12 ms·

For me the trigger is TVs. I've been renting a flat in a poorer area for over a year now. The walls are a lot thinner than in other places. There are a lot of p

For me the trigger is TVs. I've been renting a flat in a poorer area for over a year now. The walls are a lot thinner than in other places. There are a lot of people today (mostly 50+ year-olds) who cannot fall to sleep without the TV on. My neighbor is one of them. And the thing with TVs is that the most irritating sound frequency they emit is the one that is barely audible when you're in the same room, but when you are in the next room and trying to sleep it is the main frequency that you hear. Another problem is that with a cheaper flat came generally noisier neighbors, i.e. frequently throwing out late-night parties, denying anyone around the luxury of sleep. Then there are dogs whose owners don't seem to realize that dogs need to be walked and otherwise they will bark without end. This happens most often in the mornings and can go on for 2 hours easily and sets the tone for the day just right... It seems dog owners develop a special indifference to noise and their dogs. All of that made me miserable. There were actually moments when this situation triggered suicidal thoughts. I don't have a problem with cars passing by on the nearby high-speed road. If anything, the sound they make (very different from the sound of cars in traffic) is calming during the night. I've recently got a new job which pays a lot better than the previous one, so in a couple of months I plan to move to a quieter neighborhood.

htk 7y ago
I use Howard Leight’s Max every night during sleep to keep my sanity.
- abjKT26nO8 7y ago
  As blunte pointed out[1], earplugs make the situation worse. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273
  - dominotw 7y ago
    what about bose sleepbuds?
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    That's not a general-purpose argument against earplugs, as some people have noise problems in the frequency that they do block out (this was the case for me)
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  I used to sleep with earplugs very nicely until I got an ear infection and the doctor told me to lay off them. So I bought a bluetooth speaker that can play files off a SD card, and loaded it up with a 1 hour rain sounds file and play that in a loop as white noise when I sleep. Feels better as my brain can focus on the soothing sounds of the rain instead of the thoughts that sometimes creep up in the silence of the earplugs.
  - i_am_nomad 7y ago
    You should throw away the earplugs every few days. Or, you could use soft silicone putty earplugs, and sterilize them during the day.
    - karakot 7y ago
      how do you sterilize them?
      - gmanley 7y ago
        Rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol works.
        dsego 7y ago
        would peroxide work?
    - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
      I did exchange them often, that's not the problem. The problem is with earpulgs in summer moisture accumulates in your ear canal and with the lack of oxygen bacteria thrives inside.
      - jborichevskiy 7y ago
        Damn, I was worried this might be a thing. No issues yet but coming on two years of daily use... might be time to look for some alternatives.
- wozniacki 7y ago
  Sometimes the "noise" is not heard but felt due to poor dampening of the structures and inferior - if any in the first place - sound proofing. You feel the sharp slamming of the doors, stairway exits and other household "noise" - as the tremors travel along the length and breadth of the structure - all the way in your living quarters. With audible noise you can atleast wear earplugs / use noise cancelling devices. With those tremors theres no escaping them. You feel your walls and floors tremble and its a great nuisance. I can't believe there are no laws on the books that require builders to use vibration-dampening, sound-proofing materials / buffers for even newly constructed apartment buildings !! I mean none of this is exactly new. Noisome and insensitive neighbors are dime a dozen.
  - techsupporter 7y ago
    > You feel the sharp slamming of the doors, stairway exits and other household "noise" - as the tremors travel along the length and breadth of the structure - all the way in your living quarters. For the love of Flying Spaghetti Monster so much this. So far as I can tell, my neighbors barely make an audible sound. But the continual slamming doors, closing drawers, heavy walking, rolling of chairs, clomping up and down the building stairs...all of it comes straight into my unit and reverberates like the lowest string of a bass guitar and sets me on edge. I'm slowly getting used to it--mostly by telling myself that they can't hear what they're doing, they're not doing it intentionally, and I'm sure I make the same sounds--but it's super hard because it's very distracting to me.
  - rhexs 7y ago
