The Newspaper Delivery Person Wakes Us up Every Morning. What Do We Do?

I called the newspaper office when the same thing happened to me. They were very understanding and fixed the problem immediately.

I would call the newspaper office and have them fix the problem. How big a deal can fixing a muffler be?

stop delivery.
change newspapers.
Call the delivery guy and tell him that you are stopping service because his car is ssssooo loud that you will no longer be using his services.

Seriously? You don't know what's going on in their lives. They deliver newspapers. They are probably just getting by. This is your problem, not theirs. Put some ear plugs in.

This question really bothers me. It actually makes me nauseous and a little bit dizzy to think about how unfeeling people can be. The car is on the street for a minute tops and only seconds in front of the house. If you are waking up, you are ready to get up anyway. Sleeping people sleep through more than motorcycles, loud cars, and semi's with air breaks. GEESH. I live 5 houses from the HIGHWAY! We have Semi's going by and roaring those air breaks all the time. It goes in one ear and out the other.

LiveBold, we live near a highway too and are used to those noises; they become white noise in the background. But when our neighbor's 20-something kids have friends over and those friends leave the house at 4 a.m. and hit their cars' electronic locks and I hear a very loud "beep-beep" that wakes me -- yeah, I DO hear that. And once I'm awake I'm not falling back asleep no matter how much I want to or try to. Sorry, it is not wrong of this poster to want not be awakened by a loud, sudden and yes, preventable noise. The person delivering the paper is representing a business; the business has a right to know that its representative is providing a service in an intrusive way. It may or may not be a fixable problem, but the poster is not setting out to impoverish some delivery person. She's within her rights at least to bring this to the newspaper's attention.

I think you need to get a fan or a noise machine for your bedroom. Seriously, no one voluntarily drives a crappy car like that if they can afford a better one. For all you know, this delivery man may be depending on that little bit of income to put food on the table for his family. Cancelling your subscription will not help if you have neighbors that get the same paper.

Loud mufflers are forbidden. Call the newspaper. For certain the deliverer is in need of money otherwise they would not work these hours. However, they do need to budget for this repair. Many people put off "unnecessary repairs".
You can call to ask the police on their non emergency line if there is a noise ordinance. Not every city has one. DMV can tell you if a muffler that is loud is tolerated or not during inspection.

You can stop the delivery or accept that what sounds loud at 5:30 in the morning isn't that loud at say 8.

If a car outside has the ability to wake your family up, sans the car actually blowing up, the issue lies with your family and not the car.

Even if you cancel the delivery of your paper you will still have the car on the street because your neighbors get their paper and aren't bothered by the car like you are, ya know?

First, this is not intended at you----- Its for the others who have responded unkindly. Its pretty offensive for some of the posters to automatically assume the delivery person is doing this on purpose or is inconsiderate etc. As a former delivery person myself, sometimes you have to do what you have to do to provide for your family! Give the guy/girl a break and buy some earplugs! You can report this to the newspaper-but most likely they will either fire the person because of this car issue or ignore it. Its pretty hard to get someone to trade routes with you. And no, the newspaper company will NOT help them with their car. Most drivers have to pay for gas, their rubber bands/bags for the papers and any expenses incurred to get to and fro for the route.

Either cancel the service, or turn on some white noise. I think you'd look silly if you complained, personally. And, you could possibly cost someone their job. Please don't be that person.

On another note, I'm surprised that this would wake your entire family up... Our house isn't that far back from the street, but we still don't hear that much that happens outside. I'm also surprised that creating some white noise wouldn't be the obvious solution...

I would call but not just to complain. I'd just tell them I'm canceling the paper because the delivery car wakes me up every morning and I can get the news for free on the internet anyway, without killing a tree.

Why should you have to go to bed earlier or listen to white noise all night to avoid this? Don't turn your life around to accomodate the inconsiderate newspaper delivery guy. Yikes.

I didn't read the other responses, but I did read your SWH - I don't know why anyone thinks you are evil for being upset about this - maybe if someone was waking them at 5:30 they'd understand how you feel! You are totally justified in being upset about it!

Have you talked to the neighbors who get the paper? Are they up this time of the morning too? If all of you called and complained to the head of the department that handles this, they could talk to this carrier and ask him to get his car fixed. He also could bag the papers elsewhere instead of in the neighborhoods.

