
Everything Is Getting Louder - tintinnabula
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/the-end-of-silence/598366/
======
abjKT26nO8
For me the trigger is TVs. I've been renting a flat in a poorer area for over
a year now. The walls are a lot thinner than in other places. There are a lot
of people today (mostly 50+ year-olds) who cannot fall to sleep without the TV
on. My neighbor is one of them. And the thing with TVs is that the most
irritating sound frequency they emit is the one that is barely audible when
you're in the same room, but when you are in the next room and trying to sleep
it is the main frequency that you hear.

Another problem is that with a cheaper flat came generally noisier neighbors,
i.e. frequently throwing out late-night parties, denying anyone around the
luxury of sleep.

Then there are dogs whose owners don't seem to realize that dogs need to be
walked and otherwise they will bark without end. This happens most often in
the mornings and can go on for 2 hours easily and sets the tone for the day
just right... It seems dog owners develop a special indifference to noise and
their dogs.

All of that made me miserable. There were actually moments when this situation
triggered suicidal thoughts.

I don't have a problem with cars passing by on the nearby high-speed road. If
anything, the sound they make (very different from the sound of cars in
traffic) is calming during the night.

I've recently got a new job which pays a lot better than the previous one, so
in a couple of months I plan to move to a quieter neighborhood.

~~~
monster_group
I sold my previous house precisely because of noisy neighbors (or rather their
dogs). Their three dogs lived in the backyard permanently no matter what the
weather - never seen them walked. Talked to the neighbors twice about the
noise - no action. Called the cops at 3 in the morning - still nothing.
Finally, I decided to sell the house and move somewhere where there is low dog
density. I developed a dislike for dogs because of my previous neighbors. Even
now, three years later, a barking dog drives me nuts, gets my heart going fast
and blood boiling.

~~~
ehnto
I live with an endless barking dog. It isn't mine, but it wakes me constantly.

If there has been peace for a while and it barks, I can feel my entire body
change "mode" to stressed. It is uncanny. Even if mentally it hasn't bothered
me, my body still goes into battle mode.

~~~
sak5sk
I have the same reaction (physical) to a screaming kid. It has made raising my
baby incredibly difficult (especially the first year). Mentally, I understand
that it's just a crying baby and that's what they do, but physically I was
shutting down - body tensing, a surge of extremely stressful energy rushing
through my body and ultimately being left unable to function. My wife thought
I was nuts and was just faking it. I tried searching for a medical explanation
but came up short. The closest I would describe it as something I hear chronic
fatigue people say -- not having energy to get up, no matter their mental
state. I would sit there, practically paralyzed by stress, or whatever that
stress induced.

~~~
johnchristopher
I don't know about the paralysis but I once read an internet fact that stated
our brains are innately wired to react to babies and children's screams in
order to ward off potential threats to our retirement plans.

~~~
germinalphrase
I believe it. I work in an environment that many people would consider stress
inducing; I engage in amateur combat sports; however, when my six month old
loses it, I absolutely get an immediate pulse raising stress reaction.

~~~
scandinavegan
I've read articles that say that when they stress-test fighter pilots by
having them do cognitive test while wearing headphones with different sounds,
they usually mix in infants crying. It's one of the most distracting things
for a person to hear.

For me, it wasn't when the kids started crying that was the most stressful,
but when they wouldn't stop. You check their diapers, you check if they're
hungry, you rock them gently, and even then sometimes they just wouldn't stop
crying. After a while the noise would be so bad that I had to hand them off to
my wife, and she did the same when she became too frustrated.

Funnily enough, it made me immune to other kids crying. Before I had kids I
would get very irritated at noisy kids or crying infants in the subway. Now,
I'm just happy it's not my kids and that it's someone else's problem!

------
epistasis
I found this article's style infuriatingly slow. If it had been a quarter or a
third of the length I think it would have been much stronger. It took quite a
while to figure out what the hell was going on. And then you get to things
like this halfway through:

> Thallikar took his campaign to his homeowners’ association and to his
> neighbors. The response was tepid, though he did persuade one person to
> email the city.

Which makes it seem like it's just the personal bugaboo of one person rather
than a serious problem, and having read far too many words already I just want
to give up.

Where were the editors for this piece?

~~~
hackermailman
Agreed, needed editing though I fully sympathize with the people in the
author's story. The drug shithole I used to live in after prison was
crackheads screaming for hours after blowing up pipes in their face when a
rain drop hits it after they heat it up, crackheads getting robbed and
fighting all night, shootings, constant ambulance and firetruck sirens for
fentanyl ODs, my neighbours door being kicked in by a drug collector, or the
sounds of an entire crew of garbagemen at 4am shoveling and scraping the
street of needles, nothing but constant noise. Walking up in dead sleep to
police banging their flashlight on your door asking if you want to be a
witness to whatever drug murder happened while you were unconscious. The
beautiful freedom when you move to the most remote part of a country and you
can't hear a thing all night except a river rushing. Nobody screaming, nobody
crying for hours on end, no arguements over petty bullshit. No pepper spray
victims screaming no police blaring on their cruiser mic to clear the streets
because they can't be bothered to exit the car, no fire alarms because your
neighbor fell asleep while his crack burned away on the stove, no helicopters
looking for somebody with a spotlight in your window.

