Disclosing neighbors' target practice when advertising our "quiet" cabin

I mentioned one day to a Mexican guy I know that I hated the roosters. He said, quite shocked, " You don’t like the song of the roosters?".

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Our place is listed as a nature retreat as it abuts a nature preserve, and it is generally considered “peaceful”. “Serene”, even. Unless the rooster across the street is crowing. Or the jets are taking off at the Air Force Base (daily), or if they are doing something with munitions, there. Or if the local yokels are hunting (nature preserve, nature shmaserve). Everything is disclosed. No one has ever mentioned anything in a review. We still have 5 stars. Hmmm, maybe I’ll put earplugs in the welcome basket, though.

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I’ve always provided earplugs. But when I mention them to guests, they usually say they always travel with their own. Still, I leave some in the bathroom.

I birded in Queensland a number of years ago and was absolutely in love with all the birds I’d never seen before. And, yes lots are noisy, but good noisy, but I’m not hosting in an area with them. I also loved the flying foxes, platapus and kangaroos.

IMO there’s a huge difference between loud birds and guns going off for hours during the day. I’ll take the birds any day.

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Oh, my gosh, you’ve just made me realize I need to add bird noises (other than rooster) to the cacophony of nature that people might hear while staying here! The squawking of the herons can sound absolutely terrifying if you don’t know what it is!

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@mccarras The “Potential for Noise” tick-off box is there for situations like yours.

I think you really, really need to disclose the shooting range specifically (“Sounds from a neighborhood shooting range may be heard during the day”). That statement or similar should be up high in the listing description, in the top box, not buried somewhere.

If I booked your place and heard a shooting range without prior disclosure in your listing, you can be sure I would demand a 100% refund as I immediately packed up and walked out the door. And I would be furious at you too.

If I were in your situation, I would keep trying to get the shooting stopped. In the meantime I would probably give up on STR and move to a long term rental if the property could accommodate LTR.

P.S. I grew up hunting in an area that sounds a bit like your area. It’s not that I’m objecting to. It’s the fact a guest can’t nap or relax, especially with the windows open.

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There is not a shooting range. @mccarras said specifically that there are:

Yes, it should be disclosed in the listing of course but there is no reason to exaggerate and say that there is a shooting range, because it is not the same thing.

Several others had already noted that it should be mentioned in the listing so I didn’t feel the need to repeat that. However, it is of utmost importance that is specifically mentioned under “Potential for Noise”.

It doesn’t matter if she mentions the neighbors having target practice at the top of her listing if she doesn’t have “Potential for Noise” noted. It is the “Potential for Noise” section that will cover her ass if someone complains.

I agree and totally understand that; however, this is not that. This isn’t about shooting up a Walmart or some other kind of aberrant use of guns, these are hunters. It’s wholly different. And, no, I’m not a hunter but I eat meat so I have no right to judge it.

I understand some people abhor hunting anyway, but it is actually Canada that leads the Western world in hunting. Canada has more than twice as many hunters than the US (by percent of pop). Y’all are quite literally known for hunting so there is plenty of target practice happening in Canada too.

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I wasn’t referring to hunters, I was referring to the OP saying his neighbors are having “fun” doing target practice, drunk, until 1am, complete with pinging off a metal target. That’s the kind of thing where innocent people, including children, get accidentally shot, not to mention disturbing the neighbors for no legitimate reason.

I understand the use of guns for hunting purposes, as long as the hunted gets used as food, not killed “for sport”. I’ve certainly enjoyed venison that hunter friends have gifted. As well as the need for farmers and ranchers to occasionally use a gun to get rid of predators killing their livestock and devastating their crops.
That’s not the type of gun usage that I mean as far as “Americans’ love affair with guns”.

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That’s not unique to the US either :roll_eyes:

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No, it isn’t unique, but far more common in the US than anywhere else I am aware of. I lived in Canada for 40 years and never encountered this. Nor in Mexico.

Lived out west in WA and AZ for over 40 years and never ever encountered this.

Target practice? Drinking? Young men disturbing neighbors until 1 am? I don’t have any statistics on those things but I doubt you do either.

Are you talking about hunting or target practice? I’ve lived in Texas, California, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Oklahoma and I haven’t encountered either one personally. I’ve only seen it in the movies :slight_smile:

I had a friend in Los Angeles that lived near a shooting range though and I found it very disturbing. It was all day every day. Eeek.

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This is extremely funny. Meanwhile, @KKC 's picture of feeding the cockatoos (aka being menaced by birds that could bite a hole right through your finger and who could and would rip out a large chunk of your hair just for funsies) is very cute, and brave!

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Is part of the attraction the loud noise made when the weapon of death is fired? They have silencers, you know…

They’re illegal in California, you know…

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… but I am pretty sure in ‘maga’ enclaves this is not the case.

Wtf does that even mean? Lol. Are you suggesting that California is a ‘maga’ enclave because they have the strictest gun control in the US, thus prohibit silencers? I cannot make sense of your thought pattern on this :face_with_spiral_eyes:

Besides, I believe that silencers are used for surreptitious killings, murders and assassinations and such so can’t understand any love for them. People at a gun range, from what I understand, are not being sneaky about shooting the target so don’t really need a silencer.

I’m grasping at straws, lol.

No. I said I was pretty sure that in ‘maga’ enclaves that laws prohibiting silencers (for example) would not be found.

"maga’ enclaves such as West Virginia and other states that push ‘open carry’ as a ‘right’.

Silencers on a practice rage would help keep the noise down. That is what this thread is all about. Providing them or allowing them on a practice range is how a range could be a good neighbor.

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Oh, ok, non-sequitur. It’s okay, I can zig. Thing is, it doesn’t play out like that. Gun laws may be the most misunderstood and definitely underestimated laws in all of the US. So much so that using stereotypes for them is completely useless.

There isn’t any overlap on the Venn diagrams of “maga enclave” and “open carry as a right” (I assume you mean that open carry as a right = is allowed without a permit?).

As an example, there are only four (yep, that’s 4) states that prohibit open carry: California, Illinois, NY and Florida (!).

And 2/3 of the states have what I believe you are calling “open carry as a right” including most of the traditional “blue states” such as Vermont, Washington, Delaware, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia… The other 1/3 (-4 states) allow open carry with a permit (even if it’s only a permit from one of the other 49 states, oops, eek, lol).

The US is a country of open carry (-4 states, lol). It is a problem, I fully agree, but it is inherently not a problem that is tidily and conveniently tucked away into “maga enclaves”. It is a grave mistake to make that mistake.

Interesting tidbit: Open carry was illegal in Texas until 2015, making it the 45th state to legalize open carry (e.g. it was already legal in the other 44, including yours). So, as a native Texan, I’m particularly unnerved about open carry since I grew up in one of the very few states that prohibited it.

Back to the point, silencers pose a unique threat and I wholly support their prohibition. Their only purpose is to muffle the sound from unsuspecting victims and any possible witnesses. The sound of gunfire is its own safety feature. The only way to make guns more dangerous is to silence them. I’d prefer to hear the OP’s neighbors shooting their guns than unwittingly walk into their line of fire.

Silencers on a practice rage would help keep the noise down. That is what this thread is all about. Providing them or allowing them on a practice range is how a range could be a good neighbor.

There is no firing range in the story anyway, lol.

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Abso-effin-loutely. Also large calibers (for example the Colt Python handgun) just for fun.

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