    I've been in numerous poorly built apartments and the only effective way I ever found to mask doors/cabinets slamming, footsteps etc. was with a portable hose AC unit. The compressor was loud and generated a nice masking low frequency tone making it harder to hear that nonsense. It took a week to adjust to the sound, but after that it was quite soothing. Of course this isn't actually solving anything, it's just driving up the noise floor for low frequency and contributing to making everything louder. Unfortunately they're heavy, woefully inefficient, and quite expensive to run. I later moved into a newly built "luxury" apartment where the neighbors garage was directly under my bedroom. I figured as long as I got a decent neighbor it wouldn't be too bad. Struck out and got someone underemployed driving a 2 fast 2 furious civic with custom exhaust. Shook the entire building every night between 12 and 4 AM. No way to mask that. Lesson learned. Top floor always, corner if you can, never directly above or next to a garage. Only exception is if the building is made out of concrete, which is exceptionally rare and will cost more. More expensive place the better -- you have a (slightly) higher chance of getting next to working professionals and quiet families.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  They’re great. But the sound of my own heart beat is annoying. And I’m worried about if I’d hear the smoke alarm.
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    "But the sound of my own heart beat is annoying" I just realized how ridiculous that sounds. I am moaning that I am alive!
- theboulevardier 7y ago
  They are the best earplugs! I have tried loads of other brands and none compare.
- telesilla 7y ago
  When earplugs are not an option (or insufficient) I've found a pair of sleep headphones have been helpful in combination with a noise app, such as the Cozyphones shown here: (halfway down the page) https://www.audiophileon.com/news/best-headphones-for-sleeping https://www.audiophileon.com/news/best-headphones-for-sleepi...
airstrike 7y ago
Earplugs and a white noise app!
- abjKT26nO8 7y ago
  As blunte pointed out[1], earplugs make the situation worse. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273
naravara 7y ago
When I was in a similar situation I ended up paying for a few hundred dollars worth of acoustic foam for the walls. It didn’t stop everything, especially stopping noise from upstairs neighbors, but it was still a huge help. It’s unsightly though. The kinds that are actually nice to look at as wall decoration are super expensive.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Did you do a before and after dB measurement? I'm curious on quantitatively how well it worked as I was thinking of doing the same thing but I talked to a few musician buddies and read many things like https://acousticalsolutions.com/how-to-soundproof-acoustic-foam-does-not-block-sound/ https://acousticalsolutions.com/how-to-soundproof-acoustic-f... & https://soundproofcentral.com/soundproof-foam/ https://soundproofcentral.com/soundproof-foam/ and all seem to agree foam stuck on a wall is for echo not soundproofing so didn't try it out. Also many reported that things like mass loaded Vinyl on it's own isn't that great either. It seems that on top of foam panels on the wall in a sandwich fashion is the best but that was too much cost for me to try.
  - naravara 7y ago
    I didn’t measure it unfortunately. It definitely didn’t stop everything, I could still hear a lot of stuff, but it just dulled it enough that it was easier to tune out. I think most of the sound was actually echoing through the ductwork and leaking past gaps in the doors rather than going through party walls so if it was actually possible I’d try to get in there. Ideally though, the soundproofing needs to happen in the room where the sound is happening rather than in your space. The building I’m in now reserves the right to require you to put rugs down if your neighbors complain. When I got a dog I put a bunch down so the downstairs neighbors didn’t have to deal with the constant patter of his feet.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Yes - foam will damp higher frequencies, but do nothing at all for bass. The only way to eliminate bass is with a combination of mass - multiple layers of Rock Wool, Roxul, and such - with air gaps and some extra stand-off damping. It's usually possible to make a positive difference, but if it's a serious problem a workable fix - better, but not perfect - will eat up a lot of room space. The real problem is that most apartments and houses are built cheaply and building codes for acoustic isolation aren't nearly aggressive enough. They seem to stop at the level which makes conversations hard to hear, which isn't much help when people have TVs and/or subwoofers.
monster_group 7y ago
I sold my previous house precisely because of noisy neighbors (or rather their dogs). Their three dogs lived in the backyard permanently no matter what the weather - never seen them walked. Talked to the neighbors twice about the noise - no action. Called the cops at 3 in the morning - still nothing. Finally, I decided to sell the house and move somewhere where there is low dog density. I developed a dislike for dogs because of my previous neighbors. Even now, three years later, a barking dog drives me nuts, gets my heart going fast and blood boiling.