~~~
whiddershins
What’s a drug collector? Or is that a typo. I just want to know what one is if
there is a such a thing.

~~~
partyboat1586
Like a debt collector but specifically for drug money.

------
zamadatix
For anyone looking for what the article is (mainly) about before reading it
all: chiller whine for large datacenters/complexes between 630-1000 Hertz.
Ironically at no point in the story did anyone actually find out how loud the
noise was.

~~~
jjeaff
That's what was so weird to me. The guy was an engineer and it never occurred
to him to go out and get some scientific measurements? Instead, he just wastes
time sending daily emails to city council members and contacting other
authorities like the police. It also appears that the sounds not only don't
bother most everyone else, but they can't even hear them.

If you are going to make such a concerted effort to fix something, at least
get some objective data or else you risk looking like someone with a mental
illness or like someone who is "allergic" to WiFi.

------
sak5sk
Ever since I moved to the states, I've had nothing but stress from noise.
First in Midwest where neighbor never walked their dog. They blasted music at
3 am (confronted many times and all). Then on the west coast - noisy streets
nearby my apt. Then between the 405 and the 5 in Irvine (the highway noise
never ends) Then again when I moved to Washington and had an upstairs neighbor
who would have kids over every day running, all day no carpets. When running
stopped, vacuum came on. Rinse and repeat. All those years I have developed
hate for the way things were. It seems no matter where I went there was no
escape from noise. Three years ago I moved to rural Japan and my life has
changed dramatically. Over here, everyone has kids in my neighborhood.
Naturally, they get quiet around 8pm and I don't hear a single sound by
9-10pm. It's been heaven. Now when I sleep through the night it's dead silent
and I can rest my weary soul. The area lacks in so many other ways, but the
dead silence of the night makes up for all of them. I wish everyone had a
chance to sleep in complete silence (unless you are one of those people that
needs sound to sleep).

~~~
burntoutfire
I'm quite sensitive to noises. Here are some of my hard-learned lessons:

\- try to always rent the flat on the top floor - the noises coming through
the celing are by far the worst. The roofs in my country are usually poorly
insulated, which means hot apartment in the summer. It's still better than the
noise - heat can be dealt with by installing AC, while you can't do anything
about the neighbors.

\- try to live in a building with as few apartments as possible. Noise travels
well through construction materials, and if you live in say 200-meter long
building, chances are there will often be someone currently renovating his
flat with a jackhammer etc. and that noise will be infuriatingly loud in your
apartment.

\- no windows coming out to the street that's a transit street (i.e. used
regularly by anyone else than the people who live on the street and around).
Double no if public transit goes there. Also, it's worse to have a window near
a crossroad with lights or near a turn (people slow down and/or stop there,
and then accelerating generates a lot of noise). Ideally, no windows coming on
a street at all, but for example cull-de-sac road is ok, because it's
guaranteed to be used by locals only.

Apart from that, I'm always insiting on seeing some landscape, or at least a
big patch of the sky, out of my window. Nothing more depressing than 100% of
your view being just a wall of the opposing building.

------
blunte
Many people either cannot hear very low frequency sound, and they cannot
understand what it’s like for those of us who can.

The sounds don’t necessarily get louder at night - there are just fewer
competing sounds to mask them.

Earplugs and other sound barriers make it worse by filtering out higher
frequency sounds, making the remaining VLF sounds seem louder.

VLFs also penetrate earth, stone, concrete, etc. And because of their long
periods, especially when accidentally synced with parallel walls, some
locations in your house can behave like an amplifier.

There’s no real solution other than moving, and there’s no guarantee that
human progress will not catch up with you in your next location.

~~~
jdietrich
As a trained sound engineer, I don't find this explanation wholly plausible.
Human hearing is increasingly less sensitive at low frequencies; the threshold
of hearing is typically around 60dB at 20Hz and 72dB at 10Hz. Anyone who has
configured a large public address system knows that vast amounts of power are
needed to deliver useful response at these frequencies; many systems simply
fake the presence of low bass by tuning in a big peak at 40 or 50Hz, which
requires two or three orders of magnitude less power.

