Writes our submitter in Colorado: “Last year, a frog moved in to our small backyard pond. Although the sound was soothing and peaceful at first, this year it sounds like he’s quadrupled in size, his croaking now loud and obnoxious. We’ve tried to find the frog in the rocks to move him, with no luck. The kicker? “Apparently, one of our genius neighbors thinks we’re intentionally causing the ruckus with some kind of backyard Frog Noise Machine.”
related: The sound of two hands clapping
108 responses so far ↓
#1
kathryn
Where can I buy this Backyard Frog Noise Machine? I have big plans……
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:04 pm rating: 90
#2
Marjorie Simpson
How is this passive aggressive? It sounds like a straight forward plea for courtesy.
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:12 pm rating: 90
#3
Uninspired Required Name
Sounds like the neighbors don’t have more than two brain cells.
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:15 pm rating: 90
#4
fuzzbutt
Turn down the sound of nature you idiot!
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:21 pm rating: 90
#5
any girl
oh, really? i thought you might like some swampy athmosphere around.
uhm- ever heard of ear plugs?
btw, i never understood how people can have problems falling asleep.
perhaps i should turn down drinking habits a bit.
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:24 pm rating: 90
#6
Addie
We have frog-pond or pond-frog issues at our house too. Thankfully none of our neighbors are … silly enough to think that we would buy a machine to make that noise.
However, I did visit an elderly woman that had a motion sensing croaking frog (a la “Billy the Big Mouth Bass”) on her front porch.
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:25 pm rating: 90
#7
any girl
“Could you also dim the sun a bit until 9.30 a.m.?”
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:26 pm rating: 90
#8
ljatty
I want to see what their anonymous letter to crickets sounds like: Dear Crickets, please keep it down my family and I have sleep problems (extremely hard sleep problems) and the sound of your cricketing keeps us up. I can hear your cricketing through the windows. Please turn down your cricketing. Thanks, Needs Zzzzs
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:27 pm rating: 90
#9
wesley
This P-A note is ribbeting! Marjorie. You have no sense of humor or you’ve lost it somewhere.
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:28 pm rating: 90
#10
Mason
And while you’re at it, can you turn down that tornado? It’s really loud and it’s messing up my blinds.
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:29 pm rating: 90
#11
Rachel of Cyberia
Where is it moist enough in Colorado to have a frog? Because I’m tired of Saudi Aurora
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:34 pm rating: 90
#12
TKD
Dear Neighbor,
That bright light on top of your house is becoming quite annoying. We could tolerate it last month when you turned in on later in the morning. But now that you are turning it on so early it is unbearable. It shines right in my window and wakes me up. Stop turning it on so early or the terrorists have won. Or, be more considerate and only turn it on in the afternoon like the neighbors on our other side. At least they have the decency to turn it off at dark!!!! Bad light you.
Thanks,
Dopey
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:47 pm rating: 90
#13
Steve
dmn nature, you scary!
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:52 pm rating: 90
#14
belle
I would post a sign on my front lawn simply stating “It’s a live frog, take up your qualms with God.” and then list contributors to insomnia such as poor diet, lack of exercise, and stress caused by such things as a disconnect with nature.
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:54 pm rating: 90
#15
R.B.
My friends have a heated pool with an electric cover here in North Carolina. John told me one night he forgot to close the cover, and “It sounded like a frog frat party all night long.”
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:59 pm rating: 90
#16
Lisa
Maybe it’s because I struggle with sleep problems myself, but I find this note kind of sweet. A bit naive, perhaps a little stupid, but still…sweet. She (and I have to believe it’s a she) never gets nasty, just appeals to the supposed offender’s better nature. At the very least, I’d make the effort to contact her and explain that I wasn’t responsible for the noise. (And for the record? Frogs? Satan’s minions! Second only to snakes, IMO.)
Apr 24, 2012 at 3:46 pm rating: 90
#17
GoSign
This note WOULD be perfectly nice if they had signed it. Leaving it anonymously on the doorstep is what makes it passive-aggressive and unreasonable.
It betrays the assumption, “I already know everything I could possibly need to know about this situation, and my complaint is the ONLY communication that needs to happen.” The only reason to communicate this way is because you want to forbid the note’s recipient from responding to you, because you’re certain there’s nothing worthwhile they have to say.
And as it predictably turns out, the note’s sender is completely wrong about that.
Apr 24, 2012 at 3:54 pm rating: 90
#18
bookworm
There was a rabbit that used to get into my mom’s backyard, and from there, it would squeeze through a hole in the fence to eat the flowers in the neighbor’s backyard. When they complained, she acted like she was responsible though.
She also patched the hole in the fence, because why share a wild bunny with people like that?
Apr 24, 2012 at 4:09 pm rating: 90
#19
Linda R
I would really really like one of these machines to combat my neighbor’s 10 Yapping Dogs!
Apr 24, 2012 at 4:18 pm rating: 90
#20
JingoPoe
This might help: http://www.dawnbenko.com/Nature/Snakes-and-Frogs/20658786_5MWJsW#!i=1638011479&k=kLPFhw9&lb=1&s=A
Apr 24, 2012 at 4:30 pm rating: 90
#21
Simona
Haha! My house has a tank in the backyard which frogs have taken over. This noise is so LOUD! Our neighbours don’t leave notes for us in the morning, we just see the dead frogs floating
Apr 24, 2012 at 5:00 pm rating: 90
#22
Captain Hampton
“It would make our nights alot easier.”
Relevant: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
Apr 24, 2012 at 5:10 pm rating: 90
#23
Mrs.Beasley
Frog noise? Fer realz?
City people… [insert eyeroll here]
Apr 24, 2012 at 5:31 pm rating: 90
#24
Me
What is wrong with all of you? Am I the only one who owns a Frog Machine?
