Noise bounces off the walls

Regarding “Driven Up the Wall” by Diane Wedner (Feb. 16): I live across the street from one of those giant retaining walls discussed in Sunday’s Real Estate section, and I can tell you that there is one major problem that was not discussed: noise.

These walls amplify every sound and bounce it around in all directions. When my neighbors on the street up the hill behind my house have a party, it sounds like it’s in my living room. Arguments, private conversations, barking dogs can be heard for blocks, and at a volume level that has ended many a night’s sleep and begun many a day far earlier than desired.

The builder of another one of these monstrosities in my neighborhood actually told me that complaints about the noise pollution these walls cause come from people who “choose to live with their windows open.”

In 1973, I chose to live in Laurel Canyon for just that reason: to enjoy the outdoors and to listen to the birds and the breeze through the trees, not the roar of cement trucks.

Judging by the multi-walled, multileveled behemoth depicted in Sunday’s paper, the residents of that neighborhood are in for more misery than even I can imagine. I suggest they get those for sale signs up fast.

Cynthia Kirk

Los Angeles