- petre 7y ago
  In Bavaria if your dog barks more than 30 minutes per day, the neighbours can record it on video, call the police and you will get fined. At first I thought this is astupid law but after reading your story I changed my mind.
  - reddotX 7y ago
    in Bulgaria people will poison your dogs
    - rhacker 7y ago
      Oh you know that happens in everywhere right?
      - blub 7y ago
        Apparently not in the US, or not often enough to have an effect.
        cgriswald 7y ago
        It happens here in the US, too[0]. The consequences, both criminal and civil, are generally not very severe. It may not be happening frequently enough to have an effect, or it may not be happening publicly enough to become a concern for owners. Plus, generally, the owners who are problems are already not very concerned about their dogs. [0] - https://gazette.com/news/colorado-springs-woman-pleads-guilty-after-trying-to-poison-neighbor/article_e6b0209e-a9c9-11e9-ac83-4f3cd9884b34.html https://gazette.com/news/colorado-springs-woman-pleads-guilt...
tzs 7y ago
Not being as close to neighbors is the primary reason I moved from an apartment to a house several years ago. This was both to not have to hear them when I'm trying to sleep, and to not have to worry about me being the obnoxious noisy neighbor for them when they were sleeping because I was often quite the night owl and would have liked to be able to watch a movie or listen to music at 3 AM. Here's an aerial view centered on my house [1]. To give an idea of scale, from the center of my house to the center of the house to the left is 130 ft. Being able to watch/listen whenever I want as loud as I want, and have quiet mostly whenever I want [2] has definitely resulted in a calmer, happier, less stressful life. [1] https://imgur.com/hKnTWji https://imgur.com/hKnTWji [2] During spring and summer, there is a bit of lawn mower noise.
- rhacker 7y ago
  +1000 about the quiet -> less stress. It's something very few people get. Mostly just old people that get a few acres know about it.
PeterStuer 7y ago
Real-estate agents know they can light up the churn-rate in a neighborhood by just moving in one neighbors-from-hell family as it is a self-reinforcing process. This is the reverse of gentrification. Fanning these waves of uplift and deterioration at the right frequency is what brings home the bacon.
wutbrodo 7y ago
> And the thing with TVs is that the most irritating sound frequency they emit is the one that is barely audible when you're in the same room, but when you are in the next room and trying to sleep it is the main frequency that you hear. Are you talking about the low-frequency burbling? I have windows that face the street and used to have a sleep disorder that made me more sensitive to noise, and when I'd occasionally sleep in the living room I'd get woken up in the morning by this emanating from my neighbor's apt. > All of that made me miserable. There were actually moments when this situation triggered suicidal thoughts. I feel you 100%,its really hard to describe how life-destroying consistent lack of sleep is. Earplugs worked wonders for me (along with the longer term solution of fixing my disorder, but that's not relevant here).
lsc 7y ago
for me, i personally find that the construction of the apartment matters a lot more than how noisy my neighbors are; I moved from a duplex in a very quiet neighborhood in sunnyvale to an apartment right under the SJC flight path, but the old place was last updated in the '60s and had single-pane windows, while the new place was built in the '80s and upgraded pretty significantly in the aughts. It is rare that I hear noises loud enough to notice over a running fan or air purifier when the windows are all buttoned up. Double/triple pane windows make a huge difference (as does offset studs drywall standoffs)
- vonseel 7y ago
  I agree but unfortunately in my experience the opposite is true in Texas - newer construction usually has thinner walls with less dampening between dwellings. Windows are usually fine though.
  - lsc 7y ago
    Huh. that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of; I always attributed the difference in quality to just, you know, the stricter housing code and better building tech in general... but that's not the only factor at work in Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, sure, most of the housing stock was built rather a long time ago, yes, but it was also built to the expectations of people who didn't make a lot of money. The newer stuff around here is built for people who are in the top 5% or better of incomes, so it's likely they use more expensive construction techniques, too.
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      I'm living in a newer building in SF, and while it's not like the walls are paper thin, the construction is still lacking in many respects, especially ventilation (toxic levels of anything airborne travel from apartment to apartment) and floor-to-floor noise isolation.
frankzander 7y ago
