How to Sleep With Noisy Neighbors – 15 Wise Acts


Noisy neghbors

Once again, I am awake in the middle of the night because my neighbors are keeping loud noise. When you are facing similar experiences, you know that it is very frustrating! But what should you do? Should you move away, go to tell them to be quiet or something else?

Compare and think which action would be most effective in your case. For instance, if your neighbors are noisy just a few times a year what could be the best solution? On the other hand, if your neighbors tend to be noisy every day or every week, which action you should take then?

So here are 15 best options that you can do:

1. Talk With Your Neighbors

Yes talk, don’t yell.

In any situation yelling may make things worst. So, therefore, it is better to talk kindly with your neighbors. Sometimes people just have fun at late, and they may forget that the sound can be accessed by neighbors apartment very quickly. Maybe for them, it is not a problem to hear other neighbors noises at all.

If you feel that the noise from your neighbor is too much, maybe you can visit at their door, and friendly express them that it is too loud and you can’t sleep because of that. When keeping conversation kind, it may help your neighbors understand the situation, and maybe you don’t need any more comment on the same issue later.

One crucial fact you should tell your neighbor is related to why the noise disrupts you. If you, for example, need to wake up early in the morning, you should say – again right way – the fact when discussing with your neighbor. Anyway, it is a fact that probably everyone has at some point final pain threshold when after we want to take further action and tell about the problem to the one who is causing it.

That said, of course, it is good to understand what kind of noise it is. If it is something like loud music (maybe with beating bass sound or sometimes just the bass sound) steps from upstairs, loud speaking or other everyday noise you could kindly mention about the disorder to your neighbors and maybe they will stop it.

But, if there is a lot of noise of arguing or even sound of violence, then you should definitely to…

2. Call for the Right Authorities

In case the noise is disrupting, and there is no other option you can call to authorize. But where to call? It has stated that if there is an immediate physical danger for anyone you should call 911. But if there is no physical danger and the noise is the only problem, there is another way to report it.

How to Report Noisy Neighbors to Police?

Here is a quotation of formal instruction from “NOLO” legal encyclopedia :

“Unless you are in immediate physical danger, do not call 911 with a simple noise complaint. Many larger cities have separate helplines for people to call if they are unsure of the correct agency to speak with. For example, in New York City, you should dial 311. In Los Angeles, you should dial (877) ASK-LAPD (275-5273).”

NOLO

To find out for local practice near your home, and take the right kind of action to contact the correct phone number. If you can’t find the information about the phone number quickly, you can always contact your local police station to ask for further instructions.

How to Make a Noise Complaint?

Here you can find local guidance on how to make the noise complaint in a few areas in the U.S.:
Los Angeles, CA
“Call the cops The LAPD suggests that noise complaints, from loud TVs to awful parties, are best dealt with by your local police station. Call them at (877) ASK-LAPD (275-5273). Do not call 911. If your neighbor complaint is more of the barking dog variety, try the city’s Animal Care and Control Department.”
la.curbed.com
New York City, NY
“You can make a complaint about noise from your neighbor including loud music or television, talking, and moving or dragging of furniture.”
Just fill the form on the website:
portal.311.nyc.gov and www1.nyc.gov
Dallas, TX
dallascityhall.com
Orlando, FL
“Residents of unincorporated Orange County adversely affected by noise pollution from a non-residential property that does not serve alcohol should contact the Environmental Protection Division, (407) 836-1468.”
“Residents of unincorporated Orange County affected by a noise disturbance coming from another residential property or a bar, or alcohol serving establishment, should contact the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, (407) 836-4357.”
www.ocfl.net and www.ocfl.net
Marietta, GA
“During normal business hours: Monday – Friday 7 a.m. – 4 p.m. After normal business hours, or on weekends Contact the Marietta Police Department’s non-emergency number (770-499-3911) to have an officer dispatched”
www.mariettaga.gov
Maryland, NJ
www.jerseycitynj.gov and seeclickfix.com
Knoxville, TN
knoxvilletn.gov
Rockville, MD
“Contact the police non-emergency line at 301-279-8000 if the noise disturbances happen outside of regular business hours.”
www.montgomerycountymd.gov
Dayton, OH
www.daytonohio.gov
Seattle, WA
www.seattle.gov
Salt Lake County, UT
“To report loud noise from a party, from fireworks outside of designated holidays, or from another unusual circumstance, contact your local police through a non-emergency number (do NOT call 911 unless it is a life-threatening emergency).”
slco.org