Structure-borne noise is a real problem in many buildings, but I'm aware of
very few instances of neighbourhood-wide noise problems at very low
frequencies.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-
loudness_contour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour)

~~~
blunte
I can’t say whether it is an ear hearing or some other sensitivity to
resonance (of the skull?).

The sensation is stronger on one side/ear, and it feels like the pressure you
feel if someone goes “puh” softly in your ear in a quiet room... except that
it happens over and over at a low frequency.

I have experienced it in several different places. One place was at college on
the cliffs overlooking the Mississippi river, and I suspect it was from the
boats that push barges (cargo) down the river.

Other places have been near heavy freight train routes, particularly when a
train is idling somewhere within perhaps a mile.

It’s like if a big truck is idling a few houses down the street in a quiet
neighborhood.

In one location in the mountains of Colorado, the sound could be heard a many
locations throughout the valley. I know this because i drove around in the
quiet and remote regions, stopping periodically to listen. Some spots were
impressively loud, and others were not audible. In that environment I suspect
it was due to wind over the mountain ridge (sharp edged on one side, and the
wind would cause a pressure differential to build until it would break and the
air would take a chaotic path briefly). This is similar to what you see and
hear with a fireplace where the fire is burning mostly on one side of a log,
but the air flows in a way that creates a pressure differential... and it may
cause a puff puff puff pattern that is both audible and visible (flame leaping
around the other side of the log exactly at the moment you hear the puff).

~~~
specialist
TLDR: Please have your hearing thoroughly tested.

I have no idea if this anecdote relates to your experience:

My SO was hearing a rhythmic noise. More so at night. Very disturbing. Much
drama.

An audiologist (?) determined some of the tiny hairs inside one of the ears
were flopping around. The supporting membrane got slack with age. A form of
tinnitus.

These tiny hairs are sensitive to motion, so even heartbeats and breathing
will create the sensation of sound.

~~~
blunte
Were there it not that my perception of the sound was highly dependent upon my
location (even within one room), I might be inclined to believe it was my
problem.

If you’ve ever played with a good subwoofer, you know that where you stand
relative to the speaker and the frequency it is generating greatly impacts
your ability to hear it. You can be in a dead zone and hear almost nothing,
but a few steps back or forward and suddenly your eyeballs are vibrating. Same
thing with these environmental hum situations, but much more subtle.

~~~
specialist
Of course environment & context effects hearing. Ears perceive changing air
pressure as sound. The body feels other frequencies (whatever that's called).

FWIW, my SO's perceptions varied with location as well.

At the very least, an audiologist (?) would help you rule out factors. Or in
our case, becoming more aware of the current best available science.

Think of it as a physical. I certainly wish I had my hearing periodically
thoroughly assessed. Like I already do for my pulmonary function, eyesight,
BMI, etc.

Also FWIW, even though my SO's condition is untreatable, awareness helped her
better manage it.

I hope you find some relief. Keep looking. Someone, somewhere has the answers
you need.

Best wishes.

~~~
blunte
Thanks. It's probably worth getting checked, because as you say it may help me
understand how to manage things better.

Fortunately it's rare that I'm in a location that's so bad for me that I can't
handle it. The low-speed air purifier (fan) solution is usually good enough
when necessary.

------
fancyfish
In NYC the screeching of the subway trains at the station is easily loud
enough to be physically painful to my ears. Especially in underground local
stations where you have a local train arriving + express trains rolling past.
That can be 90-100 decibels (equivalent to a jet engine taking off 300m away).

Restaurants here are regularly 70-90 decibels. Equivalent to the noise of a
blender next to you. Everything in the restaurant reflects sound and its not
unusual to be sitting about 2 feet from the person at the table next to you.

I’m genuinely worried for my long-term hearing living here. Noise-cancelling
headphones and even ear plugs are a must.

~~~
paulcole
What decibel meter are you using to get those readings? Seems insane that the
loudest restaurant is equivalent to a jet engine taking off.

~~~
leetcrew
small, busy restaurants without sound deadening can be really loud, but I
doubt it's actually 90dB. that's like the opening band at a small music venue.

~~~
udfalkso
It’s a real phenomenon. Most restaurants aren’t quite that high but there are
a surprisingly large amount that are.

I’m the cofounder of an app that crowd sources noise levels at bars and
restaurants. You may find it useful.

It’s called SoundPrint.

------
mmckelvy
Man made noise is certainly a nuisance, but I think “nature” is not always as
quiet as we like to think.

A few years ago I spent a week out in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle —
miles from anyone. One thing that stuck with me was how loud the jungle was,
especially at night. The bugs would start buzzing around dusk, the frogs would
add to the chorus around midnight with loud croaking, and then in the wee
hours of the morning we’d be treated to the piercing shrieks of monkeys.

Not exactly an ideal soundscape for a peaceful night’s sleep or quiet
reflection.

------
myroon5
The number of appliances that intentionally make noise and cannot be
configured to stop making noise irks me.