The dogs are not the problem - the people are. Your dislike of dogs should be more a dislike of freckless pet owners. It's the same with some special birdies in aviary. They can drive you nuts because they don't belong to this environment. It's mostly not the animals but the owners who are the cause of the problem.
- wlll 7y ago
  This is just the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, but with dogs. Of course if every dog owner was perfect then we wouldn't have problems with dogs, but you will never get everyone to be perfect, it's a losing battle, wether they be gun or dog owners. I'm willing to bet that 99% of dog owners around me are responsible, but whetever percentage of dog owners are not responsible are the cause of all the shit that coats the pavements of my town.
  - wubblebubble 7y ago
    we need to ban assault dogs, and close the dog-show loophole! :P
    - newen 7y ago
      > ban assault dogs Unironically, yeah.
- summm 7y ago
  This is a strawman argument and simply not relevant. Dogs are animals, and therefore they cannot have "fault" in the philiosophical sense. By the way, it is funny how the same people then go on to anthropomorphize dogs, as "loving" and so on. The point is that dogs can be dangerous, or annoying, and irrespective of any fault should be removed or banned in certain circumstances, just to remove the annoyance, not to punish anyone or anything. And it has also nothing to do with idiot owners. The owner can be the most responsible (most aren't), that's simply no help, if e.g. the walls are to thin, or if the neighbor has a lower noise threshold. The luxury hobby of keeping loud carnivores should simply not take precedence over the neighbors' need for silence.
ryandrake 7y ago
These are some of the many reasons that I'll never voluntarily live in a shared-wall apartment or townhouse again. People coming and going, dogs barking, couples fighting or having loud sex (or both at the same time), bass music from the ghetto-cruisers in the parking lot, and TVs, TVs, TVs! No way, never again. Unless I fall into total financial ruin, for me it's single family home, ideally with lots of space and vegetation between my next-door neighbors. It sucks that this kind of housing just isn't getting built anymore, even in my almost entirely suburban town. Buyers who want this kind of housing and lifestyle need to settle for older and older homes. When was the last time a single family home was built that's not the same footprint as the lot size? 1990? All that's going up around me are those so-called "luxury" 3-story condos, stacked up and mashed together on tiny lots. That's probably what is most profitable for developers, so who can blame them? There just don't seem to be enough of us in the market for peace and quiet.
- burntoutfire 7y ago
  What's stopping your from buying a lot and then hiring a contractor to build a house on it?
burntoutfire 7y ago
If the noises aren't too loud, a noise machine can help. I have one on 24/7 and most of the sounds that were irritating me before now get drowned in the noise and I don't even notice them.
- amelius 7y ago
  Perhaps you could also add more natural sounds such as wind, rain or sea-waves.
- switch007 7y ago
  Which make and model do you have?
molmalo 7y ago
Why not using an ultrasonic bark control device? I started using a bark control collar with one of my dogs, after a neighbour complained when my dog barked too much one afternoon when it was left alone at home. So, now, as soon as it's on, she never barks (as she learned how it works), which is helpful when I need to go several hours leaving her alone. Never had another complaint. I haven't tried the ultrasonic ones, as the other dog never barks, so I thought it would have been unfair to have both "punished" because of one. But I guess in your case it would have been really useful.
naner 7y ago
Could also be an issue with speaker placement. Most flat panel TVs have a speaker pointing down or backwards at the wall due to small bezel flat screen design.
rubinelli 7y ago
As someone who lives in an apartment building close to several bars, a simple white noise app did wonders for my sleep. I just leave it on a mix of sounds I find soothing, and it hides most of the noise that would keep me awake.
cgriswald 7y ago
> Then there are dogs whose owners don't seem to realize that dogs need to be walked and otherwise they will bark without end. FWIW, the problem is not always a lack of walking. One of my dogs developed separation anxiety after I left for two weeks, and began howling in his crate. (We train dogs and are fixing the underlying anxiety with training. Bark collars can be effective at fixing the symptom.)
flukus 7y ago
I wonder how much of the TV problem comes down to the plague of audio engineers creating tracks that you have to turn the volume up on to hear the quite parts? I always need to have my TV at a higher volume than necessary to deal with this. "Silicon Valley's empathy problem" has been a meme for a while now but with awful sound leveling and stuff like not seeing the battle of Winterfell because of how I "tuned my TV" it seems creators are increasingly out of touch with consumers. And then there's the ads at a higher volume.

