Animatronic holiday devices are annoying

[greenlightbandit]

My neighbor started his Halloween decorations a few days ago (3 weeks b4 Halloween). Included is an animatronic witch that sounds off when the sensor is tripped. Every minute or more I'm hearing "happy halloween", Trick or treat, or a witch's cackle. This is going to go on for the next three weeks. By the time halloween gets here I may not even be in the mood for it. Fortunately only one neighbor has it, but if there were more of those unnecessary noisemakers on the block I would be really pissed. It's far worse than some wind chimes- at least those are supposed to make a peaceful noise.

Needless to say, after hearing it the first couple of times you're going to be really tired of it. After several hours of cackling witch laughs I'm ready to do something about it.

My street doesn't go all-out crazy for Xmas, but I can see how similar devices could ruin your holiday season.

The thing is outside on the porch and aimed at my house. I have to work up the courage to approach the neighbor about it because the response is often harsh.

My feelings about it are similar to what you feel when you go shopping for Xmas and there is 'seasonal' music in every store. It's easy to get too much.

[Bob]

Across the river from Philadelphia, here in the People's Republic of New Jersey, every other house goes all out with holiday yard ornamentation, as though these are symbols of success for these people. I love Halloween (well, I guess I like it less and less all the time, having to worry now about vandalism, and greeting gangs of kids at my door who aren't cute and adorable -- shouldn't trick-or-treating be cut off at about 12 years of age?). So I'll have a carved pumpkin. Giant blow-up pumpkins, robotic witches, angry-looking Philadelphia Eagles blow-up players, then turkeys, then Christmas lights that should be causing brown-outs, then Valentine's Day stuff. It usually ends July 4th, with some homes having so many flags you wonder what the owners are trying to say.

Save your money, I'd like to tell these people. You'll need it some day, perhaps, and no one's going to buy all your crap at the annual yard sale.

[mineral]

I don't even like going into the grocery stores because on the holiday aisle there are the holiday devices that make these sounds. I've noticed that the stores are trying to get rid of the halloween candy on November 1st to make way for the Christmas Candy. I'm surprise that the stores aren't playing Christmas music maybe that will be next week LOL

[chabba]

I feel the exact same way about "holiday creep". And the retail world is to blame. They push to start each holiday season earlier and earlier each year, to fatten their profit. One of the grocery chains in my area starts selling Halloween candy in mid-August! I don't see a point in that, a lot of it probably won't be much good by Halloween. And what happened to the Christmas season starting the day after Thanksgiving? The stores are now putting on big Christmas displays, and Thanksgiving displays that are meager at best, on November 1. Even two (that's right, TWO) of the local radio stations go all Christmas music shortly after Halloween (thank God for iPods, XM, etc.). C'mon people! One holiday at a time! And it's not completely over after the New Year, as each neighborhood has at least one neighbor who keeps their Christmas decorations up through April. I used to have one that would even go around their Santa and Nativity scene with their lawn mower in the spring! I mean, they have the motivation to mow their lawn, but they're too lazy to put away the decorations when the season is over!

[34garden]

I read somewhere that a huge portion of their profits are made on that Christmas $$tuff. Why anyone would pay more than 50% off is beyond me. Actually NFH is such a scrooge - that we put up some ultra hideous cheesy obnoxious (although not noisy) happy happy x-mas stuff up just to make him angrier. It is in a spot where only they (and us) can see it.

[Lord of the Dunce]

Christmas Creep isn't anything new; it's been around since at least 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt tried to move Thanksgiving up a week in order to appease retailers who were complaining that there weren't enough days in the Christmas shopping season. A retailer's business relies so heavily on the Christmas shopping season that "Black Thursday" (as applied to the day after Thanksgiving) is named as such because that is the day that most retailers finally start making money for the year, operating "in the black" rather than "in the red." While many stores engage in Christmas Creep in the hope that more Christmas shopping will equal more money spent, it almost always means that the same amount of money is spent over a longer period. In fact, Christmas and Halloween are the number-one and number-two profit-makers for businesses, and that is why there is so little overlap between them. Thanksgiving is only a money-maker for the grocery stores and travel industry, so it is regularly given short shrift.

FDR's idea of changing the day of Thanksgiving raised such public outcry about school schedules, professional football games, inconsistent observation (with some states following FDR's edict and others cleaving to the traditional date) and the breaking of a uniquely-American tradition that Congress was compelled to undo his action in 1941, reverting back to the Lincoln-era observation of the fourth Thursday of November rather than the third.

[mineral]

On Saturday Halloween I went into a national retail chain store and heard Christmas music playing. BAH HUM BUG

[Pabst]

i dont care about animatronic stuff. its temporary. our good neighbor's across the street lit their front yard and house up. they used the white large bulb lights on their roof. holy crap you could land a plane with those things. kind of annoying but no big deal.

its the NFH would puts up christmas lights and then ever takes them down or worse...after this past christmas tried just pulling them down, got them stuck in a bush and left them for several months.

im still waiting to see how long till her pumpkins are either smashed out in the street or just rot where they sit. i think one got smashed and the other just rotted.

[greenlightbandit]

It's the repetitive noises that are most bothersome to me from the low quality electronics.

[Pabst]

It's the repetitive noises that are most bothersome to me from the low quality electronics.

ok i can see that. our good neighbors had some loud music but it didnt sound crappy, it was just kinda loud.

i never understood why people do that since most of the christmas decoration i look at are while i'm in the car and cant hear a bit of the music. i always thought the music thing was stupid.

[Bob]

kind of annoying but no big deal.

It's always less of a deal when we like the neighbors, they like us, and everyone gets along. One step out of perfection by the Neighbors From Hell and we notice, and we're bothered. People who make NFH's of themselves set themselves up for this kind of scrutiny. It's not us. It's them. Their past acts and actions/inactions are what do them in, in our books.

[Carol]

I agree.
My son attended a party at the Band Parent from Hell's house on Saturday night. Seems she is also a NFH. They were blasting music so loud he said he had to yell over it and they were all outside around a bonfire. He said a lot of neighbors were walking their dogs (pacing actually) and at precisely 10:00PM (that is out noise ordinance) the cops showed up.
Not that I needed validation but I figured she was a NFH. It permeates their entire lives.
A good neighbor, IMO,. would have alerted the hood and asked to please call if the group became too bothersome,.