I never want microwaves, dishwashers, laundry machines, etc. to make any
noise. Even worse is how many of them continue making noise until you unload
them. I'd like to one day be able to run a load of laundry or dishes overnight
without being constantly woken up.

~~~
Macha
I own a washing machine that particularly annoys me.

It beeps at the end of the wash, as if expecting you to unload it.

It also has a heat sensor tied to the door lock, where it won't let you unlock
the door if it's too hot. It also takes 5-10 minutes after a wash to reach a
level where it'll let you open the door.

~~~
kungtotte
We recently bought a new dishwasher that's nearly silent during operation, and
will automatically open the door and power down at the end of the cycle (no
notification beeps).

It didn't cost us any extra, but I would've paid double for that now that I've
had it for six months. I can start it immediately before going to bed and when
I wake up it's finished.

~~~
imposterr
You can't just post a comment like that without mentioning what model/make the
dishwasher is.

~~~
kungtotte
It's an Electrolux ESF5545LIX, the brand name for the tech is "AirDry" if
that's easier to search for maybe.

------
IkmoIkmo
I think it's time we start to think seriously about noise pollution and
regulation. Most countries have laws around noise, but policing typically
isn't helpful. You tend to have a 'self-mediation first', 'police warnings
second' and 'court cases third', policy, which I think is mostly fine. But if
authorities don't take it seriously, it usually gets stuck in the first phase
and never progresses beyond neighbour-disputes. Frequent-noise makers aren't
typically the most reasonable bunch to speak to.

~~~
xavi
I think that when there's regulation, the problem is that sometimes filing a
complaint may take too much time, and same for the police to check anything.
It should be automated.

I submitted this to Hacker News some months ago, and seems relevant here...

Tell HN: Steal idea for product to automate reporting of barking dogs
complaints
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19436807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19436807)

(although I was thinking of dog barking when I wrote it, it's actually
applicable for any kind of noise pollution)

------
emptybits
If your acoustic environment is driving you nuts, you may want to speak to an
audiologist and/or ENT. There is a condition called hyperacusis[1] worth
asking about.

If everyday noise is debilitating or anxiety-inducing for and it doesn't seem
like others are affected to the degree you are, it wouldn't hurt to speak to a
hearing specialist. The causes and treatments of this (spectrum?) condition
aren't entirely agreed upon, but tinnitus retraining therapy or other
adaptation techniques might improve your life.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis)

~~~
hmwhy
Thank you very much for pointing that out!

I'm not sure why it never occurred to me that mine could be a medical
condition, and all this time I have been quietly hating myself for being
extremely intolerant of others while the condition gets worse.

------
btrettel
Whoever decided to make cars beep when you lock or unlock them did humanity a
disservice in my view. I don't think the small benefit of helping the driver
locate their vehicle outweighs the shear number of times that has woken people
up.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Is this an American thing?

In Europe I never ever hear cars beep when locked/unlocked, just the
mechanical sound of the central locking and flashing the hazard lights once
when unlocked, double when locked successful and tripple when lock failed(door
not closed properly).

Having your car make a loud sound for lock/unlock just creates more noise in
the neighborhood.

~~~
acranox
Maybe. But it’s also slightly more nuanced. Honda for example works like this.
One press of the remote, locks all the doors. The second press will beep the
horn if all the doors are successfully locked. If you left one of the doors
open, the horn won’t beep on the second press. So it’s a away of getting
confirmation that all doors are closed and locked. It seems useful, but when
my neighbor comes home in the middle of the night and locks her car and the
horn wakes up my kid who starts crying, it seems a lot less useful.

~~~
techsupporter
What gets me are the number of people who will put their keys in their pocket
and just beat the ever loving hell out of the "lock" button as they walk away.
So it's all "beep," "beep beep," "beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep"
until they finally get out of range.

I'm sure those are the same people who, if or when they are pedestrians, stand
at the corner and repeatedly slam the crosswalk request button.

~~~
jjeaff
Seems like a much better UX would be for the remote to ding or vibrate instead
of having the car make a sound. But then that would cost a few more dollars I
suppose.

------
spodek
I live across the street from a firehouse in Manhattan. They are noisy and
politically untouchable so calling 311 doesn't help.

They test these devices to get through doors that are basically chainsaws
_every day_ at random times.

I once asked a fireman why they test them daily. He said, "It would be a shame
to find out it didn't work when we got there."

I asked innocently, "When you test it, you know it works, but as soon as you
stop it, you don't know if it works any more. That test might have been its
last working. How do you know daily is the right amount?"

He said, "It would be a shame to find out it didn't work when we got there."

I took away that there was no reason for daily. They just did it that way.

If anyone out there knows a proper testing frequency for chainsaws, I'd love
to find out, especially if it's well documented and less often than daily.

~~~
brendanw
I vaguely recall reading a few articles about how firehouses are less
necessary as we have less fires today, but we struggle to reduce their numbers
as they are heavily unionized. This is the narrative I at least have floating
in my mind.