htk 7y ago

I use Howard Leight’s Max every night during sleep to keep my sanity.

abjKT26nO8 7y ago
As blunte pointed out[1], earplugs make the situation worse. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273
- dominotw 7y ago
  what about bose sleepbuds?
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  That's not a general-purpose argument against earplugs, as some people have noise problems in the frequency that they do block out (this was the case for me)
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
I used to sleep with earplugs very nicely until I got an ear infection and the doctor told me to lay off them. So I bought a bluetooth speaker that can play files off a SD card, and loaded it up with a 1 hour rain sounds file and play that in a loop as white noise when I sleep. Feels better as my brain can focus on the soothing sounds of the rain instead of the thoughts that sometimes creep up in the silence of the earplugs.
- i_am_nomad 7y ago
  You should throw away the earplugs every few days. Or, you could use soft silicone putty earplugs, and sterilize them during the day.
  - karakot 7y ago
    how do you sterilize them?
    - gmanley 7y ago
      Rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol works.
      - dsego 7y ago
        would peroxide work?
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    I did exchange them often, that's not the problem. The problem is with earpulgs in summer moisture accumulates in your ear canal and with the lack of oxygen bacteria thrives inside.
    - jborichevskiy 7y ago
      Damn, I was worried this might be a thing. No issues yet but coming on two years of daily use... might be time to look for some alternatives.
wozniacki 7y ago
Sometimes the "noise" is not heard but felt due to poor dampening of the structures and inferior - if any in the first place - sound proofing. You feel the sharp slamming of the doors, stairway exits and other household "noise" - as the tremors travel along the length and breadth of the structure - all the way in your living quarters. With audible noise you can atleast wear earplugs / use noise cancelling devices. With those tremors theres no escaping them. You feel your walls and floors tremble and its a great nuisance. I can't believe there are no laws on the books that require builders to use vibration-dampening, sound-proofing materials / buffers for even newly constructed apartment buildings !! I mean none of this is exactly new. Noisome and insensitive neighbors are dime a dozen.
- techsupporter 7y ago
  > You feel the sharp slamming of the doors, stairway exits and other household "noise" - as the tremors travel along the length and breadth of the structure - all the way in your living quarters. For the love of Flying Spaghetti Monster so much this. So far as I can tell, my neighbors barely make an audible sound. But the continual slamming doors, closing drawers, heavy walking, rolling of chairs, clomping up and down the building stairs...all of it comes straight into my unit and reverberates like the lowest string of a bass guitar and sets me on edge. I'm slowly getting used to it--mostly by telling myself that they can't hear what they're doing, they're not doing it intentionally, and I'm sure I make the same sounds--but it's super hard because it's very distracting to me.
- rhexs 7y ago
  I've been in numerous poorly built apartments and the only effective way I ever found to mask doors/cabinets slamming, footsteps etc. was with a portable hose AC unit. The compressor was loud and generated a nice masking low frequency tone making it harder to hear that nonsense. It took a week to adjust to the sound, but after that it was quite soothing. Of course this isn't actually solving anything, it's just driving up the noise floor for low frequency and contributing to making everything louder. Unfortunately they're heavy, woefully inefficient, and quite expensive to run. I later moved into a newly built "luxury" apartment where the neighbors garage was directly under my bedroom. I figured as long as I got a decent neighbor it wouldn't be too bad. Struck out and got someone underemployed driving a 2 fast 2 furious civic with custom exhaust. Shook the entire building every night between 12 and 4 AM. No way to mask that. Lesson learned. Top floor always, corner if you can, never directly above or next to a garage. Only exception is if the building is made out of concrete, which is exceptionally rare and will cost more. More expensive place the better -- you have a (slightly) higher chance of getting next to working professionals and quiet families.
quickthrower2 7y ago
They’re great. But the sound of my own heart beat is annoying. And I’m worried about if I’d hear the smoke alarm.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  "But the sound of my own heart beat is annoying" I just realized how ridiculous that sounds. I am moaning that I am alive!
theboulevardier 7y ago
They are the best earplugs! I have tried loads of other brands and none compare.
telesilla 7y ago
When earplugs are not an option (or insufficient) I've found a pair of sleep headphones have been helpful in combination with a noise app, such as the Cozyphones shown here: (halfway down the page) https://www.audiophileon.com/news/best-headphones-for-sleeping https://www.audiophileon.com/news/best-headphones-for-sleepi...

