Dealing with Noisy Neighbors

Dealing with Noisy Neighbors

Apartment life is no life at all.  Having not shared walls with other people and families since college, I had forgotten how…ahem…fun it could be.  It’s not that I want to be isolated, away from people, it’s just that having the noise of people completely unrelated to me barging in to everyday life is not my cup of tea…in fact. I’d like to have a cup of tea without haring them banging around.  And, in all fairness, I would guess they would say the same.  And therein lies the rub.  neighbors rarely keep the same schedule.  It’s not fair to ask them to.  So, how do you deal with them and they with you?

Below are snippets of two conversations I had today.  I’m not kidding, both are real-life stories.

Situation 1

We have friends, another American family like us doing PhD work in Scotland.  They live down the street and live below a gaggle of students.  I say gaggle because we don;t really know how many there are in that we only hear them partying at night and never see them in day light.  They could be bats for all we know.  Anyway, these friends of mine are having trouble sleeping.  Somewhere around 11p or midnight until about 5am last night, they suffered through the sounds of a night of revelry.  It was a weekday night…not even Friday or Saturday.  My poor friends found that though their kids could sleep through it, they could not.  The father finally threw in the towel at 5 and went in early to work, only to practically fall asleep at his desk a few hours later.  Once the kids were up, the mother made every possible noise she could to torture the now passed out college students.  I’m pretty sure she taught her son how to play the piano off-key.

Situation 2

In this real-life scenario, my friends are the ones accused of making the noise.  This family, yet another American family studying abroad, also has 2 kids, both of whom are potty-trained.  This morning, a very tired, bedraggled neighbor politely asked if they were doing any drilling the previous night.  Unfortunately, it was just the noise of the pipes during and after every flush.

There must be a better way of living, right?  I politely suggested sound machines.  I do love white noise something fierce.  I can’t make my friends’ neighbors or even their old pipes shut up, but I can offer the peace of sweet sleep regardless of intermittent noise.  Once your kids are old enough to sleep in their own bed (and not a crib), they are old enough to come get you if they need something.  So, turn on some peaceful nature sounds and get rested.

The bottom line is that if noisy neighbors, or even pipes, are keeping you awake at night, don’t just bemoan lost sleep and assume conflict is the only response.  Try a sound machine and see how much better you can sleep.