SIDE STREETS: Lowe's to neighbors: Can you hear me now?

Susan Wilhoit got introduced to the staff of the new Lowe’s home improvement store on North Nevada Avenue without ever having to leave her home at the Crestline Manor Mobile Home Park.

Thanks to a bellowing loudspeaker system, Susan knew most employee names soon as Lowe’s opened recently in the new University Village Colorado shopping center, across Monument Creek from her home.

“I hear every announcement,” Susan said. “Paging so-and-so to line three.”

Not a great first impression of new neighbor across the creek.

“It starts at sun up and goes all day to sun down and can be particularly annoying,” Susan said. “I can hear it inside the house. And I can hear every single word when I’m outside. I work the second shift and I’ve been woken up in the morning by it sometimes.”

Turns out Susan is not just a cranky neighbor. Others in Crestline confirm that the Lowe’s public address system was cranked up to make-your-ears-bleed decibel levels.

“It is really, really loud,” said Jeannie Cheney, one of Susan’s neighbors. “You can hear the names of the people they are calling. It can be annoying.”

Jeannie assumed she better get used to the noise, just like the roar of the trains that blast along the nearby railroad tracks.

“I figured there wasn’t anything I could do about it,” Jeannie said.

Susan worried that Jeannie was right.

“Can the speakers be turned away from the creekside so residents can go back to having some peace and quiet?” she asked?

I talked to Susan and Jeannie last Tuesday. By week’s end, both were much happier after Lowe’s response to a call from Side Streets.

“Thanks for reaching out to us so we can work with our new neighbors,” said Maureen Rich, a Lowe’s spokeswoman. “We’re working to be a good neighbor.

“We welcome these kinds of calls.”

So why does Lowe’s even have loudspeakers?

Rich explained the store has a garden center and lumberyard requiring employees to be outside the store.

But she said that’s no excuse for having the volumes at wake-the-dead levels. Her words were followed quickly by action.

“Our store manager turned down the volume,” Rich said Wednesday. “But he thinks it’s still too loud. We’re considering further muffling it or disconnecting it. He’s going to look into it.”

In fact, the manager visited Crestline that evening and passed out business cards inviting calls.

The change was not lost on Crestline residents.

“I noticed it this morning,” Susan said the next day. “It’s very nice they turned it down.”

Jeannie agreed.

“It’s definitely better,” she said. “My husband and I are going to check out the store and tell them thank you for turning it down.”

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