airstrike 7y ago

Earplugs and a white noise app!

abjKT26nO8 7y ago
As blunte pointed out[1], earplugs make the situation worse. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21237273

naravara 7y ago

When I was in a similar situation I ended up paying for a few hundred dollars worth of acoustic foam for the walls. It didn’t stop everything, especially stopping noise from upstairs neighbors, but it was still a huge help. It’s unsightly though. The kinds that are actually nice to look at as wall decoration are super expensive.

zamadatix 7y ago
Did you do a before and after dB measurement? I'm curious on quantitatively how well it worked as I was thinking of doing the same thing but I talked to a few musician buddies and read many things like https://acousticalsolutions.com/how-to-soundproof-acoustic-foam-does-not-block-sound/ https://acousticalsolutions.com/how-to-soundproof-acoustic-f... & https://soundproofcentral.com/soundproof-foam/ https://soundproofcentral.com/soundproof-foam/ and all seem to agree foam stuck on a wall is for echo not soundproofing so didn't try it out. Also many reported that things like mass loaded Vinyl on it's own isn't that great either. It seems that on top of foam panels on the wall in a sandwich fashion is the best but that was too much cost for me to try.
- naravara 7y ago
  I didn’t measure it unfortunately. It definitely didn’t stop everything, I could still hear a lot of stuff, but it just dulled it enough that it was easier to tune out. I think most of the sound was actually echoing through the ductwork and leaking past gaps in the doors rather than going through party walls so if it was actually possible I’d try to get in there. Ideally though, the soundproofing needs to happen in the room where the sound is happening rather than in your space. The building I’m in now reserves the right to require you to put rugs down if your neighbors complain. When I got a dog I put a bunch down so the downstairs neighbors didn’t have to deal with the constant patter of his feet.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Yes - foam will damp higher frequencies, but do nothing at all for bass. The only way to eliminate bass is with a combination of mass - multiple layers of Rock Wool, Roxul, and such - with air gaps and some extra stand-off damping. It's usually possible to make a positive difference, but if it's a serious problem a workable fix - better, but not perfect - will eat up a lot of room space. The real problem is that most apartments and houses are built cheaply and building codes for acoustic isolation aren't nearly aggressive enough. They seem to stop at the level which makes conversations hard to hear, which isn't much help when people have TVs and/or subwoofers.

monster_group 7y ago

I sold my previous house precisely because of noisy neighbors (or rather their dogs). Their three dogs lived in the backyard permanently no matter what the weather - never seen them walked. Talked to the neighbors twice about the noise - no action. Called the cops at 3 in the morning - still nothing. Finally, I decided to sell the house and move somewhere where there is low dog density. I developed a dislike for dogs because of my previous neighbors. Even now, three years later, a barking dog drives me nuts, gets my heart going fast and blood boiling.

