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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3783 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Noise ordnances can only be enforces after the noise is made. And, to be honest, what the enforcement can do? In the best case, police would come and tell them to shut it down. For today. And they'll also hate you forever if they learn who called it. And will repeat the same next week. More likely though, police wouldn't even come because they have better things to do (and if it's a university city, as likely as not they voted to give them as little funding as possible anyway) so they'd just register the complaint and be done with it.

And even if the deterrent works, a college student rarely lives in the same place for more than a year or two. By the time enforcement starts to stick with one set of residents, they're replaced with a new crop and the cycle begins anew.

If an HOA has a rule about noise after a certain time of day, then if someone violated it they would have to pay fees and potentially lose their home. It's basically the same thing as this tiktok girl being forced from her home, but with less discrimination over something she can't control.

they would have to pay fees and potentially lose their home.

I haven't heard of any case that HOA evicted someone from their house for unpaid fines. In any case, that would likely be a multi-year very expensive lawsuit. And the students would likely be renters, so they couldn't care less about that. Given that renter evictions in places where there are a lot of students usually are also a long and expensive process, the only real threat to the noise makers would be not extending their lease at the end of it - which may be up to a year ahead - and police arresting them (which probably wouldn't happen but at least they could threaten and intimidate them - if they show up at all).

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