the 2014 trivial drivel thread

[username]

I'm insisting all the parents sign a liability waiver. Fuck if I'm going to get sued if some kid breaks his arm or something.

I don't say this to scare you, it's only something to consider. In many instances liability waivers aren't worth the paper they are written on & most courts will say that a parent doesn't have the right to sign away their child's rights.

I'm going to pretend I didn't read that. I honestly don't know that I even need to have one. People who own pools or trampolines or even trees that get climbed run a risk of someone getting injured on their property too. I don't know that a skateboard ramp is any different.

That said, I'm working on getting a $1 million umbrella policy. It's only about a $150/year and it's been something that we've been meaning to do anyway.

I warned our neighbors on our left that we were putting the damn thing in but not our neighbors on the right. Fuck them. They've lived here at least 5 years and I don't even know their names. They barely wave "hello" and the only thing I've heard about them is that they've bitched to our neighbors about our tree when it drops its leaves in the fall (of course they didn't talk to us about it--pussies). At the time, we did the neighborly thing and had our tree trimmed/thinned etc.

When we built this ramp, we did most everything we could to make it as quiet as possible (although I've since discovered that we can add a few things that might make it quieter still). Anyway, I found out this morning that the neighbor on the right is PISSED. They went to our neighbor on the left and bitched away about the noise. They plan on calling the city, state, blah, blah, blah. The neighbor on the left couldn't figure out why they were talking with her; she doesn't know them either. I guess they're trying to form a posse.

They can bitch all they want but I checked with our city building department before I built the damn thing and they said "go ahead and have fun with it". It's not considered a permanent structure. To me, it's no different than putting in a giant trampoline or pool--both or going to be fucking noisy when you put a bunch of kids in them.

The only way they can "get us" (as I understand it) is if the noise decibel level reaches a certain peak (which lowers as you get in to the late evening or early morning). If the damn thing generated the noise of a bulldozer all day long, we'd probably have problems but there's no way we're going to reach that decibel level. That's why/how people are able to have construction work done on their house all day long but are required to quit at a certain point at night. Speaking of which, they do a lot of god damn construction work over at their house.

So I'm finding the whole situation pretty damn amusing. I found this police report about a neighbor (not in our immediate area but close) who called the cops about noise from a skate board ramp:

Noise complaint: Occurred on Coolidge Ave. Neighbor built a skateboard ramp in his backyard and it’s being used every day by his son and his son’s friends. RP feels the noise is excessive and that it should be illegal. Responsibles advised of complaint.


Responsibles advised of complaint. Alrightee, then.

If I'm feeling neighborly, I *might* have some plywood installed on either end of the ramp which I've heard can cut the noise and I might work a little harder to get the kids to keep their damn voices down. I tell them to be quieter but it's like the volume control being broken on a radio. You turn it down and gradually it just increases up... I don't think they can help it much...teenage boys are just genetically LOUD. Have you ever heard a group of kids playing basketball whispering? Jesus.

I don't know what's bugging the neighbors more, the kid noise or the ramp noise. Stupid assholes could come talk to me but no...... Fuck them. I hope they spin their wheels right off trying to do something about it.