petre 7y ago
In Bavaria if your dog barks more than 30 minutes per day, the neighbours can record it on video, call the police and you will get fined. At first I thought this is astupid law but after reading your story I changed my mind.
- reddotX 7y ago
  in Bulgaria people will poison your dogs
  - rhacker 7y ago
    Oh you know that happens in everywhere right?
    - blub 7y ago
      Apparently not in the US, or not often enough to have an effect.
      - cgriswald 7y ago
        It happens here in the US, too[0]. The consequences, both criminal and civil, are generally not very severe. It may not be happening frequently enough to have an effect, or it may not be happening publicly enough to become a concern for owners. Plus, generally, the owners who are problems are already not very concerned about their dogs. [0] - https://gazette.com/news/colorado-springs-woman-pleads-guilty-after-trying-to-poison-neighbor/article_e6b0209e-a9c9-11e9-ac83-4f3cd9884b34.html https://gazette.com/news/colorado-springs-woman-pleads-guilt...

tzs 7y ago

Not being as close to neighbors is the primary reason I moved from an apartment to a house several years ago. This was both to not have to hear them when I'm trying to sleep, and to not have to worry about me being the obnoxious noisy neighbor for them when they were sleeping because I was often quite the night owl and would have liked to be able to watch a movie or listen to music at 3 AM. Here's an aerial view centered on my house [1]. To give an idea of scale, from the center of my house to the center of the house to the left is 130 ft. Being able to watch/listen whenever I want as loud as I want, and have quiet mostly whenever I want [2] has definitely resulted in a calmer, happier, less stressful life. [1] https://imgur.com/hKnTWji https://imgur.com/hKnTWji [2] During spring and summer, there is a bit of lawn mower noise.

rhacker 7y ago
+1000 about the quiet -> less stress. It's something very few people get. Mostly just old people that get a few acres know about it.

PeterStuer 7y ago

Real-estate agents know they can light up the churn-rate in a neighborhood by just moving in one neighbors-from-hell family as it is a self-reinforcing process. This is the reverse of gentrification. Fanning these waves of uplift and deterioration at the right frequency is what brings home the bacon.

wutbrodo 7y ago

> And the thing with TVs is that the most irritating sound frequency they emit is the one that is barely audible when you're in the same room, but when you are in the next room and trying to sleep it is the main frequency that you hear. Are you talking about the low-frequency burbling? I have windows that face the street and used to have a sleep disorder that made me more sensitive to noise, and when I'd occasionally sleep in the living room I'd get woken up in the morning by this emanating from my neighbor's apt. > All of that made me miserable. There were actually moments when this situation triggered suicidal thoughts. I feel you 100%,its really hard to describe how life-destroying consistent lack of sleep is. Earplugs worked wonders for me (along with the longer term solution of fixing my disorder, but that's not relevant here).

lsc 7y ago

for me, i personally find that the construction of the apartment matters a lot more than how noisy my neighbors are; I moved from a duplex in a very quiet neighborhood in sunnyvale to an apartment right under the SJC flight path, but the old place was last updated in the '60s and had single-pane windows, while the new place was built in the '80s and upgraded pretty significantly in the aughts. It is rare that I hear noises loud enough to notice over a running fan or air purifier when the windows are all buttoned up. Double/triple pane windows make a huge difference (as does offset studs drywall standoffs)

vonseel 7y ago
I agree but unfortunately in my experience the opposite is true in Texas - newer construction usually has thinner walls with less dampening between dwellings. Windows are usually fine though.
- lsc 7y ago
  Huh. that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of; I always attributed the difference in quality to just, you know, the stricter housing code and better building tech in general... but that's not the only factor at work in Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, sure, most of the housing stock was built rather a long time ago, yes, but it was also built to the expectations of people who didn't make a lot of money. The newer stuff around here is built for people who are in the top 5% or better of incomes, so it's likely they use more expensive construction techniques, too.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    I'm living in a newer building in SF, and while it's not like the walls are paper thin, the construction is still lacking in many respects, especially ventilation (toxic levels of anything airborne travel from apartment to apartment) and floor-to-floor noise isolation.

frankzander 7y ago

The dogs are not the problem - the people are. Your dislike of dogs should be more a dislike of freckless pet owners. It's the same with some special birdies in aviary. They can drive you nuts because they don't belong to this environment. It's mostly not the animals but the owners who are the cause of the problem.

