Do you have a QUIET home/condo/apt?

[RunningBum]

Single-family homes that are noisy? It's rare where I am. Perhaps you are in a more crowded inner-city block? Or your neighbors are the rowdy types who party hard, and who drag loudspeakers out to their backyard pool?

Barking dogs, lawn mowers, kids playing basketball, power tools, traffic noise...those are all noise makers that you really can't complain about but I, like the OP, would rather not be hearing. Some will think we are too sensitive, but everybody has their things they are touchy about, and for some of us it's noise.

 

[Bamaman]

My previous house was on four acres on a.steep ravine backing up to 100 acres of green space. We could hear the ski boats on the creek 1/2 mile over 3 ravines. ATVs would be heard climbing the hills.

We moved to town on a very exclusive street. We see or hear our neighbors because they are all self.employee and seldom at home. We do hear all the lawn services cutting grass and weed eating.

 

[NW-Bound]

Barking dogs, lawn mowers, kids playing basketball, power tools, traffic noise...those are all noise makers that you really can't complain about but I, like the OP, would rather not be hearing. Some will think we are too sensitive, but everybody has their things they are touchy about, and for some of us it's noise.

Barking dogs: I have been lucky.

Lawn mowers: It's hot and dry here, so many homeowners do xeriscape and have a pool instead of a lawn.

Kids playing basketball: Not too many kids here, as people around here grow old like ourselves and their kids are in the 30s. Even when the kids were young, it's usually too hot to play outside.

Power tools: This happens occasionally, but not too bad and too frequent

Traffic noise: If you are close to a freeway or your street is a busy one, tough luck!

Anyway, double-pane windows help tremendously with exterior noise. We were amazed! One can also get triple-pane ones.

 

[davebarnes]

"Do you have a QUIET [duplex]?"
Yes.

 

[aaronc879]

I am more sensitive to noise than anyone I know. I have moved multiple times at significant cost just to escape noise. I have now bought a single family home with a finished room in the basement that I can sleep in without hearing any outside noises. A basment is the only solution I am aware of for noise reduction that is sufficient for my needs. If you have the means you could finish the entire basement and live down there all day and night. Other things to consider would be: quiet road, not near a school, park, fire station, ect.

 

[trumpeting_angel]

I am sensitive to noise, as well. I don’t think I would last with an apartment above me without tranquilizers. A city is different- you have to expect some noise, and I did grow used to it. But I’m much happier here in a town of 650 people, in a dirt road with only 5 houses above us (some of them seasonal). Ten acres.

When someone drives by, we wave if we’re in the yard. DH likes to mow with his tractor. Neighbors stop and talk.

The turkeys make a clucking noise. The deer, woodchuck, and hawks high above are essentially silent. The bear made an enormous racket breaking in to the porch, but we have learned better garbage practices (all food waste in the freezer until dump day). The birds are loud early in the morning, delightful.

A little piece of heaven.

 

[LOL!]

I've been out in the middle of nowhere camping and things were incredibly loud. The frogs, cicadas, katydids, toads, and wind were so loud at night that I had to wear earplugs. In the morning, the birds were pretty loud, too.

Back at home, it's the cicadas, katydids, wind, rain, birds, frogs, and only a little bit of traffic noise. Well, the morning birds have been much quieter since the hawks moved in. But hawks are not silent either.

And in the summers the outdoor A/C units make noise.

If you want QUIET, then you need earplugs, but then the problem is your heartbeat which should be loud enough to feel and hear.

 

[ER Eddie]

Yes, for the most part. Occasionally a neighbor will play music loud. That bugs me. Sometimes I'll go over and ask them to turn it down, and they usually oblige. I used to have a neighbor across from me who'd "party" every other weekend and whoop it up until 2 a.m. That got annoying. She finally moved away, which was a relief.

I like it quiet. I find it hard to think otherwise. I notice it even when I'm shopping. So many stores have pop music playing, and it makes it hard for me to concentrate. I wish they'd play atmospheric or background type stuff, rather than something that demands your attention. I find it hard to tune that stuff out, and I'm always forgetting what I'm looking for. (I just came back from the store, so that's on my mind.)

 

[jollystomper]

We have lived in the same house for 28 years, and quietness is a big reason for it.