[https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/19/palo-alto-
cuts-11-fir...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/19/palo-alto-
cuts-11-firefighter-jobs-after-stanford-reduces-contract/)

~~~
switch007
This is a UK perspective but IMO much of the reduction in fires has been
because of the work done by the Fire Brigade. Education, information
campaigns, pushing for reforms, calls to action etc. Any reduction in numbers
– and the manner in which it happens (in case it has a multiplying effect of
disuasing new recruits when they're actually needed) – should be done very,
very carefully.

------
LargoLasskhyfv
Loudly beeping lifts in stations, like a fire alarm, while no moving parts
whatsover are exposed inside or outside.

The beeping of cars when the doors are open.

The short blaring of car alarms, when they are closed remotely via key fob,
just to make sure they work!

The beeping of bus and train doors when they are closing.

The banging hissing vents of overpressure in the pneumatic tanks of busses and
trucks.

The humming and hissing of HVAC for the refrigeration of supermarkets.

The blaring of music in supermarkets (special case: Kylie Minogue with 'Can't
Get You Out Of My Head' which somehow seems to be in the eternal Top 20ies of
supermarket music. La la la, lall lall, la la la lall lall....), the penetrant
marketing displays activating from some endless loop when anything comes near
them.

The stupid video walls in stations, blaring uninteresting shortnews, weather,
and adverstisements while almost everybody is sunken into their smartphones.
Talk about wasted effort!

The same goes for so called information displays in Trains, Subways, Metros,
Buses installed every 2nd to 3rd row of seats.

I could, and sometimes do counter that with something playing over my
earphones, but i don't like to, because it messes with my situational
awareness.

~~~
laegooose
Oh man, good to know I'm not alone

------
CalChris
I have 3M PELTOR X5A Ear Muffs. I use them all the time, from getting a snooze
while my car charges, to working in louder than necessary cafes, to getting
decent if slightly uncomfortable sleep in a hotel. They're $31 delivered from
Amazon. It amused the hell out of me that I had to click through an agreement
saying I was a profession. I am a professional.

Since these are 31db ear muffs, they're heavier than something with less
protection. These are over the head model and I may get the X5B behind the
neck model. Harder to get though. Not on Amazon.

I tried noise cancelling headphones. When they work, they're great. But
anything unusual and I'd get feedback. Dumb ear muffs work all the time plus
they're super ugly and so people leave you alone.

I don't understand why noise cancelling doesn't recognize it's in feedback.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> to working in louder than necessary cafes

The loudness of cafes is necessary, at least to the business owner. Across the
world, even in countries where cafes used to be peaceful places for reading
and long conversations, owners have increasingly preferred to blast loud music
and remove sound-dampening. The constant din has a subconscious effect on
customers, leading them to leave the establishment after they finish their
drink. So, they quickly free up the table for the next customers. People
occupying a table for hours on just one or two purchases is one of cafe
owners’ most frequent complaints.

I can sympathize with your sensitivity to noise – I pack earplugs for working
in cafes – but if you are wearing blatant ear muffs you may well be pissing
the proprietor off.

~~~
switch007
Sufficient but not necessary (I do understand that running a profitable food
establishment is extremely difficult).

Establishments also do the following to encourage turnover:

\- Buy uncomfortable tables/chairs

\- Set higher prices for sitting down at a table vs standing at the bar (or
eating in vs takeaway)

\- Not bring you the dessert menu, hoping you'll get up and leave

Loud music is cheap, easy and proven, so I can see why it's popular

------
oriettaxx
the worst are

* bells from catholic churches (when they play early Sunday morning they just invite you to blaspheme)

* muezzin shouting from the mosque (aggravated from the fact that they talk Arabic, were in many countries, e.g. Turkey, nobody talks arabic, so nobody understand!)

and the worst of the worst is that in both cases sound comes from tapes (no
live at all, and very bad taped).

Any national new legislation must face this issue: as to say it will be very
hard deal with, without touching religions' susceptibility.

~~~
WalterBright
> bells from catholic churches

The huge bronze bells in Germany are another thing entirely. They sound
wonderful (dare I say heavenly?).

But the cheap electric klaxons used in American churches are horrible.

~~~
Ao7bei3s
There's nothing wonderful about them when you live half a km/mi from them and
they go off at 9AM, don't stop for 10-15 minutes and you really wanted to
sleep.

