Fireworks Shaming

[Disneychick75]

If your town/city whatever says it's okay, then it's okay. People who are truly bothered should look into this before moving or building. We have about 4 nights of fireworks in our neighborhood. Sometimes, it irks me, however, the
Club allows it, so I just turn up the tv volume. Our dog just goes with the flow. Maybe it's because we have 4 grandchildren and he's used to the noise, lol.

For those with animals like horses that cannot be brought inside, they could go to their town/county council and ask if their area could be a no fireworks zone. We have to remember that these councils work for us. It's worth a try.

 

[b2k1121]

I always wonder this. We had dogs for years. Fireworks didn't bother them. If they did, we just entertained them till they were over. I asked my neighbor just this past weekend why he is worried so much about fireworks freaking out his dog one night of the year yet he has no issue letting his dog bark anywhere from 5am until midnight every single time he is outside 365 days a year. He didn't answer me. And yes, we are friendly neighbors.

I think the complaints are because it's happening all summer long, not just one night a year. Don't think dog owners mind preparing their dog for one night, but every night it becomes a problem. I have a rescue dog with severe anxiety and just 1 loud popping noise will cause her to crawl back home and hide for hours and not want to go back outside for days and we have to trick her to go out and go to the bathroom or she will just hold it as long as possible. Makes for a pretty frustrating summer when you have to be praying you don't hear any fireworks every time you go for a walk in May-September. Not expecting anyone to cater to our situation but it's not as easy as 'just entertain them for a couple hours one night'.

 

[bcla]

Fireworks aren't safe period. Professional shows have their own risks (have you not seen when things go bad?). However, professional shows usually carry more restrictions including licensing, insurance policies a lot of times, training and more. The professional fireworks show I watched on 4th of July you better believe if they damaged the buildings in the office park where it's located at they would be on the hook for it. The problem with conversations (and not just speaking about your comment) is people default to "well everything carries risk so so what". It's an all or nothing conversation of extremes one I prefer not to engage in further.

I was surprised to see a professional fireworks show lit by hand and not by an electronic sequencer.

 

[TeresaBelle]

This would have caused me to have a heart attack... and my little dog too!

https://wtop.com/maryland/2021/07/o...plodes-on-ground-hours-ahead-of-celebrations/

 

[mrs. magoo]

My dog is deathly afraid of fireworks but he is also deathly afraid of thunderstorms. Am I going to complain about the thunderstorms moving through my town right now? I wish that people would use fireworks on the one night but people need to calm down. Seriously when does the complaining stop.

 

[nkereina]

Maybe its because Facebook groups and the Nextdoor app are more popular now, but I really don't remember the level of complaining about fireworks 5+ years ago. Its wild.

Here in NY, fireworks that leave the ground are still illegal but they started selling the kind that go off on the ground in recent years. I take no issue with people setting those off - they are legal and as long as its not 2am, people have every right to do it. The illegal ones don't really bother me either - I have bigger fish to fry - but people have the right to call the cops if they take issue with it, if they really want to do that. At the end of the day, its not a year round occurrence so we can tolerate them for a couple days. YMMV.

 

[Wendy31]

But there are MANY, MANY activities that have inherent risks. As I mentioned before, mowing the lawn and working on a ladder. Heck, there are inherent risks when just playing sports. If you (general) want to remove everything that has an inherent risk, we'll all just be sitting in homes 24/7/365. That's my point. Are the risks of fireworks that much more than mowing the lawn? Why? When you're not doing so in a safe manner. That applies to fireworks, mowing the lawn, working on a ladder, etc.

We have a neighbor that likes to hit golf balls in his front yard. One ended up in our yard. Our son didn’t see the golf ball & accidentally hit it while mowing the yard which sent the golf ball soaring into our other neighbor’s yard where it ust barely missed one of their windows.

In a neighborhood subdivision where people live in relative close proximity to each other, things happen. People do irritating things.

Fireworks are no more irritating than having a neighbor who smokes sitting on the deck blowing cigarette smoke into your yard while while you’re outside trying to eat on your own deck. Or the neighbor with a dog that barks all night long. Or the neighbor with a loud, noisy truck who either comes home really late or leaves really early. Or the neighbor w/ a motion sensor light that shines into your bedroom.

My inlaws had a house w/ a pool & would have pool parties all summer long. They had a neighbor, who every SINGLE time they were having a pool party, would mow his yard right beside the wooden fence separating their yards. My mother-in-law used to get soooo mad at him

I LOVE fireworks & sitting outside the weekend of the 4th & hearing all the booms & pops going off all around. It feels very American to me. And nothing can top last year - when EVERYONE in defiance of the pandemic & local laws shot off fireworks EVERYWHERE & they just went on & on.

 

[TwoMisfits]

We have a neighbor that likes to hit golf balls in his front yard. One ended up in our yard. Our son hit it while mowing the yard & sent the golf ball soaring into our other neighbor’s yard & just barely missed one of their windows,

In a neighborhood subdivision where people live in relative close proximity to each other, things happen. People do irritating things.

Fireworks are no more irritating than having a neighbor who smokes sitting on the deck blowing cigarette smoke into your yard while while you’re outside trying to eat on your own deck. Or the neighbor with a dog that barks all night long. Or the neighbor with a loud, noisy truck who either comes home really late or leaves really early. Or the neighbor w/ a motion sensor light that shines into your bedroom.

My inlaws had a house w/ a pool & would have pool parties all summer long. They had a neighbor, who every SINGLE time they were having a pool party, would mow his yard right beside the wooden fence separating their yards. My mother-in-law used to get soooo mad at him

I LOVE fireworks & sitting outside the weekend of the 4th & hearing all the booms & pops going off all around. It feels very American to me. And nothing can top last year - when EVERYONE in defiance of the pandemic & local laws shot off fireworks EVERYWHERE & they just went on & on.

