alt Hacker NewsI can relate to this very much. A city guy, no one could understand my (also) 20 years of complaining about neighbors with loud music, slamming doors, making noise after midnight, etc etc. I lived on top floors, and I even spent a fortune living in a luxury building that was newly built, hoping sound insulation was higher end. The problem is that bass music travels through everything. I suffered from being woken up in the night by party goers, and early morning by door slammers. Once I wake up, it takes me a long time to fall back asleep. On weekends, when I want to stay at home and just play a game or read, people play music in the afternoon and often I would stress over some sort of party nearby beginning that evening, forcing me to find somewhere to go just to avoid the noise. Eventually I purchased a home in the woods.
What's happening to make us a minority here is at the minimum:
- Younger people are less sensitive to noise, go out more, and generally don't understand how distressful it can be
- Some people are light sleepers as well as get cognitively overloaded, needing relatively quiet environments to relax. People like me are in a tiny minority.
- Cities are the future, they're the greener option, and you're supposed to prefer the dense apartment life instead of the car one, on ethical grounds.
So when I detailed my suffering several times here on HN, and suggested dense cities are not mentally healthy for many people such as myself, I got downvoted. There's a bit of politics behind city living that folks who don't have cognitive sensitivities around noise just won't relent from.
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There are a few topics that illicit this kind of response. I've lived in apartments/condos ever since I moved out of my parents' home, and living through Covid in an apartment was the nail in the coffin. My wife and I decided we would not live in a shared building again - at minimum, we'd only look for places that have a private entrance.
Based on the behavior of real estate in our area (high density suburbs of NYC), I don't think we're the only ones? Condo prices have either fallen or remained static while SFH have skyrocketed.
I also can't stand noise and in my case the solution was to find a two storey apartment at the top floors. They're fairly common in my city.
Another thing that happened by itself was my neighbour with whom I shared several walls moving out. His landlord put the apartment up for sale, but a year later there are still no takers.
I'm seriously considering buying it if only to keep it empty and my place peaceful.
> The problem is that bass music travels through everything.
It’s not just bass tones—low-frequency vibrations travel through everything. I live in a five-story pre-WWII building, and sometimes, when a neighbor runs their washing machine early on a Saturday morning, I don’t even hear the spin cycle. I just feel it, lying in bed trying to squeeze in a little more sleep. It’s an odd sensation, not painful, but definitely not pleasant.
> - Younger people are less sensitive to noise, go out more, and generally don't understand how distressful it can be
When I was younger I lived in a large shared house, constant activity and people coming and going, music always playing, I loved it then.
Now I live in a very soundproof apartment, literally never hear anyone else (our neighbours right next door had a party until 4am with loud music, etc. We didn't hear a thing). I love this now.
As I get older I've gotten more and more sensitive to other people's noise. I find people playing bluetooth devices to be acutely, intensely, irritating. I can't just ignore it, it annoys and distracts me too much.
I've become that grumpy guy who asks people to turn their music down or wear headphones (almost always a negative experience for everyone involved). I talk to management at restaurants and pubs and ask them to turn the music down (mixed results on that one). I have taken a table at restaurants and then walked away because the music is too loud.
It is weird, because this is my reaction to the situation, so I'm responsible for it. A city is not a quiet space, and we can't really expect it to be. But at the same time, the lack of consideration for others is shocking. Walking around playing music on speaker is basically saying to everyone "f*ck you, I'm more important than all of you".