~~~
jfnixon
I'm sure they put them up after you moved to that location, correct?

~~~
loco5niner
Honestly, It's hard to fault someone for failing to notice something that
happens irregularly like that. Unless you're willing to camp out in the front
yard of a prospective home 24x7 for a week, you're likely to miss this.

The onus is on the noisemaker to make less noise, not everyone else to avoid
the area. If they didn't move there, someone else with less money would have.

------
wutbrodo
From the subtitle:

> The tech industry is producing a rising din. Our bodies can’t adapt.

This is a great article, but did I miss something or is this subtitle more or
less irrelevant? The only source of noise mentioned related to the tech
industry is the lead-in story's data center cooling system, and 95% of the
article has nothing to do with it.

This is interesting to me in and of itself: it's another unfortunate example
of The Atlantic's long-established internal struggle between quality
journalism and clickbait, but it's also another fascinating data point for how
the term "tech industry" has become a universal-purpose scapegoat for the
kinds of simpletons looking for simple, singular explanations for all of the
world's ills.

------
technocratius
In last few months I've travelled to the US a few times. In all 3 hotels I've
stayed in, I've had to switch rooms (in one hotel even 3 times in the course
of a week) due to low frequency noise of ACs of neighbouring rooms and/or
general ventilation system. Ear plugs simply don't cut it anymore these days.

~~~
Ididntdothis
The US is generally pretty noisy. House walls are thin and there is a lot of
AC and heating noise. Whenever I come back to Germany I notice how quiet the
houses are due to brick walls.

~~~
vinay427
The church bells create a very regular cacophany from seemingly every
direction however, at least here in Switzerland (can't speak for Germany).
This seems to be much less common in the US.

~~~
ridewinter
The church in the small Swiss town I lived in rang its bell every _15 minutes_
, even in the middle of night. Maybe the locals find it comforting. It kept me
up.

------
surfmike
For those who own their place and can afford it, I found this site a great
resource for soundproofing.
[https://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing-
solutions...](https://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing-
solutions/soundproofing-ceilings)

------
Waterluvian
My wife and I bought our first house this summer. We moved from a city of 300k
to the suburbs of a city of 40k about 45 mins away.

We thought through a ton of things when buying but the one thing that caught
us by surprise was the change in noise level. It's quiet here. The only
ambience is a train that runs through the middle of the city like 10-20 times
a day but we are far enough away that this this wonderfully peaceful low
rumble for a minute. I fall asleep to it.

The inside is also an interesting lesson on noise. The main floor is a big
open concept with 10 foot ceilings. Sound echoes like mad and we were forced,
counter intuitively, to speak more quietly if we wanted to hear each other
across the room. I think it's slowly training us to be quieter people and I
love it for no immediate practical reason.

~~~
heymijo
Do you have neighbors and/or are you in an area with lawns that need
maintenance?

Suburbs in the midwest are inundated with noise: lawnmowers, leaf blowers,
trimmers, and cars.

~~~
tempestn
One nice thing is that battery electric versions of all of those are now quite
good and are becoming more popular. They still make some noise of course, but
far, far less than gas powered versions. The lack of maintenance is great too.
I could have a conversation at a normal speaking volume beside my lawnmower if
I wanted. (Of course I would probably shut it off, since it's only a pull of a
switch to start it again!)

~~~
lolsal
I find it interesting that you associate electric versions of lawn tools with
less maintenance. It's been my experience that when they break, there's not
much you can do (I guess that's where the less comes in) - fixing batteries
and motors is harder or impossible compared to small engines for me. All of
the other maintenance still applies: sharpening blades, replacing edging wire,
oiling moving parts, etc.

~~~
tempestn
It's true that when it breaks there's often little you can do, and that is a
downside. But gasoline engines do require maintenance, and you do save that
effort with electric tools. Really the main effort saved is just refilling the
gas though, especially when you forget you're out and end up halfway through
the lawn having to go get more. Of course you still need to sharpen blades and
change trimmer string and such; I didn't say _no_ maintenance, just less.

------
Animats
There's an app opportunity here. Write something which captures audio,
timestamps it with millsecond accuracy, annotates it with GPS info, and sends
it to a web site for correlation. When you want to find some noise source, get
a few people to walk around running this app. Then the site can locate it from
the time differences, with a much longer baseline than human inter-ear
distance.

~~~
j-conn
Love this idea. My first thought is that calibrating mics could be difficult.
I wonder how good existing decibel meter apps are

~~~
Animats
You locate using time, not amplitude, so microphone calibration isn't an
issue. Take the incoming waveforms with close timestamps and convolve them on
the server to line them up. Get ΔT values for each pair of phones picking up
the matching sound. Each ΔT value places the source on a hyperbola. You need
at least 3 phones to get a location where the hyperbolas intersect. More will
be better.

Multipath always makes a delay longer, not shorter, which helps in resolving
ambiguity in areas with reflective building walls.

------
bob1029
As a gulf coast region resident, I can attest to this phenomenon. When the
cold front came through this weekend, it was like someone just turned down the
volume outside. The difference is incredible, but you can never quite put your
finger on any particular source. I do think it's just everyone's HVAC
compressors & fans combining into this noise soup. Everyone says they can
sleep better when it's colder at night, but I think it's just because it's so
much quieter at night around here when its below 70F. The noise floor had to
have dropped by 6dB or better overnight.

