Tennis court on rooftop of condo - noise issue?

[taxico]

i go to a gym that's located near 2 tennis courts (located on the ground floor next to the building housing the gym). it's a racket (to me).

i also have been under a roof which housed a pool above. with the kids running about (it was a house warming - landed property) it was a din even through the hub bub.

what you're counting on is that it won't be an inconvenience without actually experiencing the worse first hand. this, imo, is a bad way to go about house hunting. (a guy jumping on an unused court during the day won't do, me thinks)

so don't be shy - at least ask the neighbors or maids bustling about before you commit. the older ones tend to tell me more about a property than the agents can.

also, are the courts surrounded by anything that may echo or prevent noise from dissipating? (hills, walls, another block, etc) if it is, i would urge you to strongly reconsider.

common facilities tend to be open until 10pm (or thereabouts?) but that may be too much for me because i like my silence. i don't even like hearing kids playing by the pool.

traffic noise (and the occasional crash/"sport" exhaust) is less irritating to me than screaming kids at the pool and the grunts, plinks and plonks of tennis. especially on weekends.

[byseeksconseil1]

Hi guys,

This is an update. So I am just back from viewing the place for the second time. I had my agent bouncing a tennis ball on the rooftop, and hitting it against the metal fence of the tennis court. Guess what! The noise was clearly audible in the unit. In fact it was unbearably loud.

Phew! I dodged a bullet.

This is first-world construction standard for you!!!!!

[earthfriendly]

If you have to close windows to control noise levels it's not a habitable home.

Even with the window closed in a HDB flat on 5th floor level, next to medium-traffic street, I still could not hear the TV, due to the excruciating noise level. The concrete walls seem to amplify and echo and bounce the noise around. Given that concrete is the choice of building material, one would imagine they would put in measures to mitigate this. And HDB is done on a large skill, any added cost could have been mitigated by the economy of scale??? It seems that they just don't care and people are willing to settle for mediocrity. But the flat in question is > 20 years old. Are the newly-builds any better and comes with noise-reduction?

Not limited to HDB, shoddy workmanship is abound in private condo and landed property too.

I had to explain to an American friend (who never stepped foot in SG but travels around, just not Asia) that there are no window screens on buildings and residences. He could not get his head around it. And there is no lack of tropical bugs there ! Maybe it is not a SE Asian thing? But then the region is not known for being first world whereas SG try to sell that image. Somebody even wrote a book about it (From Third World to First World).

Sometimes, Singapore reminds me of a mini-China. Upon landing on its first rate airport, you will notice the first-worldliness of this country, the shiny and ritzy infrastructure. Do not let your eyes, alone, do the talking, please do your homework, dig deeper to find out for yourself. And go beyond the surface.

[earthfriendly]

(2) speeding motorbikes in the middle of the nights.

I had a bloody arse delivering my IHT at 5:30 in the morning on an incredibly loud two cycle bike with no muffler. I finally got up one morning and threatened to beat him to death with his own newspaper... no, actually, threatened that if he woke me up one more time I would have his job. Oddly enough, he started riding a much quieter bike.

Riding with no/n-standard muffler is like a local hobby.

By and large these noise-makers are able to get away with it as the population is rather tolerant and more and less learnt to live with the noise that comes with high density city-living. Which is also what attracts me to the city. I kind of enjoy the throngs of noise generated by human activities, within reasonable decibels. It becomes a problem when it interferes with my sleep or TV watching.

[x9200]

I had a bloody arse delivering my IHT at 5:30 in the morning on an incredibly loud two cycle bike with no muffler. I finally got up one morning and threatened to beat him to death with his own newspaper... no, actually, threatened that if he woke me up one more time I would have his job. Oddly enough, he started riding a much quieter bike.

Riding with no/n-standard muffler is like a local hobby.

By and large these noise-makers are able to get away with it as the population is rather tolerant and more and less learnt to live with the noise that comes with high density city-living. Which is also what attracts me to the city. I kind of enjoy the throngs of noise generated by human activities, within reasonable decibels. It becomes a problem when it interferes with my sleep or TV watching.

I guess nobody cares too much during the day time. Riding a m-bike and making excessive noise in city space is like a manifesto, look, here comes a moron, so better watch him.

For the night riders, unless this happens in some specific situation like the one SE described, there is nothing practical you could do. Besides, we all know how the problems with noisy neighbors are being handled in HDB or any other more public estates.

[earthfriendly]

There are many people that can't handle city noise. The garbage truck that does the daily pickup in the NY apt, at godly hours. The sound and smell of the cities (and some more so than others) is an assault on the senses. And it may not jive with those used to the peace of suburbs and country living. And in some European countries, you are not allowed to flush the toilets in vertical living situations at night, to avoid disturbing your neighbors. I don't see this kind of policy being effected anytime in SG. They are more desensitized to noise pollution.

[sundaymorningstaple]

You only have to ride a bus with two local Chinese Aunties sitting together for any distance to understand why the noise doesn't seem to bother them. Or a single Chinese Auntie on a mobile phone, for that matter. You would think they were talking (yelling) to each other a block apart instead of sitting next to each other.

[earthfriendly]

Lol, you should visit a cave or cavern with a group of Chinese tourists

[sundaymorningstaple]

No Thanks!

[byseeksconseil1]

I don't necessarily agree with this. Americans are also quite loud on buses, especially when in a group.

[earthfriendly]

My statement above was a bit of a generalization. And as with all generalizations, do take it with a grain of salt and practice your personal judgment .

[x9200]

You only have to ride a bus with two local Chinese Aunties sitting together for any distance to understand why the noise doesn't seem to bother them. Or a single Chinese Auntie on a mobile phone, for that matter. You would think they were talking (yelling) to each other a block apart instead of sitting next to each other.

I always thought it is about this Nian-thing. As in Singapore it is forbidden to use firecrackers some other ways needed to be implemented to keep people safe.