apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

it depends on your budget but earplugs will be the less costly.

i don't mean to sound sarcastic in my suggestion, but have you considered earplugs?

Ear plugs. I use 'em, love 'em, and recommend 'em. Get the foam type that you roll between your fingers to compress -- they expand in your ear canals. And get the highest decible rating you can find. Don't bother with the wax variety, unless you have an allergy to the foam. I use 3M Nexcare and buy them by the 200 pack.

http://www.3mestore.com/70070846186.html?WT.mc_id=3M-com-AtoZ-ear-plugs-nexcare

They block out cat snoring, street traffic, and dishwashers -- but the won't block out your alarm clock.

I use a sound machine on some sort of white noise type variant...usually the 'clothes dryer'...that doesn't get obnoxious turned up loud or block the alarm clock. If you get a decent one with recorded natural sounds, it can be fairly effective. Mine also has a remote which comes in handy. I got it from Sharper Image but I dont see it on the site any longer.

I sleep with my head between pillows every night due to loud neighbors with thin walls, a snoring husband, and a bedroom window that faces an alley with a bar. Most nights, that's enough to block out noise.

If you're afraid of suffocating yourself, ear plugs would be the next best step.

Dear Sleepless,

I can definitely sympathize with you. I lived on Divisadero for 2 months (it was nearly only 2 days) with the 24 bus rattling the paper-thin Victorian every 9 minutes, even throughout the night. It felt like I was camping out on the street. Despite the behest of my fellow ATers, simple ear plugs may not be enough. The sound not only travels through the air, but depending on the quality of the building, very well may send vibrations from the ground to the building to your bed. Sound machine, heavy curtains, ear plugs did little to assuage the situation for me. My neighbors insisted that I would grow accustomed to the noise. But I finally decided I couldn't "afford" the damage to my health and upgraded to a small studio by myself for the first time. It was one of the best decisions in my life. I have a wonderful sun-filled room away from the street with a great land-lady, and it led me to this website and even a spot in a Chronicle article for being a poor student! :-)

Apologies for the novella, but this problem could be a catalyst for improved life situation. Sleep is such a core piece to our health and wellbeing (energy, mood, etc.) to touch all aspects of our life. If others' suggestions don't help, I would seriously consider moving out. My two cents...

Move to where it's quiet

Boules Quies--the French earplugs that aren't foam and gross. They're the nicest to use, and mold to the shape of your shell-like ears.

Hi there,
Ear plugs - I use Max Wax.
Sound machine.
Curtains - double layer which also darkens the room.

I went away for a weekend to get away from the noise of the city. The B&B neglected to mention that they are literally right across from a train. I wanted to cry!

Good luck.

I loathe earplugs as there's nothing more distracting than amplifying the sound of my internals. Outside noise near my corner apartment balances tv noise from my neighbors. I actually look forward to like white noise, especially on weekends when all the neighbors are home

Unfortunately, nothing can successfully muffle the explosive cracks from people slamming their car doors.

I can totally sympathize. My next door neighbor enjoys marathon shouting matches with her ex-husband (I'm talking ALL NIGHT). Moving isn't an option, and confronting the offending parties only helps so much. The following things have helped me:

- Foam airplugs
- Heavy double drapes on the windows
- Fabric on the wall that we share (baffles the sound)
- White noise- air conditioning in the summer, whale sounds in the winter
- Moving my bed away from the window and the wall.
- Remembering that sleep IS possible and working hard to not associate my bed/apartment with being miserable from lack of sleep.

I would ask the landlord to let you know if any studios at the back of the building open up!

gquaker is right on target with the suggestions. Though I never got used to sleeping with earplugs because they'd always come out during the night.

I used to live at the corner of 24th St @ Church. Both the 48 bus and the J (or any other train going off to be parked at Balboa Park Station) made a stop right in my bedroom which faced the street. If MUNI traffic wasn't enough I also had to deal with yelling drunk people after they left the bar and countless drivers who'd park in the bus stop with their stereos thumping as they went into the 24 hour Happy Donuts downstairs.

Here are a couple of things I did using foam which made dramatic improvements. I put egg crate foam on the wall and then covered it in a really nifty graphic printed fabric which doubled as art and gave color to my room which I couldn't paint because of my lease.

During the cooler months I'd install foam pillows I cut to size over my window. Real simple-- get some foam from someplace like foamorder.com on Harrison St. Measure your windows and cut the foam to the needed dimensions. Cover the foam with a fabric that compliments your decor. If you can't sew, or just don't want to, use a spray adhesive to apply the fabric instead of making a mock pillowcase. Attached a Velcro piece to each corner of one side of the foam pillow and a corresponding Velcro piece can be glued to the window frame. When you want to sleep or cut down the noise, just place the foam pillows up on the window frame attached to the Velcro. It cuts down noise like you wouldn't believe. Plus it insulates really well which was another problem I had when I lived on that corner-- there wasn't a heater in the apartment.

Did you also see the article right below this one?

http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/noise/look-soundproof-wallpaper-049179

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00111461

Cuts back on sound and is a blanket for the room. Ha! Plus, if you ever get really cold and it's not too noisy, you have your spare bedding on the wall.

I went on a trip that put me with a roommate that snored worse than a freight train. I was thrilled when we slept near a bar and had drunks yelling outside all night. It kept her awake and let me sleep soundly.

More recently I have been keeping the tv on block out other noises. The ear plus do fall out. I also worried that I wouldn't hear the alarm.

Yeah, I grew up on Powell, too (the North Beach) and our front room was so ridiculously loud on weekends from out-of-town partiers straggling around, shouting. Luckily, that's our front room, but I really sympathized with any guests we had, and I can only imagine how hard it must be to have a studio with no place to escape!

For us, our neighbors downstairs were far, far worse. I'm not at all an angry person in general, but I HATED them (and still do, when I think about them again). I think they were from the suburbs and had no clue how to be courteous city-dwellers, especially since we made sure to be polite ourselves, so they probably didn't realize how much noise carried. It was frequent that they'd keep us up so late that we were only getting around 5 hours of sleep (I had an industrial stockpile of ear plugs, too, but it didn't help with the strong beating vibrations of bass when they pumped up their music at 2 am!). Then one night when I came home late and drew a bath, one of them had the audacity to come up and scream at me for it, including plenty of offensive slurs in the process. UNBELIEVABLE. Total, total assholes.

Thank God my new neighbors in my flat in Duboce Triangle are beyond awesome!!! But my poor parents, for still having to deal with those f***ers

When I moved to NYC from So Cal, I was ready to stab the guy on the jack hammer with a fork one Saturday AM, so clearly the lack of sleep was getting to me! They ripped out the street they had just done two weeks ago!

I tried the foam earplugs and they would expand to the point where I would wake up in agony as they pressed on my ears from the inside out, so see if you can get wax or something that won't hurt when you sleep on your side. Also, I got a white noise machine, but they probably have come up with better stuff for this--that was in 1994-2003 that I lived on that street.