Well, as the title says, my neighbor lives at night. He gets up at 9 pm. and at ten pm. sharp he starts hammering until 4 am, sometimes more. I have already spoken to him and asked him to please, but he continues.
So now my solution would be to isolate the sound.
I explain. I live in a "PH", they are houses/apartments that are attached, so when someone hits the wall, everything rumbles.
I started to listen to the hammer sound (how the sound arrives) and it is like a kind of "resonance" in the middle/bass. Then I thought this:
I have a peavy guitar rig . I was thinking of putting the white noise in there, or a noise in the same frequency as the hammer, but not all at once of course, a "rain" type sound in that frequency. So, I don't know what kind of "sound" would be best to counteract. And I was thinking of putting the speaker against the wall or on the floor, upside down.
This is the only solution I can think of, now I can't spend money on insulating my room, plus it costs a fortune.

Any ideas ?
thanks in advance

 

Or, as I have done in a very similar situation, you can start playing an Archie Shepp record through your most powerful guitar amp sticked to the wall at 8:00, then at 10:00 etc.. in the morning everyday until he stops playing hammer by night.
It worked for me, when speaking didn't worked.

 

Last edited: Oct 23, 2022

Sometimes it helps to wait until he himself is asleep and then either play very loud music - i.e. put the speakers directly against the wall and play until he rings your doorbell and complains or maybe he will then realize his misbehavior and stop his noise.

Sometimes a noise protocol helps - where you note the times and the duration of the noise and the noise protocol you then send to the landlord with the request to provide for the night's rest. I don't know in which country you live and whether there is such a thing as tenancy law in your country. In our country you call the police.

 

You'd probably need something like the PSI audio absorber for 2500 euro, but fuck that lol, at least make your neighbour buy them for you, then you'd have the best bass traps on the market for free
https://www.thomann.de/de/psi_audio_avaa_c20_arctic_white.htm

 

pink noise, rain sounds, etc. are probably not going to work for that kind of noise. Playing music loudly could work but you'll get more people caught in the crossfire, which could be a good thing, social pressure and all that.

The insulation solution would be indeed pretty expensive, since you'll need to decouple the offending wall (and probably the others too) and that basically means building another wall on top of the one that's already there, which aside from expensive could be illegal depending on where you live.

I don't know how law works in your country, but usually noise emmision has some sort of regulation and you can contact the authorities to deal with that. It's a slow-ish process, even slower if your neighbour doesn't cooperate, but that would be the "right" way of doing it. Could be extra hurtful for him if he's operating a workshop without a licence.

Or you know, pee on him to show dominance.

 

At the outset, I would like to clarify that she is a woman. And I say this because today with the gender issue anything can end up in a mess. In fact, whenever I go to talk to she I always carry my cell phone in my pocket.

From 2018 who does this, not only hammers, lives at night, but lives as if there was no one in the world. She plays music at full blast, whistles as if he were on a soccer field and shouts "uooooo" "uooo". things like that. And this is in the middle of the city, and the apartments are wall to wall.
The neighbor who lived in dto 1 had to move out because of these noises. She called the police almost every day, sometimes the police would come and tell her to turn down the music, she would turn it down and when she left she would turn it up again.
Once I talked to the father, because she behaves like a 10 year old child and this woman is about 35 years old. And the father told me that "You are free to do whatever you want at home". So I told him that he was wrong, that there are rules of coexistence, but he didn't give me any importance.
She stops for a while and then comes back. During the pandemic he was gone, but now about two months ago he came back.

I put music against the wall about two years ago. But she doesn't even care, he seems to sleep the same. Besides, she is a very conflictive person. She doesn't have a light meter, She has a cable hanging from the ceiling, kind of weird. And she is a person, I don't know how to describe it, but "very conflictive". To say that he used to throw stones at my neighbor.

Anyway, I am a person who likes peace, and that is why for me it is better to look for a solution that will help me to have peace of mind.
Today I tried the pink, white and rain noise. But it is true, I need a very loud sound, and if I put it too loud, I don't know, I don't want to have problems with other people.

