Now imagine if they'd just put a tiny bit of soft white noise-ish ambience on low volume, and they might have had have a real, persistent hit on their hands.
(I have started using an air purifier next to the bed to mask noise in the house and it really helps my sleep).
As a contrasting anecdote: I've got an otherwise satisfactory shared living setup right now, but the fact that I can hear everything -- and hear everything well, especially conversation in the kitchen, footfalls on the main staircase adjacent to one wall, and footfalls in the room above mine -- essentially means I'm unable to sleep when and for as long as I choose (and often not getting as much sleep as I need). It's pretty common for +30db impulses to find their way through my walls and ceiling.
My options for fixing this problem seem to be moving, invest in soundproofing for a property I don't own, or somehow get a significant behavior modification program to take sustained root among 9 other people (some under 8 years of age).
All of them suck, but I'm leaning toward the first one.
Sounds like a way around this is to rig up some kind of high/low pitch directional sound system that prevents them from sleeping and goes through ear protectors. All you have to do is put it in the wall and set it to make its noise after a random duration between 5-100 mins has passed. If you added some accelerometer detection, it could even stop when it detects someone making any considerable noise near it. If they try to rip it out you can have them arrested for vandalism of private property.
I like to recommend what we did as young parents for the past many years:
Get a large room air purifier to simultaneously (1) generate a large spectral range of white noise while also (2) keeping plastic etc. dust out of their lungs (for almost half their life while they sleep so much).
I got a white noise machine recently and it has been an absolute game-changer. I live in a pretty dense city and with warmer weather, neighbors have been spending more time hanging out outside. Their noise into the wee hours was keeping me up and preventing me from sleeping or enjoying open windows. I put the white noise machine next to my bed, set the thing on full blast, and have been sleeping through the night peacefully. Probably one of the better $50 spends I've made recently.
I'm not sure if your problem is noise or what but I'd wager that a machine like this could be helpful in a plethora of situations. It's just pretty calming.
>use a nice filter-based air purifier for white noise. It has deep bass
I went nearly insane when this constant humming sound started to appear inside my apartment seemingly coming from several directions. It would start at the oddest times and then go out again after a while, making you think it's over, only to start again after a minute. I wasn't able to focus on work or reading anymore, I was starting to get really irritated and aggressive. Even with active noise-canceling headphones I could feel the bass sound. It took me the six weeks to pinpoint the origin of the sound to my upstairs neighbors, who eventually admitted that they had bought an air purifier because of allergies and kept it running all day long and through the night. If you recommend it to friends please let them know that the bass sound and the vibration translates through walls and might make a helpless neighbor's life miserable.
Sorry, I am confused, if they deny doing this how do you know they can tell when you're in bed etc?
Your best bet might be a white noise machine or similar artificial background noise (quite music). I used that when I was irritated I could hear my neighbours moving around/talking etc. The good thing about this is it works both ways so you can't make out the sounds they make any more than they can hear you...
It also might be worth checking out reddit.com/r/legaladvice they're pretty experienced and can tell you your rights, how to get them, what to quote etc.
I'm not in a super quite place - apartment building so we will still hear neighbors occasionally - dragging chairs, kids running back and forth (nothing unreasonable).
One that that's helped a lot for us is white noise, good earplugs, and eye cover. Since adopting this 4+ yrs ago I've not even thought about the neighborhood at night.
I do wonder if white noise can be considered a stressor, but personally I believe I've had a lot better sleep.
I thought I couldn't sleep in a quiet room. Then I moved somewhere that is actually completely quiet at night. It turns out I can sleep very well. I just never had a completely quiet room up until this point. White noise was the only option to drown out the intermittent sounds (mostly cars) throughout the night.
Someone needs to invent something similar for sleeping. I would pay good money to have a completely silent sleep environment. Right now ear plugs are the best way, and not at all comfortable to sleep with.
Traffic, neighbors, construction - there's always something going on in a big city. Even having a detached house in the suburbs is not guarantee of a quiet night. Sleep interruption due to noise can have disproportionate impact later in life [0].
I had some ideas about a 'room within a room' spanning just the bed, and I couldn't find a good source of materials. Best bet would be to fill the whole thing with concrete and hope it's acoustically isolated from the building itself.
I haven't yet seen a suggestion for sound-dampening blankets/foam. If you live in an urban area, keeping the bedrooms quiet could be a huge pay-off as even
minor sleep disruptions (you don't even have to be aware of them, let alone be awoken) measurably affect mental acuity and overall energy levels.
At the time, no, but I haven't had a lack of noise since moving so I sleep fine, but if I ever end up in a quiet home again I will definitely do something to generate some sort of noise.
I understand your problem with noise. I've had many people suggest that I use headphones or play music but I find that equally distracting. I learned something recently that might add some understanding to your problem. It's called Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), you can read about it at wikipedia:
If moving to a place without shared walls is not an option, you might want to shift your schedule a bit. Continue to work while they are not home and also work after they've gone to bed. Then it's very quiet.
Yeah, I remember seeing that one; I thought of buying it, but I'm sure it'll just trigger my "screw it, I'll stay asleep while half of the neighborhood secretly hates me for the morning noise" adaptation. I don't think I ever experienced a noise I couldn't sleep through.
agreed. I grew up sleeping 35ft from a busy highway with rumble strips. A 5000btu window unit air conditoner 3ft from my head drowned it all out. I sleep with a small fan running in the corner now and use a white noise app on my phone when I'm away from home.
I grew up sleeping with a humidifier first in my room and then just some kind of noisy fan. Nowadays I use a Marpac sound machine, like you see in doctors offices sometimes. Kind of a quirky habit but silence feels so... deafening.
(I have started using an air purifier next to the bed to mask noise in the house and it really helps my sleep).
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