------
MisterTea
I can understand how low frequency sound can be incredibly annoying. Oddly,
some are soothing to me. There's this point when waking up where if I hear a
gentle hum, it becomes comforting and I want to lay there and listen until it
lulls me to sleep. There was something about the distant hum of the old Mack
DSNY trucks, before the Volvo engine switch. I'd wake up to them but it was so
nice to just lay in bed with that sound. I can also hear the MTA subway diesel
engines on the elevated tracks a block from me. I also used to enjoy the sound
of my mother vacuuming down stairs when I was a kid sleeping in on the
weekend. At work I sometimes retreat to the pump room where the whine of
machinery can be sort of soothing. I do have this ADHD anxiety thing and my
head gets all swirly with things so the noise helps.

Sometimes I use a white noise sleep app and combine a few machine sounds into
a sort of whining whirr of machinery. And I put it on low as if I'm sleeping
in a room off down the hall from a machinery room.

Though sometimes it can be too much. Sometimes you just want to turn the sound
off. I do hear a hum at night in my south Queens NYC neighborhood. Always
begins around 9PM. I can't explain it but it's like a buzzing whirr that
pulsates or whines a few times and then dies out in an echoey fashion. Then
comes back minutes later. Often with large gaps between them. I could even
describe it as almost like some alien spacecraft engine whine from a sci fi
flick. They don't bother me a lot but if it became constant, I don't think I
could sleep as its very low and shrill. I am near JFK and major roads so who
knows.

------
frosted-flakes
The article includes an interview with Stéphane Pigeon of mynoise.net, a
website for creating dynamic noise machines. I use it all the time and think
it would appeal to a lot of people on HN.

------
t34543
I suffer from misophonia, I can’t live in an apartment or work from an office.
It’s really difficult to deal with.

Everyone is used to loud noises and nobody cares, but I get seriously annoyed.

~~~
wozniacki
So how do you deal with it?

Are there any federal rules / regulations currently in the pipeline to help
such sufferers?

Do other countries - perhaps Scandinavian - have standardized noise norms that
you cannot exceed or are they pretty much non-existent everywhere?

~~~
Swizec
As a fellow misophonia enthusiast (it’s not an officially recognised
condition) — noise cancelling headphones and music are the only way I can
survive office environments. A pinch of stoicism and deep breaths helps when
stuff gets through.

For me the worst trigger sounds are eating noises and crinkly food wrappers.
Trying to open a crinkly wrapper quietly makes it worse.

The misophonia gets worse when I’m otherwise stressed which leads me to
believe dealing with it is like dealing with any other stressor: You just man
or woman up and deal.

Me and my sister both have it so we obviously used to use it to poke fun at
the other. Squishing bananas in your mouth is the quickest way to provoke a
reaction. You might get punched*

*the punching response is, of course, restrained in the office. If I get that annoyed, I just walk away.

~~~
lowercased
loud road noises have made it hard to go to sleep. white noise generators
(well, brown) using cheap $5 earbuds has helped immensely. I have Bose qc-20
for daytime stuff, but you can't sleep with them very long - they'll break,
and it's very expensive to replace. The $5 earbuds don't last forever, but I
often get 2-3 months out of a pair.

------
kingofpee
“Sound is when you mow your lawn, noise is when your neighbor mows their lawn,
and music is when your neighbor mows your lawn,” says Arjun Shankar,

Someone should develop a silent air handling system

------
KoftaBob
One of the biggest benefits of electric vehicles will be quieter streets.
Gasoline cars are so damn loud when you really pay attention.

~~~
clarry
Round where I live, it's the wheel noise that gives me a massive headache
whenever I go for a walk. Engine noise barely registers, except in the case of
some (intentionally) loud cars or trucks.

Simply reducing speed limit in urban & residental areas would help a lot, but
that appears to be an unpopular proposition. I guess people really are in a
hurry to sit in the next set of red lights.

~~~
stellar678
Twenty's plenty! Popular in the UK, but in the US we seem to think it's more
appropriate to mark residential streets at 25 but design them to encourage
driving at 45+.

------
huffmsa
Noise isn't really what these people are complaining about, it's manmade
noise.

The loudest thing I've ever hear is the sound of total silence. Your brain is
so used to hearing _something_ that it will manufacture sound when you're
completely isolated, and it does a bad job of it. Which is why sensory
deprivation makes great torture.

