The Quickshift
- The parents of four young children have a farm in Pennsylvania
- They bought their kids dirt bikes and ATVs for their 34-acre property
- The townsfolk don't like the noise
Let's play a game. No, not in the way of a certain horror movie franchise. I promise I'm not speaking into a voice modulator...
Pretend for a moment that you have four young kids, and you want them to be able to grow up playing outdoors. But you don't currently live where that's possible. So, since you have the ability to do so, you buy a 34-acre property out in farm country, complete with a farmhouse where you can live. Your kids, with your help, are into powersports.
They have dirt bikes and quads, and now they have 34 acres of wooded area with trails and hills to explore on those dirt bikes and quads. Sounds pretty good, right? Sure, there'll be bug bites and scrapes, and hopefully no more than minor injuries along the way. But mostly, it sounds like a recipe for a whole lot of pretty idyllic fun.
Except that's not how it's going in Unity Township, Pennsylvania, where a man named Keith Fulton and his family are now facing noise complaints from an angry neighbor, who sounds kind of like he just hates fun.
There's not currently a noise ordinance in the township, but the family has reportedly been cited for violating a ban on "pleasure riding," according to local CBS news affiliate KDKA. The area where the Fulton's property is located is zoned for agricultural use, and the township, like many others, has a full list of zoning laws and ordinances available for anyone to peruse.
How big is Unity Township? As of the last US Census in 2020, Unity had approximately 21,606 residents. It's a pretty small place, located just southeast of Pittsburgh.
"I understand everyone has the right to do what they want on their property," neighbor Jackie Lindsey, who filed the complaint with the township, told KDKA. "But you can't be bothering everybody else when you're doing it."
"They want to be able to ride their dirt bikes from sun up to sundown," he said.
Listen, I get that noise hits different when you live out in the country. Although I grew up in Chicago, my grandparents lived out in the country. It was much quieter out there, to the point where individual insect noises stood out a whole lot more than they would in the city. So did cars, and bikes, and lawnmowers, and pretty much anything else with a combustion engine. Still, you could see stars at night, and it was beautiful.
But seriously, has no one clued this guy in about the existence of headphones?
It's how we city folk deal with all the noise that we're surrounded with on a daily basis. It's how I survive in airports. It's kept me blissfully wrapped in a bubble of my own music or podcasts or audiobooks when everything around me is unbearably loud. And you never saw me angrily shaking my fist at the CTA busses that rumbled by at all hours (well before sun up and well after sundown) when I used to live in a basement apartment right next to a Damen Avenue bus stop.
Also, if the B-roll that KDKA cut into its news piece about this particular municipal battle includes some of the actual vehicles in question, exactly how loud are they, even?
Assuming that the four kids really are riding them "from sun up to sundown," as the guy complains (and honestly, he's probably exaggerating at least a little, as most people tend to do when they're upset), how much noise are they making on their 34 acres of land?
While the kids are having fun, they're probably shouting and giggling, too. Is that also a problem, or is it just the engine noise?
If you were either party in this situation, how would you handle it? I'm going to guess that most of us wouldn't like being told what we could do on our own property (within reason, of course, but no one's murdering anyone here).