 

The coexistence between people can only be regulated by laws and jurisdiction. Permanent noise is bodily harm. Tell your landlord about all your noise violations - even that you have called the police - and ask him to eliminate the noise.

In our country, the landlord will warn the neighbor, and in case of recurrence, you will be threatened with termination. Do you have a tenant protection association in your country? Read your lease agreement and the corresponding house rules.

Unfortunately I do not know in which country you live and therefore I can only report from my country.
Who does not defend himself lives wrong. Exercise your rights!

 

The house belongs to my family, and her house belongs to her family. So there is no middleman.
I live in Argentina. And the laws here, although they exist, they are ignored, imagine that people who steal, kill, rape, sometimes the justice system does nothing. Less they give you importance for this. At most they write it down on a piece of paper and keep it in a drawer.

 

Conflictive person , una persona conflictiva, translation : an aggressive person.

 

Now, seriously, there are people who can sleep even with 110dB in their ears.
But I simply can't.

However, I can tell you that for a period I was working in the desert and when at times power supply tripped, a huge diesel generator started, that by chance was adjacent the container where I was living, and it was loud as hell.

So I thought, I'm done.

But after a while, maybe 10 or 15 mins I fell asleep.
That was a continuous noise, for which I think the brain builds a sort of "filter", actually, I woke up when the generator shut down coming back to silence, proving that the variation in sounds triggers the brain, giving also a small support to the theory that white noise, rain sounds, etc. could in some way help in sleeping.

For hammering and random sound boost I guess it's more difficult, and even ear caps don't work most of times.
However you could try with earbuds and white noise and see if it helps, but even if it works, it's a kind of slavery.

 

Right.Very aggressive. And it's not worth getting into a "war" because these are people who are used to having problems. For my part, no. I always look for peace and understanding others. So I know that I will always lose out.

It is true what you say. Well, a while ago I couldn't fall asleep to loud music, today I can. Or noises as you say constant "brrrrrrrr" Trrrrrrr".
But not the banging , because it is a kind of alarm. Sometimes it's 3 am, and you say, ok it's 3.30 am I stop, you relax you want to sleep and after 15 min " paaaa!! paaaa" and you startle, and then you get tense.
But yes, with a constant noise I can sleep. I'm waiting for the heat to come to put the fan, I think that will help something. Today I will try with the amplifier, I put it upside down and "something" seems to ailsa, we will see tonight.
If a person dies from ingesting a hammer on the news, you know what happened, (just kidding).

 

I have pepper spray and Amazon's #1 rated tactical assault knife to deal with naughty neighbors.
I'm also trained in martial arts and street and knife fighting.
Don't ever need to use them.
The neighbors take one look at me and know better.
Tombstone eyes communicate impending death impeccably.
If worst comes to worst I put my EVH Iconic combo amp on a pile of luggage until it's right up to the ceiling, turn it on full power and play my guitar.

 

Last edited: Oct 24, 2022

ok, Rambo.

I think I would go with an Air Horn. like the ones they use for Boating. Instant 120dB.

 

You could buy some noise cancelling headphones, won't make the noise dissapear completely, but if you played rain noise through that while the noise cancelling thing is active i'm sure it will make the problem way more bearable without blasting your ear with noise. They are expensive-ish, but surely cheaper than moving somewhere else, and could help you with this same issue in the future or in other scenarios.

A cheaper option would be to wear ear protectors, like the ones used by construction workers. there are some very cheap ones if you want to try before moving to higher grade ones. They tend to be uncorfortable to wear, but a firend of mine uses them to sleep everyday because she has hyperacusis, so i guess you just get used to it after a while.

On the side nore, this sounds a lot like the start of one of those reddit unsolved mysteries where OP randomly dissapears after a while. Also it's spooky season...Just sayin'.

 

usually a thread like this on Reddit will end with the guy's neighbor posting a response, and hijinks will ensue.

 

a "i took care of the noise problem, it's nice a peaceful now" would be creepier but i might be biased as i used to have a very weird neighbor as well, made her life very difficult and at some point from one day to the next she was gone. my mom came to visit the next day, she bought a cake to celebrate her disappearance.