~~~
bcaa7f3a8bbc
I've also heard (pun not intended) that the ear itself and the sensory system
has an inherent "noise floor", you can hear it when you are in an anechoic
chamber.

~~~
huffmsa
It's that sound that the brain tries to amplify up to normal volumes. The
sound of the little hairs swishing, blood flowing, shit (literal) moving
through your guts.

A decent write-up here [https://www.wired.com/2015/05/big-question-can-
silence-make-...](https://www.wired.com/2015/05/big-question-can-silence-make-
hear-things-arent/)

------
thaumaturgy
I slept for about 18 months in a second-story room overlooking one of the
busier streets in town. That'll never happen again. Motorcycles were
especially obnoxious; I usually sleep like the dead, including all the way
through an energetic northern California earthquake, but we had a regular that
would rip up and down the street sometime after 1 a.m. and it often
interrupted my sleep.

Also -- and this hasn't previously been a popular thing to say on HN, but here
it is again -- this is largely an urban living problem. Smaller towns have
their noisy bits too, but they don't tend to have the constant, non-stop din
that is a signature aspect of metropolitan areas.

I've been camping at a few different parks and the like since moving out, just
getting some R&R, and it's amazing how much better I'm sleeping and,
gradually, feeling.

~~~
bllguo
similar situation for me currently but i manage to survive using a white noise
machine. I also leave the fan on in the summer for the noise. I wonder if I
would feel better if i transitioned to a quiet sleeping environment.

i've thought many times about how loud motorcycles are even legal, especially
at late hours. I even see ebikes that are just as loud which is absolutely
insane to me. The worst part was when my downstairs neighbor owned a
motorcycle. Occasionally he'd rev the engine or something at 1 am for 10 whole
minutes before actually driving it away. Very thankful he's gone now.

~~~
lowercased
I agree on motorcycles, but have read that the loudness is at least partially
a safety thing for them, as other car drivers won't notice them without some
sound.

~~~
bllguo
i'm glad i commented so you could inform me - there's always another side to
everything.

that makes some sense, though like you say it must be partial. i have no
problem with japanese motorcycles which seem to be much much quieter.

------
excalibur
Tinnitus sufferer here. Left ear no longer hears anything in the environment,
but rings loudly at all times. Stereo is a distant memory, locating the source
of any noise involves spinning in a circle. Let me get out my tiniest violin
for you all.

------
caseyf7
Another reason why drones should be banned from residential and public areas.

~~~
LeoPanthera
That seems like quite a leap. Drones are far from the worse source of noise.
They can’t even stay in the air that long.

~~~
tbihl
Plus you don't notice them once they get about 100-150 feet up.

------
goda90
I was pleasantly surprised when I walked out in front of my house the other
day. When we bought it last year, in early spring, we had hoped the nearby
small wooded area would block out some freeway noise once the leaves grew in,
but it didn't help. Now there's a big new high school under construction
between us and the freeway. That direction is almost entirely silent in the
evening. We might not be so lucky when football games start next year, but
that's better than constant engine braking sounds.

------
liquidify
I've got a low frequency hum that has been permeating my environment for
years. I have no idea where it is coming from. Low frequencies are especially
hard to locate by ear due to their omnidirectional nature. I'm pretty sure
there is nothing I can do about it. It has messed up my ability to record
music though. I used to be able to record and mix in my living room but that
has not been possible for many years now without constantly hearing that
noise.

------
01100011
If you don't hear a hum, don't look for it. Once you're aware of it, it can
drive you nuts. I spent quite a while looking for the source of a low-
frequency hum at my old house and never came up with anything. As far as I
could tell, it wasn't just the sound of blood rushing in my veins or tinnitus.

Out of curiosity, is there a good sensor for picking up acoustical vibrations
between, say, 0.5-50Hz? Would a MEMS sensor go that low and have a flat
response?

------
pythonbase
Living in Karachi, Pakistan, I so agree with this. Karachi is 3rd largest city
in the world and it is getting louder by the day. First thing you notice when
you land here is the level of noise. From honking cars to people shouting on
the roads, it is unbearable.

------
Simulacra
Wasn't there some type of legislation or something that mandated that all
sound from a single TV channel stay at the same volume? IIRC it was something
around the car commercials etc. that were always louder that the other
programs.

------
laegooose
This thread is amazing.

People I know don't care much about sounds, and I feel alone with me being
easily annoyed by all the sirens, honks, music, PA in airports, cars blazing
by, etc.

Good to know there are more people who care about silent environment.

------
Itsdijital
Why are we building data centers in the desert? From an efficiency
perspective, it just seems like a comically bad idea.

~~~
boyadjian
Because the land price is very low.

------
ars
I hate motorcycles, AKA fart-mobiles.

Why do all of them seem to have broken mufflers? Is it really that hard to
make motorcycle mufflers so they don't break?

~~~
nshepperd
People intentionally remove them to make them louder.

------
GWSchulz
Hell yeah.

------
spicyusername
Click bait title should actually read "Everything is getting louder for people
who live near loud things"...

~~~
boomlinde
People are increasingly living near loud things.

