Dianne Bartlett's Lakeway Lake Travis Real Estate Blog

Be a Good (Quiet) Neighbor When You Have a Back Yard Party.  I attended a wonderful Halloween party last week in a South Austin neighborhood.  When we parked the car along the street, it was eerily quiet!  In fact, we were walking up to the house and were worried we had the wrong address.

The party host was insistent that we all come dressed in costume.  So when we saw Alice and the Mad Hatter walking up, we knew we were at the right place.  The couple directed us along the caution tape in the front yard to an opening in the fence that led to the back yard.  There, flaps of black visqueen plastic formed a curtain that we parted and walked through.

Then, we walked through a tunnel formed by the side fence and the plastic.  We hunched under spider webs and foliage along a path all the way to the back of the yard.  There, we turned and followed the back fence line between the large plastic sheet and the fence until we finally reached the opening to the party into the back yard.

Wow!  There were 30 costumed folks already talking, laughing and listening to music.  The large, thick sheets of plastic had formed the perfect sound curtain!

We found out later that the owners had two reasons to shield the noise and keep it quiet.  The neighbors were serving as the baby sitter for the young children & babies of party goers.  Even attendees wanted it quiet for sleeping babies.

We stayed until 1pm and enjoyed a costume contest announced by microphone, raucus laughter, a stunt show which included a pocket bike and a pole dancing show put on by Juno & her boyfriend.  There were no neighbor complaints, and when we left the party that was still going strong, we were amazed at the quiet as we walked to our car.