The house was built by the original owner with lots of sound isolation - thick floors and walls, thick insulation, double pane windows, etc. My home office/man cave is in the basement, and it can be thunder storming and raining cats and dogs and I won't hear anything. Some times i am surprised when I go upstairs to notice that a heavy rain happened. Likewise, I can be watching an action movie full of explosions in the cave home theater, and on the main floor you might fell occasional vibrations on if you are in the room directly above. If you are on the 2nd floor you can't hear anything.

DW likes to play piano and other instruments, and likes that she can do that without disturbing anyone else. Even when she is playing piano in the living room, I can be on the same floor in the family room (which shares a wall) watching TV sports and neither of us will notice the other.

If you go outside on our porch or patio, if the sounds are not in the adjacent rooms you can't hear anything.

There are a couple of drawback, you cannot hear the doorbell when in the basement, or not directly above the door when on the 2nd floor, and we have to use an intercom when we are not on the same floor to get each others attention. But that is a small price to pay.

Our house and our neighbors each have between 1/2 and just over an acre of land, so the distance helps. 3 of our 4 neighbors have been same since we moved in and live relatively quiet lifestyles. The "worst' was one neighbors kids and our kids were the same age and became great friends, so it was either noisy in our house or noisy in their house. But the friendships they built were worth it.

Interestingly, all of our neighbors (and many others in the neighborhood) remarked at how much quieter things got after we moved in, even with our kids. Apparently the folks we bought from were known for public screaming fights (they had to sell the house due to getting divorced), and their teenage kids had frequent parties with kids running through neighbors properties and police having to be called almost every weekend. So our "noise" was like silence compared to that.


This will be a challenge when we decide we can no longer handle the house - finding something that not only is quiet, but where we can make our noise and not disturb others.

 

[michelek]

Windows. Several posters have mentioned double or triple pane over single. Really no one has or should have single pane windows today. Double pane is standard. Triple pane would be on an ultra high end residence. The bigger factor to consider is whether they are “double hung” or “single hung”. Single hung windows have the top sash fixed in place so they automatically offer better noise control plus energy efficiency. We have a home in a city. The noise from outside is not an issue with single hung windows plus an energy star 2.0 insulation package. The only noise issue we have now is the machine noise from the Hvac unit in the attic. It’s a weird hum. The only way to avoid that is to not have the unit in the area over the bedroom. Your home plan layout will determine what can and cannot be done.

 

[Oz investor]

some might have noticed my preference for heavy metal , ...

and i usually enjoy it played VERY LOUD via quality headphones ( mainly because the building shakes and rattles if i don't .. landlords hate to see the mortar in their building starting disintegrating .)

anyway i load up the CD stacker and on a great day off i can sleep through that for nearly 24 hours
road noise , police raids on adjoining properties , aircraft no problem ... well at least not until i get woken up unexpectedly anyway .. i don't look pretty half asleep ( not that i look pretty even at the best up times ) heck , i used to have a warning sign posted on the bedroom door .. it isn't polite to expose unwitting people to an extreme noise hazard , but it doesn't half stun/confuse intruders

LOL

i just replace unpleasant noise with noise i want to hear .

PS that music without using the headphones is GREAT for repelling snakes on the premises .. it is sure easier than ringing a catcher ....

this demo tape has worked very well in the past , the one downside is you need you safeguard the glass-ware it WILL rattle off the shelves . , loose windows might be a hazard as well

PPS PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH THE SNAKE about halfway through this it is very confused and agitated ... just let it escape

 

[kcowan]

Look for a place next door to a cemetery. You will probably have to remodel because they are in high demand.

Both our places have high ambient noise and we no longer heard it after about 6 months. We keep the doors open all the time because they are both on the Pacific.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Grew up next to a railroad track that shook our house. Nothing bothers me now.

 

[RobbieB]

Me too, plenty of noise here. Five lane 40 MPH road on the side between me and the graveyard. I have a barking dog. And a home theater. A railroad track is a quarter mile away. Them train horns are loud.

 

[Oz investor]

Grew up next to a railroad track that shook our house. Nothing bothers me now.

LOL

they always say that before the train wreck ( and they DO happen )

 

[Midpack]

Other than the Fourth of July, we’ve never had an ongoing issue in our SFHs. There have been the odd kids screaming, loud party, motorcycle revving, etc. but nothing ongoing.

I’ve never looked into it, but I thought some folks used white noise generators to deal with ambient noise. I know they’re sometimes used in open office settings, and can be used in residential with small “room units” or whole house systems.

