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pLaYiNg iN yOuR GaRaGe
Me and my friends do this every Friday, or every other Friday. We get together after spending a week listening to about three songs and jam around them for a bit. It sounds really good too. We'll play around 'Dust My Broom' by Elmore James or some other old blues tune, or something like 'On The Road Again' by Canned Heat. We aren't a punk or metal band, we're pretty quiet, in fact.
But this little old wanker came round last week when we were jamming, for the third time in about a year. It was about 10pm. He was like "I'm trying to sleep." Turns out he lives quite a distance away, about 8 minutes walk. But none of the other residents (and there are a lot of em) in the surrounding area seem to give a shit. He started saying things like "I have friends in the council." so I wasn't happy. We told him we'd quieten down but we were gonna play til about 11.
This morning we got a letter from Burnley Council. It said they'd received a noise complaint. In the second paragraph, they threatened us with a "£5000 fine if this nuisance continues in the future".
So we're a bit infuriated. How one person can complain about something, then without any enquiries or investigation, the council decide the guy must be justified in his complaints, and send us threats through the post.
I hate this person. We once jammed on a Sunday afternoon, and he came round to tell us to stop because he was reading. Then again on a Saturday night, he told me his daughters were going to school the next day - "I pay for them to have weekend education".
Surely without monitoring the sound levels (which they haven't done yet), an objective body like a council can't threaten someone with financial penalties? I think that because he has a friend there, maybe they've gone a bit further.