I'm quite sensitive to noises. Here are some of my hard-learned lessons: - try to always rent the flat on the top floor - the noises coming through the celing

I'm quite sensitive to noises. Here are some of my hard-learned lessons: - try to always rent the flat on the top floor - the noises coming through the celing are by far the worst. The roofs in my country are usually poorly insulated, which means hot apartment in the summer. It's still better than the noise - heat can be dealt with by installing AC, while you can't do anything about the neighbors. - try to live in a building with as few apartments as possible. Noise travels well through construction materials, and if you live in say 200-meter long building, chances are there will often be someone currently renovating his flat with a jackhammer etc. and that noise will be infuriatingly loud in your apartment. - no windows coming out to the street that's a transit street (i.e. used regularly by anyone else than the people who live on the street and around). Double no if public transit goes there. Also, it's worse to have a window near a crossroad with lights or near a turn (people slow down and/or stop there, and then accelerating generates a lot of noise). Ideally, no windows coming on a street at all, but for example cull-de-sac road is ok, because it's guaranteed to be used by locals only. Apart from that, I'm always insiting on seeing some landscape, or at least a big patch of the sky, out of my window. Nothing more depressing than 100% of your view being just a wall of the opposing building.