What is White Noise?

White Noise is created by a continuum of frequencies equally distributed over the whole hearing range. In healthcare applications, white noise is used to treat hyperacusis, an increased sensitivity to normal environmental sounds, or to camouflage the annoyance caused by tinnitus, a ringing in the ear occurring without any stimulus. White noise is also used to mask background noises in the office, or to aid in sleep.

https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteNoiseGenerator.php

https://www.amazon.com/white-noise-generator/s?page=1&rh=i:aps,k:white noise generator

 

[Dawg52]

Grew up next to a railroad track that shook our house. Nothing bothers me now.

I grew up about 5 blocks from RR tracks. Nothing this bad tho....

 

[RAE]

Single-family home on at least a few acres is probably your best bet. Otherwise, you always run the chance of someone moving in close to you who loves to make noise.


We actually live on the edge of a small town, and it's very quiet here most of the time. The only noise on a regular basis is my neighbor down the street mowing his lawn and using his leafblower (which he loves to do), but I can live with that.

 

[Dtail]

Live in a gated community in FLA on the end of a cul de sac with lots of conservation around us. It is very quiet. Lived in an apt for many years and it can be noisy.

 

[LastOfTheBoomers]

After living in a small 8 unit condo building for 4 years - here are my thoughts:
You have some controls over your neighbors above and below you as well as condo rules- but check out the ages of the people that live there - couples are quieter than most single people. The biggest unknown are buildings around you - if you see a lot of cars at a building next door - do some research - check police logs for calls to that address - drive by on weekends - and I know this sounds really sneaky - but drive by on garbage day and see how many beer cans are in recycling.

 

[1242Vintage]

Our home is extremely quiet ... now that the 3 kids have moved out and launched into adulthood!

But seriously, my youngest kid has a very significant hearling loss so when we bought our home years ago we purchased a detached home in a very quiet subdivision so that her hearing aids and implant wouldn’t pick up extraneous noises (sirens, barking dogs, neighbors arguing, etc). We live on an acre in a detached single family home. I’ve done several improvements (windows and insulation) to reduce any noise that does come our way and when we bought appliances we purchased those that had lower noise profiles. These choices and carpeting (instead of hard reflective surfaces like hardwood) in the bedrooms helped reduce noise too.

I’m enjoying the peace and quiet. Now if I can just get rid of the skunk smell from the critters that use our creek line as the skunk interstate things would be perfect. I’m relaxing in the backyard spa at the moment and apparently one of my neighbors dogs got tangled up with a skunk.

 

[MarieIG]

Well, medium. We live in a SFH on a small lot. The street is on a dead end which backs up to state land/ trees which helps with traffic, but is a block away from a high school, and sometimes we get errant high school kids or high school noise from events such as football games or graduations, which bring in traffic and loud speakers.

There is on and off neighbor noise, i.e. lawnmowers. Fourth of July, fireworks (which did not bother me), the occasional party. Current situation, no one has an incessant barking dog and nothing too bad (hopefully not jinxing myself) not too bad.

I do not mind the sound of kids playing during daylight hours (although I think they spend more time indoors on video games these days).

I just opened my back window. Heard birds.

I have lived on this block since I was three months old. I remember staying overnight with my grandmother in a pre-war apartment in Brooklyn, and hearing the sound of traffic/ the City, when I was trying to sleep. My grandmother was used to the noise and would fall asleep faster than I would.

 

[MarieIG]

I grew up about 5 blocks from RR tracks. Nothing this bad tho....

That would be a problem!

 

[ivinsfan]

We live on a large farm at the end of a quarter mile driveway. I haven't heard noise in over 3 decades.

The privacy and quiet are going to be the biggest obstacle in getting my DH to relocate. I think he wants to go out of here feet first. But the plied up snowbanks, five acres of yard and isolation have me ready to make a change now.

 

[MRG]

Grew up next to a railroad track that shook our house. Nothing bothers me now.

Love trains at night and I've proven I can sleep through anything.

When we were first married living in an appartment that was a huge old home turned into a sixplex. Most of the homes in the immediate area were the same.

One night the neighbors house burnt to the ground. Firefighters were outside for hours with multiple engines and crews. DW thought it might spread and tried to wake me up. About 6AM I woke up asking what that terrible smell was. Pretty odd to see a pile of burnt crap where a huge house was 12 hours prior.