It's also how you deal with the annoyance. My neighbor's dog leaves poop on my lawn for me to clean up about every 30-60 days. I don't have a dog, and I don't even like dogs, and I sure don't like dog poop. But I clean it up and don't mention it, b/c I have a great neighbor, except for the dog. One time, my neighbor saw me cleaning up and was so apologetic, saying their adult kid sometimes forgets to clean up after the dog, and asked if there was anything they could do. I teasingly said that they could always clean up the snow during the next snow storm for me...and wouldn't you know, I didn't have to lift a shovel one day, b/c they shoveled me out from the porch to my car.

Even now, I have some dead lawn from that dog, and I'm sure I'll have another clean up at some point this month. But if that's the worst my next door neighbor does, I'm blessed.

We have the outlet of the internet to complain and magnify our complaints about things we'd either talk to our neighbor about or stifle...and we always feel justified in the complaints, that we never possibly could be pissing them off. Now, I'm sure I do something that probably bothers my neighbor (especially since my spouse is not the best at bringing in our trash cans in a timely way until I bug him), but I've never heard a word of complaint, and they haven't heard a word from me either (either directly or through a "social media pipeline")...

 

[gina2000]

I live in the most densely populated state in the U.S. and in one of the most densely counties in that state. Unregulated fireworks are illegal to set off in my town. The police circulate the town and ticket as necessary. Yet, the fireworks proliferate for several days.

Fireworks are dangerous in my area especially in dry conditions. It isn’t fun or enjoyable scanning the roof for embers. I understand the enjoyment of watching fireworks. What I do not understand the lack of consideration considering the environment in which I live. Leave the fireworks to the professionals.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I was surprised to see a professional fireworks show lit by hand and not by an electronic sequencer.

I wouldn't want to be the one to light it for that show that's for sure

 

[bcla]

I wouldn't want to be the one to light it for that show that's for sure

It was weird. We were in Roseville, California and wanted to see the 4th of July fireworks at the Placer County Fairgrounds. There was literally a mile long of cars parked on the street (for free) outside the fairgrounds, but we opted to pay for parking where it might have been $5 and the parking spot was a couple of hundred feet from the launch location. The technicians were running around with flares to light the fuses. When they were done they waved the flares over their heads to indicate that the show was over.

I've seen video of fireworks going the wrong direction of exploding, and remote firing makes it a lot less dangerous. The technicians' job then is to do safety checks and set up everything.

 

[VandVsmama]

Let's be honest here...what we're really all talking about is annoying neighbors. I mean, pick your favorite topic and when it all comes down to it, it's an irritating, annoying neighbor who thinks that the world revolves around them, that the rules don't apply to them, etc. Here's a top list of irritations to pick from:

• the neighbor who's been setting off fireworks every weekend throughout the whole dang pandemic (friends in southern CA have people on their block who do this, drives our friends bananas).
• the neighbor who takes their dog for a walk and lets their dog poo in your front yard. Happened to my sister 2 weeks ago. She even yelled out the window at the guy and you've never seen anybody walk so fast!
• the neighbor who's decided that the street/curb in front of their house is "theirs," and only THEY are allowed to park there.
• the neighbor who always parks their car in front of YOUR house, never in front of theirs.
• the neighbor who plays their music too loud every evening/weekend (some of my ILs do this, SO GLAD we don't live on their street!).
• the neighbor whose pool contractor leaves their construction debris all over YOUR front yard for 6 months. This happened to us last year. Drove me bonkers.
• the neighbor who's all up in your business every second of the day and asks you 20 questions about everything, is pushy, nosy, asks prying questions that are none of their business.
• the neighbor who drives too fast down your street
• the neighbor who leaves their trash cans outside at the curb all week long
• the neighbor who leaves their dog outside all day and the dog barks incessantly all day long
• the neighbor who never picks up their dog poo in their own yard and it smells so bad that you can smell it in your own backyard. This happened to one of my friends once.
• the neighbor who lets their dog run loose all the time and then gets mad when the dog goes missing or gets shot because the dog murdered your livestock and the dog did it multiple times and you warned the neighbor to keep the dog contained in their yard and they did nothing about it.
• the neighbor who has so much outdoor lighting in their backyard that it's lit up like Las Vegas Blvd on a Saturday night and then when they go to bed, they forget to turn off the lights so it's bright as day in their backyard all night long and it happens every time they have people over. And it's so bright that the light spillage comes into your yard and you don't need your own backyard lighting because theirs is so insanely bright. I deal with this myself.
• the neighbor who thinks that the HOA can control everything
• the neighbor who gets out their measuring tape to make sure that your grass is the regulation height.
• the neighbor who treats their entire front yard as a parking lot
• the neighbor who treats their front yard like a college party zone every weekend and gets ripping drunk every weekend in the front yard with other neighbors, but it's ok because "we're quarantining and social distancing together." Ok, sure, buddy, but I'm pretty sure that the definition of social distancing and quarantining didn't include your wife flashing her chest to the husband & wife across the street that you've been partying with for the last 18 months.

You get the idea.

 

[Sugardimples]

Although it is heartbreaking that a child died so tragically, that fire was caused by an ember from an unnamed firework that was placed in a plastic recycling bin. For all we know, it could have been a sparkler.

Does that make it better, that is was probably caused by an ember? A child is dead.

 

[Pink Partridge]

Does that make it better, that is was probably caused by an ember? A child is dead.

I think the whole "A child is dead because the adults JUST had to have fireworks" angle is self serving to make a point and a bit offensive towards the surviving parents.

We don't know the entire story. Again, it could have been that the parents bought a small box of sparklers for the children to enjoy.

A child is dead, and that is awful. Nothing will make it better.