3. Ask Your Neighbors to Visit Your Home to Hear How Well You Hear the Noise

For some people, it can be almost impossible to understand how much noise there might get out of from their apartment. Therefore, if you go to chat with your neighbor and maybe you ask them to come to visit your home they may very well understand the problem.

Remember to talk kindly all the time with them, even if they don’t want to listen to you or they don’t understand your point.

If they get the point, they probably stop keeping a loud noise and maybe they will promise to try not to keep a loud noise anymore. Your neighbors may even want you to report any other time if they will ever disrupt you again. After such a case, you can feel with confidence to contact them with any matter and feel peaceful to continue sleeping.

But if your neighbors don’t want to listen to you and don’t want to co-operate with you, there are other options that you can do:

4. Talk With Other Neighbors

If you have talked with the neighbor who is causing the noise, and they continue keeping noise, you could chat with other neighbors and ask if they have a similar experience with the noise causing neighbor.

You may ask if they have already talked with the neighbor about the noise problem, and what was the reaction. Then you may think about what further actions you may want to take.

However, the goal should not be to gather a group to start arguing against the neighbor. Instead, the goal first should be to understand if others are suffering the noise problem too.

If the problem with the noise is causing too much trouble to you and your other neighbors, you together may want to take some actions to complain about the noise.

In discussing with the noise keeping neighbor won’t help or if the neighbor isn’t able to reach, you may want to write together a letter to the noise keeping neighbor and explain how much the noise impact to other people in the house.

It should be friendly written. Otherwise, things can get worst. The noise causing neighbor may understand the problem and may stop keeping the loud noise.

5. Try to Ignore the Fact That There Is a Noise

Is it possible to forget and ignore a disrupting noise? For instance, if you feel that you are a very sensitive person, you probably feel it annoying to hear any disturbing sounds. So if you think that you can’t just forget disrupting sounds this tip is probably not for you. However, you may be able to learn to ignore some disrupting noises if you really try.

Furthermore, if you feel that this could work in your case, you may try it. Some people actually successfully can ignore annoying sounds. But how is it possible?  You can try to think some other things that help you to focus on some positive thoughts instead of thinking of negatively the disrupting noise.

Imagining some peaceful view or imaging some quiet sounds may help. For instance, you could try to figure a beautiful picture like the beach or mountains or any other aspect which you like. It may help you to calm down.

You should not try to think of the severe consequences that the sound may cause. Try to instead keep in mind positive thoughts and positive sounds.

To ignoring the noise in mind can really work. If it doesn’t work for the first time for you, you can try it a few times and see if you can make a success at some point. It is indeed possible to succeed!

6. Keep Yourself Exhausted

If you don’t usually have a habit of doing exercises during the day, you could try to do some to get a decent sleep even when it is noisy. If you tend to have a little amount of moving in the daytime, exercises can actually help you sleep better whole night almost in any situation.

Any exercises that keep you on the move and your heart rate up may be enough to help you sleep at night. For instance, jogging or aerobics practices may be just the right choices.

After doing some exercises during the day (but not too near the bedtime) can make you so tired that you can very quickly fall asleep at night even if your neighbors keep some noise. Best could be if you have an opportunity to start your day early as possible with some exercises, such as jogging like many people want to do.

7. Find the Other Place in Your House Where It Is Quieter to Sleep

It might be impossible to find any peaceful place in your apartment if it is small and if there are no other rooms. But in case you have multiple rooms in your house, you may able to find some spot where you won’t hear the noise or at least someplace where the sound is quiet enough so that you can sleep.