wlll 7y ago
This is just the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, but with dogs. Of course if every dog owner was perfect then we wouldn't have problems with dogs, but you will never get everyone to be perfect, it's a losing battle, wether they be gun or dog owners. I'm willing to bet that 99% of dog owners around me are responsible, but whetever percentage of dog owners are not responsible are the cause of all the shit that coats the pavements of my town.
- wubblebubble 7y ago
  we need to ban assault dogs, and close the dog-show loophole! :P
  - newen 7y ago
    > ban assault dogs Unironically, yeah.
summm 7y ago
This is a strawman argument and simply not relevant. Dogs are animals, and therefore they cannot have "fault" in the philiosophical sense. By the way, it is funny how the same people then go on to anthropomorphize dogs, as "loving" and so on. The point is that dogs can be dangerous, or annoying, and irrespective of any fault should be removed or banned in certain circumstances, just to remove the annoyance, not to punish anyone or anything. And it has also nothing to do with idiot owners. The owner can be the most responsible (most aren't), that's simply no help, if e.g. the walls are to thin, or if the neighbor has a lower noise threshold. The luxury hobby of keeping loud carnivores should simply not take precedence over the neighbors' need for silence.

ryandrake 7y ago

These are some of the many reasons that I'll never voluntarily live in a shared-wall apartment or townhouse again. People coming and going, dogs barking, couples fighting or having loud sex (or both at the same time), bass music from the ghetto-cruisers in the parking lot, and TVs, TVs, TVs! No way, never again. Unless I fall into total financial ruin, for me it's single family home, ideally with lots of space and vegetation between my next-door neighbors. It sucks that this kind of housing just isn't getting built anymore, even in my almost entirely suburban town. Buyers who want this kind of housing and lifestyle need to settle for older and older homes. When was the last time a single family home was built that's not the same footprint as the lot size? 1990? All that's going up around me are those so-called "luxury" 3-story condos, stacked up and mashed together on tiny lots. That's probably what is most profitable for developers, so who can blame them? There just don't seem to be enough of us in the market for peace and quiet.

burntoutfire 7y ago
What's stopping your from buying a lot and then hiring a contractor to build a house on it?

burntoutfire 7y ago

If the noises aren't too loud, a noise machine can help. I have one on 24/7 and most of the sounds that were irritating me before now get drowned in the noise and I don't even notice them.

amelius 7y ago
Perhaps you could also add more natural sounds such as wind, rain or sea-waves.
switch007 7y ago
Which make and model do you have?

molmalo 7y ago

Why not using an ultrasonic bark control device? I started using a bark control collar with one of my dogs, after a neighbour complained when my dog barked too much one afternoon when it was left alone at home. So, now, as soon as it's on, she never barks (as she learned how it works), which is helpful when I need to go several hours leaving her alone. Never had another complaint. I haven't tried the ultrasonic ones, as the other dog never barks, so I thought it would have been unfair to have both "punished" because of one. But I guess in your case it would have been really useful.

naner 7y ago

Could also be an issue with speaker placement. Most flat panel TVs have a speaker pointing down or backwards at the wall due to small bezel flat screen design.

rubinelli 7y ago

As someone who lives in an apartment building close to several bars, a simple white noise app did wonders for my sleep. I just leave it on a mix of sounds I find soothing, and it hides most of the noise that would keep me awake.

cgriswald 7y ago

> Then there are dogs whose owners don't seem to realize that dogs need to be walked and otherwise they will bark without end. FWIW, the problem is not always a lack of walking. One of my dogs developed separation anxiety after I left for two weeks, and began howling in his crate. (We train dogs and are fixing the underlying anxiety with training. Bark collars can be effective at fixing the symptom.)

flukus 7y ago

I wonder how much of the TV problem comes down to the plague of audio engineers creating tracks that you have to turn the volume up on to hear the quite parts? I always need to have my TV at a higher volume than necessary to deal with this. "Silicon Valley's empathy problem" has been a meme for a while now but with awful sound leveling and stuff like not seeing the battle of Winterfell because of how I "tuned my TV" it seems creators are increasingly out of touch with consumers. And then there's the ads at a higher volume.