 

From a legal perspective it's important to document each event and to log them all so that you have a body of evidence over a period of time.

Here in the UK the next step would be mediation in which an unconnected/unbiased person leads the communication between warring neighbours with the goal of reaching a return to peace between them.

I'm sorry you're going through this, I've experienced it myself and it's torturous. Anything you do to counter what they're doing will only escalate things and make it worse so try and get a mediator.

 

This is good information. Well now I can't buy those headphones, I know they are very expensive, but it's good to have them in mind. And I have common headphones here, I thought about reinforcing them with something (foam rubber, or something similar) and put the pink or rain sound as you say.

I had been told about the stories on Reddit, but I don't know what they are about: Humor? science fiction? real cases?

xD. She comes to me one day and says "Oh Rick, I was just trying to hammer your heart".
"Ohhh beloved neighbor of mine, let's hammer together now."
And they lived happily hammering away forever...

Thank you. Yes it is true what you say. Also when you are not good at "fighting" you have a hard time and the other person does not. It has happened to me in other situations, so I learned that "fighting" with people like that, only makes you worse and it seems that the other person is happy.
I have several things on record. For example when my neighbor kicked in the door 3 years ago because I wouldn't let her sleep. But as I said before, justice in my country is very "sleepy". Just to give you an example. There is a girl who has been missing for almost a month now, and the police are still not looking for her and her parents are desperate. Justice appears when the press appears and is forced to act.

 

heyya just sharing my sympathies with you. I moved into a shit apartment a couple years ago, after complaining to management I was worried the trash in the hall would give me bedbugs... I got bedbugs. 2000 dollars worth of poison air later I don't anymore thankfully, but those months of not sleeping well seriously damaged my already really bad mental.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe when someone reads that who hasn't dealt with constant sleep disruptions, they're like ugh that must be so annoying. IMO it can be much worse than that, like a day or two without sleep is like the brain is drunk... minus anything fun about being drunk. (better hangover though). I'm normally more or less chill/stoned especially to neighbors but I straight up would have been violent towards someone doing that to me, especially if there weren't authorities on hand to either help me or punish me for it. I'm NOT saying to do that, I'm just saying that for me I'm already close to full crazy at any given moment- I seriously would lose my mind and go full crazy rage episode over that. it's so disrespectful on her end, and seems to be supported by her family... I just don't see the need for people like that with 8 billion humans sucking the earth dry. I'm guessing she's had some shit go on her life though too and it's just the shit cycle continuing.

dunno if you can't manage to move, can't manage to report it and get authorities to do anything, can't talk to them.... well I guess maybe I am recommending at a certain point....strategic self defense. there is a reason they use sleep deprivation on black site prisoners- it isn't a vacation, its literally fucking TORTURE. I'm someone who understands the value of a stable mind to use as leverage to improve your lot in life- if that is stripped of you because your brain can't rest properly it's serious. it makes everything expotentially harder in a world that's hard already. it's abusive, and just cause it's some 35 year old baby woman making sounds doesn't make it somehow less damaging than if an MMA guy broke into your room every night to shake you awake randomly.

and all she has to do is not fucking hammer things at 3am. the amount of rage I feel towards someone like this is scaled to how easy it is for them to stop doing something. if a parent wrangling three kids and groceries doesn't pause to hold a door open for me I wouldn't ever think twice about it, but if some random person turned around to close the door behind them and hold it so I couldn't get in- I'd be seeing red. in your case it's very much that previous scenario I think.

 

A friend of mine once had such a problem with a neighbouring couple. They listened to really loud music late at night and on weekends, which isn't allowed in my country. Unfortunately, they neither responded to his attempts to talk, nor to the letters from their landlord at all.
Then my friend ask some friends of his if they could try it. And these friends, how shall I put, well, they like to spend their time in the fresh air, on their heavy bikes, while wearing leather jackets with a big emblem on their back.
So one day four them, who hardly fitted into the corridor at the same time, ask in a nice way to turn down that noise because their neighbours felt disturbed. They added that they would be very happy not to have to come a second time.
My friend never ever got disturbed by that couple again...