health department and they may be of some help. The problem, of course, is that they will not be around when the noise is actually happening and you wont be able to provide precise information about the location and people involved, which you could if it was a bar or similar.

Some local knobs have already done this. I wasn't involved because any outside participation is always the kiss of death to a complaint here. There was eventually a 'visit', but I'm pretty certain it had been rehearsed to make sure no one important felt any discomfort. It is obvious that someone in the local district has done well out of this.

20 hours ago, Lamkyong said:

move

Better still, wait for them to move. It isn't an option anyway

2 hours ago, from the home of CC said:

you mean a farang girlfriend?

Which fan are we talking about here? Not that keen on white noise. I never use an air conditioner in a bedroom is because it keeps me awake. Headphones, earplugs and double glazing do not block out the sound of stoners.

Thanks for all the advice. Most of these things have already been tried with varying success. And will continue to to use all of them. But also stick to the original plan, which is let them mess up or get bored with the boring neighborhood all on their own. It takes time, sure. The local wisdom is that "BIg Men always go too far'', but it is always best to let the locals sort these things out in their own time. The noise will move somewhere else to show off, when it eventually realises that the audience is deaf. I'm glad I posted though.

10 minutes ago, Faikham said:

You're probably not pretentious enough. I found it verbose and strained. My first reaction was why is this guy writing like this? Not how can I help 

I'm not impressed either. But stress says it better than strain.