Apr 24, 2012 at 7:21 pm rating: 90
#25
Eileen
Dear Kermit,
Keep it down, would you? People are trying to sleep!
Sincerely,
the rest of Sesame Street
Apr 24, 2012 at 9:06 pm rating: 90
#26
bluefish
Last year when we had all the grasshoppers around, the magpies were still up feeding at 3am, and having their sing song as well. I did try and reason with them, asked them to wait until daylight or at least move to the streetlight on the next block, but they took no notice of me at all. Sheesh.
Apr 24, 2012 at 9:41 pm rating: 90
#27
infanttyrone
Dear Sleepy,
Alas, it is a real frog, but look on the bright side.
If you can catch it, you can keep it and and you can cook it.
I recommend serving it with fava beans and a nice Pinot Grigio.
Yes, like so many other things, it will taste remarkably like chicken.
But please…cook it…eat it…but do not lick it or kiss it.
It is not a prince and it will not wake up and make you happy.
However, the bufotenine could be the start of a gothic nightmare.
And, of course, I find the world a more interesting place with you in it.
Bon appetit,
Dr. Lecter
Apr 24, 2012 at 10:46 pm rating: 90
#28
Omnivore
I really, really want to give the frog a megaphone after reading this note.
Team Amphibi-party!!!
Apr 24, 2012 at 11:13 pm rating: 90
#29
Serenity
Aww, poor froggles, he sings because he’s happy and someone is hating on him for it. I personally love the sounds of frogs and crickets and such. I actually do use them on my nature sound board thingamabob at night to help me sleep, and drown out the car and people sounds! Froggy can come live by my house
Apr 25, 2012 at 12:07 am rating: 90
#30
Brian H
In my area of the country that akin to asking your neighbor to keeping those coyotes from yelping at night.
Of course if the frogs were that bad you need to get out there at night with a flashlight and spear. Go old school.
Apr 25, 2012 at 12:33 am rating: 90
#31
Frog Friend
I grew up close to a marsh and went to sleep to the sounds of peepers and croakers. I live in the city now and I sure miss it. Maybe the problem is that it’s a single, distinctive frog, whereas a massive frog chorus would be more like white noise, or maybe green noise. Get froggy some friends!
Apr 25, 2012 at 8:02 am rating: 90
#32
Julia
My theory (which is unlikely, but mine) is that the letter-writer is a first-rate ironist who saw her neighbours hunting fruitlessly for the frog and decided to wind them up a bit.
Apr 25, 2012 at 10:20 am rating: 90
#33
yolanda
If it’s not important enough to say to my face, it’s not important to waste my worry on. When you, dear neighbor, make the effort to tell me directly, I will pleased to instruct you as to the source of my “frog noise.”
Personally I really would love it if some croaker graced my pond that way. It would be the final stamp of approval on my artwork!
Apr 25, 2012 at 11:00 am rating: 90
#34
clumber
We have more than a few lovesick frogs in our yard. They used to annoy me… then from the very sewer of Hell itself came a peacock. The evil creature starts screaming at 3am and doesn’t stop until 10pm. I have, in actual fact, set-up in the treehouse in our yard with a pellet gun with scope and laser sight trying to rid the zipcode of this foul bird, but have not been able to locate it. The bend of the land causes sound to echo oddly, making sighting the damn thing by sound alone impossible. I will bring beer and flies for the biggest fucking frog party in the land if we can be rid of the damn peacock.
(devolves into muttering over in the corner talking to her own thumb)
Apr 25, 2012 at 3:29 pm rating: 90
#35
Lil'
I lived in a two-bedroom townhouse for about 2 years and had no outdoor space except for the fenced-in area just outside my back door. Beyond that was a small ditch that always had water in it…and frogs. The frogs made more of a quacking sound than a croaking sound. My new neighbor approached our landlord with her concerns that I was hiding a pet duck. She suspected I put him out into that small fenced-in area at night and he would quack all night to come back inside. Crazy as her theory was, I still think it was more reasonable than a frog machine.
Apr 25, 2012 at 3:38 pm rating: 90
#36
bananaphone
Dear Sleepy,
I took care of the problem.
graciously yours,
Frog trainer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZNhp8rWW9w
Apr 25, 2012 at 5:43 pm rating: 90
#37
Kate
Hahaha…city people are so idiotic! “Please turn the frogs down or off!” Hahaha…are the stars visible where you are? Next thing you know she’ll ask you to turn them off because they’re too bright! We had a doozy of a visitor who complained about the “weird, loud chicken” and told us we should put “her” down because something must be wrong with “her.” Of course, that “chicken” was the rooster.
Apr 25, 2012 at 6:36 pm rating: 90
#38
Juniper
You have to admit though – that considering these people actually think that the neighbour is creating the noise themselves with some kind of machine … it’s an amazingly polite note.
Apr 26, 2012 at 3:52 pm rating: 90
#39
Michele
More like Dopey or Grumpy…
Apr 26, 2012 at 5:21 pm rating: 90
#40
Kathryn
I had a roommate who demanded I stop the freight trains from running in the nearby canyon because he was tired of them waking him up at night. I asked him why on earth he thought I would have any influence over the Santa Fe Railroad, so he gave 30 days notice and left. (Good riddance.)
At least he didn’t go through with his threat to sue me for the cost of his sleeping pills–which probably cost less than filing fees in Small Claims Court.
Apr 28, 2012 at 3:46 am rating: 90
#41
Chinchillazilla
I back up to a farm. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I hear roosters crowing. I guess I should go back there and ask them to turn off their rooster machine.
Apr 30, 2012 at 4:51 pm rating: 90
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