So if you find some quiet and nice place in your apartment, you may move your bed there and sleeping there might be much more comfortable. If you can’t bed, move your bed to the quiet place you are probably able to move your mattress there, and you can place it on the floor. So this way you can change your sleeping place, especially if the noise problem is only temporarily.

Furthermore, the problem with that disrupting noise might be related to how well sounds move by the walls. For instance, if your bed is near a wall which echoes the disrupting noise, it may be more useful to you to change your sleeping place near to another wall where the noise problem is not present.

8. Wear Earplugs

Having earplugs may be a good idea if you ever need to block noises for any reason. With noisy neighbors, it may be an ideal solution, especially if the sounds are usually intermittent.

There are a lot of different kinds of earplugs, so which type of earplugs you should get?

You have undoubtedly a lot of choices, and any earplugs may be useful to block at least some noises. But if you want to make sure that the earplugs are sufficient to prevent sounds, especially for overnight use it should be better to choose high-quality earplugs.

I did research, and I found out some earplugs that are designed just for overnight use. For instance, you could consider Alpine Sleep Soft Earplugs. These earplugs protect your ears up to 31 dB, absorbing, for example, snoring and ambient sounds.

You may also want to consider Moldes 6800 Pura-Fit Soft Foam Earplugs. These earplugs have intended to one-time use. Sound reduces with these earplugs is 33 dB.

Take a look which of those could work with you best. There are also many other kinds of earplugs that you can find probably in your local supermarket or other shops, but usually, those are not such high-quality ones.

9. Wear Headphones or Earphones

With headphones, you can also block some noise, but mainly you would want to use headphones to listen to something. There are a lot of options what you can listen to with your headphones. For instance, to sleep better many people want to hear some white noise.

I earlier did research relating different kind of sounds that may help sleep. So I collected a list of 66 Weird sound that may actually make you sleep instantly. Check it out, and find out which type of noise you could listen when there is noise from the neighbor. Any sound may help you to fall asleep and even sleep the better whole night.

But which headphones you should get if you want to use them over the night? You probably already guessed that I have a couple of suggestions for headphones to use at night:

I would suggest earphones so that they are easier to keep on ears during the night. For example, Shure SE215 Sound Isolating Earphones seem to be an ideal option for this purpose.

There is also a bit different kind of headphones than you usually would understand it. It is Eye Mask Headphones with wireless Bluetooth. So here is a double benefit, your eyes and ears are blocked, and you can even listen to something at the same time!

10. Listen to Music

Now you have headphones, so why not listen to some relaxing music? White noise is an excellent solution to listen to, but for some people listening to music may work even better. So select your favorite music and make it easy to fall asleep, right?

Well, it might be that all kind of music won’t help you to sleep, but you can think which type of music would work best in your case. Is peaceful classical music suitable for you or can you sleep with more aggressive music too? It is entirely your choice, and you know it best which work better for you.

But if you need some tip for good music to sleep with here is one proofed option for “music for sleep.”

11. Soundproof Your Bedroom

To soundproof bedroom may be a stable solution, so that most of the unwanted noises can be blocked. It may be useful to find out which actions with soundproofing might be relevant to get your bedroom quiet enough.

For instance, you can find from this blog post useful soundproofing tips to soundproof your bedroom, with estimated costs.

One way to soundproof your bedroom is to put some BXI Sound Absorber to the wall or the ceiling.

Soundproofing a bedroom might be the right solution if you wish to keep sounds from neighbors apartments to your bedroom but also from your bedroom to other rooms in your condo or your neighbor’s apartment.

12. Make a Claim to Your House Management – Send a Noise Complaint Letter or Email

Sending a message or an email can some cases be the better option than try to call or chat straight with authorities who are responsible for noise problems. If you live in a rental apartment, you should write first to your super or mediator of your building. If there is no response and when living in a rented apartment, you should write to your landlord.

What should you write to the letter?

You can write all the detail relating to noise incidents. So you should write the date and time, and the type of noise which neighbor is the source of the sound, meaning apartment address and neighbors name. The noise complaint should have been done after three noise incidents. Also, official noise complains possible to address to authorities, depending on where you live.

