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I want to take things apart part time and scrap and from time to time smash a few things that need to be smashed to harvest the valuable materials inside such as vacuum cleaners. I want to use my dad's garage but he is worried that there will be noise complaints. If I make a little noise between reasonable hours during the day is that a problem? Have we really drifted that far from our personal freedom and liberty that someone can "complain about unreasonable noise" ? Our neighbor (an old person retirement condominium) complained when I tried to build a kiln for backyard pottery firing as a hobby since I am a ceramicist. They claimed it was a "danger to small animals being trapped inside and starving to death." The neighbor nextdoor can just say something is an "eyesore" too. I remember seeing an episode of hoarders and some dude "in clear hick territory" was forced to get rid of his scrap metal which was on HIS LAND THAT HE OWNED because it was "an eye sore" who's opinion is it that it is an eye sore? That certainly does not seem very constitutional to tell someone that they think something looks ugly so you cant keep it on your private property!

Anyway, has anyone run into problems with neighbors which clearly violated your rights or learned any tricks to avoid them or work it out or protect yourself?

Retirement condominiums/developments are themselves an eye sore by my definition. Terrible wastes of space.

Just don't do anything outside or leave any equipment or scrap visible to neighbors.

Most household items can be dismantled with hand tools or quieter power tools like cordless drills. If you must use noisy tools, do it during normal daytime hours (no angle grinders at 5AM on a Sunday morning).

If there are no visible signs outside and only the occasional muffled power tool noise, no one will care.

I saw that particular episode of hoarders, and that property had more metal and trash piled up than many commercial junkyards I've seen. It had been an issue for years and was getting so bad that the town/county passed an ordinace to deal with the problem. Moral of the story: keep things clean and under control in residential areas.