Interesting that you posted this dilemma since I saw you a few weeks ago, Ryan. I am sort of in your situation now as well... just not as severe I think. I'll post some suggestions here that others on the board can view:
In one of my work training classes, I once learned something like: "The occurrence of an event is neither negative or positive; it's the
person who chooses to react either negatively or positively to an event". Sometimes people watching the show turn up their car stereos to be rather loud. I can sometime hear the beat to some of my songs when in my Living Room. My wife once clearly heard all the lyrics to Frosty the Snowman while putting our daughter to sleep. I just roll my eyes to the ignorance. My neighbor in question doesn't like it.
Speaking of noise, my neighbor also said that he doesn't like the noise of diesel trucks idling and he also says that he can smell it inside his house and it's awful.
On to my suggestions: Since my FM sign is pretty well at the end of its life and is starting to fall apart (it was originally never built for outdoor use), and it's been a bit smaller than I'd like, I was considering making it bigger. So, I guess now I will use that bigger sign to add more more info. Right now, the sign says "Hear the Lights" in a medium Font, and "95.7 FM" in a large font, and my web site at the bottom in a small font. I was thinking of changing the message to something like "Please Respect our Peaceful Neighborhood. Noisy engines off. Stereos on low. 95.7 FM. You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login", and make the "95.7 FM" the same size as the other text so people are more likely to read the whole sign before they read the FM station. I briefly told you how I made my sign when I was out to see you, ask me if you would like more info.
Adding a voiceover every few songs only works to a certain point because they could listen to two songs with their stereos cranked before the "Shhhhhhhh, be quiet!" announcement is made.
I do like shaunkad's suggestion of taking requests on songs. Perhaps your neighbor would feel "honored" if you asked him what song he would like in lights? However, my wife doesn't think that trick would work with
our neighbor.
I do think that the idea of talking to your neighbors this summer is a good idea as well.
In the end, you can't please everybody. Not even the viewers. My stay at home wife tends to go out with our daughter and socialize with other mommies and kids. She's amazed at how often our light display comes up in conversation and she says "ummm... that's
our house". They usually say about how amazing/wonderful it is, whereas one time the reaction was "there was this We Wish You a Merry Christmas techno song, and when it was over, we drove off even though the kids said that they liked it". I guess that's what happens when the parents are the ones who do the driving, LOL!