Another option is to take contact police like described earlier.

13. Contact Your Landlord

If you live in a rented apartment, you may contact your landlord to claim the noise problem. Then the landlord may make contact with other authorizes to solve the problem.

Even if your landlord won’t take first any action to contact to authorize, it is good to tell your landlord about the noise problem, so that your landlord may know the situation and maybe take some actions later if the problem continues.

Furthermore, if you are looking for a new rental apartment, you can do some query to a landlord if there might be any noise problems in the house. For instance, asking does the landlord know neighbors and what kind of people there lives.

If the landlord tells you that there are many young people or many old people in the same house, then you can do your conclusions about the house and should you move there or not.

14. Move Out – Move Upstairs

If there is no way to block the noise problem, it is continuously, any action won’t make a change, and your landlord is uncooperative you may want to move another apartment.

So what things you should consider if you want to look at a new apartment? Like said before, you can ask from your landlord many things related possible noise problem.

Also, you can consider other factors. For instance, if you want to minimize the risk that your upstairs neighbors would be noisy, you could find the only upper-level apartment. Then, there is no one living in your upper, and no upstairs neighbors noise too. But there probably are other neighbors on the same floor, so the risk of noise from their apartments is possible.

Furthermore, it is suitable to know that sometimes when living upstairs of the building, there might be, for example, the sound of the elevator engine room when people are using the elevator. If you can stand that kind of sound, there should no problem.

15. Find out Where Is a Quiet Environment (No Condominium)

When looking at a new apartment for rent or especially when planning to buy one, it is very crucial to investigate possible noise problems if you don’t stand any noise from the neighbor’s side.

Furthermore, looking around the environment of the house can help you to get the idea of possible other noise problems. These could be such as the noise of traffic, noise of sport activity places and noise of nightclub or similar.

The best solution could be that if you could stay a few nights in the apartment, that you like. That may be possible if you ask the possibility from a landlord who is renting such an apartment. In such a case landlord may want to make a short period contract, like for one week or so. This is true especially in the area where it is not so much turnover with the tenant. Then it may be possible to stay in the apartment and see if it for you or should you continue looking at other apartments.

When doing a careful investigation of the environment, you may feel relaxed when moving to the new place. Anyway, there might always be some surprises even hardest you try to investigate possible noise sources.

You may also consider:

Change Your Sleep Schedule

If you can’t, just ignore this tip. But if it is possible to you and your neighbors tend to keep noise, for example, at the late evening, and you don’t have any reason to wake up early in the morning you may be able to stay awake a bit later. Also, you could try to sleep earlier than usual, so that you might be able to sleep over the noise (if you usually don’t wake up sounds).

Usually, the noise problems may be only on the weekends so if you can and want to stay awake a bit later than generally if your neighbors are noisy in the late evening. Or you may want to sleep more on the daytime so that you can be awake some part of the evening and maybe sleep more rest of the night.

This all surely depends on how much you can implement your schedule and are you able to sleep on daytime.

How About If My Neighbors Are Noisy During the Day, I Work at Night, and I Have to Sleep During the Day?

In such a case usually, the problem may be related to noisy neighbors children’s whom understandably want to play using loud noise when they have an opportunity to do so. But the source of sound can, of course, be anything else too.

Here could work the first option mentioned on our list. You should chat with your neighbor and tell him or her straightforward but kindly that you are working at night and need to sleep at day. Your neighbor more likely understands the situation and want to co-operate.

Furthermore, using earplugs when sleeping in the daytime might be the best solution to avoid any noise, even if some noise starts suddenly when you are sleeping. Also, using a sleep mask during the day is a good idea if your bedroom is not enough dark. From my point of view, “been there done that,” for this situation, the best solution may be this combination mask with sleep mask and earphones which can be used as earplugs too.

Sources:

The home story

Lifehacker

The Sleep Advisor

Apartment Therapy

metal filter

The Sleep Advisor

houselogic

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