The easy thing is to cancel the paper. Unfortunately, you'll just continue to get woken up and not have any standing with the paper company regarding your complaint if you are no longer a customer. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Start being a squeaky wheel, and talk to the neighbors, too. You need some sleep, and this guy needs to fix his car!

Dawn

Geez....

We live behind Walmart and every night for weeks on end a car with some sort of loud sound system would drive into the back parking lot and sit for about 10 minutes with the stereo on full blast, at about 1:05am.

Pictures would fall off the wall and the kids would wake up. I called Walmart and they would go out back and tell the person they needed to turn the sound down before coming to the back and to be sure and turn the car off. If got better for a while then it started again. The person got reprimanded and told they could not take their break in the back area anymore so they would meet in the front parking lot. No more problem.

I would be mad if this was happening every day, stopping the paper won't help but calling the police about a mechanical noise violation might. They might even have a muffler ordinance. I would call the city offices and find out where to go online to print off a copy of the noise ordinances. Then call the police and ask them to hang out around 5:30 a few days in a row to catch the person and cite them so they would stop driving their car or fix it.

ya right newspaper company help them buy a new car. Most newspaper companies help them with NOTHING.

Most don't even reinburse enough to pay for the gas they use.

You can cancel your subscription and just not have him come in yoru drive.

We have to run the housefan all night long as whitenoise to keep down noises from outside! You can't really fret about one noise...there is so much worse out there!

Run a fan in your room at night for white noise. We live near a very busy highway and I cannot sleep without the fan going.

I really don't think there's anything you can do, short of ear plugs and/or stopping delivery. It's likely that your delivery person makes a low wage and doesn't have the money to fix up their car, so I don't think complaining to the newspaper would be too beneficial to the situation, though you could call and just discuss the situation with a manager.

Our neighbor used to start cutting his grass at 7am on either Friday or Saturday and would also mess with his old Porsche (revving engine, etc) at 7am on Saturdays AND Sundays. That used to drive me crazy since my daughter's room is just across from his garage (my room's at the back of the house) but my daughter never woke up to it - I just found it disrespectful for the neighbors.

Cancel the paper and read the news online

Does anyone else get the paper on your street so this person would still be delivering even if you cancelled? If yes, then white noise may help. If no one else gets the same paper, cancel and read online :) Good luck!

If you cancel, or switch papers, and your neighbors still receive the paper--I don't see how that will help.

Personally, I'd go with the suggestion for some white noise in your room at night.

I sympathize. Unfortunately, even though it's probably illegal (from both a noise and an air quality perspective) to have the broken/missing muffler, it's unlikely anything can be done about it. Few jurisdictions enforce these rules.

The snarky attacks are from people who aren't noise sensitive (or are maybe just insensitive?). Ignore them. They really don't get it.

I haven't read all the other responses so don't know if someone else may have already suggested this. The city or county most likely has an office that enforces the noise ordinance. Give them a call and see what they can do.

If you haven't already, I'd call the newspaper and ask for the delivery person's phone number. I'd then call them and tell them how this wakes you up every morning. If they're not willing/able to fix the problem then I'd complain to his supervisor at the newspaper. Or.....I'd start directly with the supervisor.

It is in the newspaper's best interest to keep their customers happy. And it's discourteous for the driver to have a noisy car. Sounds to me that it's illegal. There are laws requiring a car to be muffled to a certain level of noise. Noise that vibrates the house is noise that's illegal.

Just read the other answers. I'm really surprised at the number of people who see this as your problem and not the problem of the delivery man or the newspaper. You do not have to adjust your life to make room for his loud car! You have a legitimate complaint.

someone suggested calling the police non-emergency line. Instead I'd call the traffic office of the police department. They will know what the noise ordinance is and they will have a machine that will measure the decibel level of the noise. They can have someone in the neighborhood to measure the sound. This has to be arranged in advance and not thru the non-emergency line unless the traffic officer tells you to do it that way.

There may be noise ordinances governed by one or both city and your motor vehicle department. But I'm not sure where you go from there. Find out what the laws are and if you know the newspaper that this car delivers call the delivery dept? You may need to try and get to bed a little earlier, not always possible I know.

I am sure they know their vehicle makes noise.
Maybe the don't have the money to fix it?

You can call the newspaper company and mention it.

Our neighbors truck was really loud when he would start it up at 6:30 in the morning. What we found that helped was a noise machine or humidifier. They really do a great job on blocking out noises. Give those a try and see if it helps. Sorry you got rude responses, it sucks being woken up when you are not ready.