Undiagnosed Hyper-vigilance towards noise caused by noisy neighbours

[Ravenclaw50]

Hello everyone , My name is Donna and I from the UK , I seriously do not know were to beginning , a long story but my not so lovely neighbour moved in about 3 years ago , at first there was normal house noise moving things ,maybe drilling and then his radio that woke me up at 7 am in the morning it was that bad I could hear it word for word , my hubby has tinnitus so he couldn't hear it and my son who has now left home sleeps through anything . Basically` even though the radio sometimes comes on now that hes got a partner who I admit is a loud mouth lady who likes to show off ,he likes to keep shutting doors when he gets home from work , banging about etc .ok he's not as bad as some stories I have heard but the panic of if and when he will do something has turned me into a nervous wreck . My hubby has took my sons old room with computers so he has his headphones on and when I o mention anything he says I over react , for example I dare not turn on plugs in case he hears it and thinks it time to crank his tv up , I get nervous in passing his house in case he sees me , feeding the birds in garden is a planned event , even vacuuming my own house is a nightmare as I make noise . That is only half the story has well but I will not go on . but I need to wear earplugs before bed in case and have a white noise machine and when the boiler comes on for noise I feel safe which I know sounds mad . So really I am like a prisoner were I dare not do anything and even coughing I try not to do and get really anxious if my hubby sneezes its realty bad and these walls are paper thin . thats only the bit of this nightmare !

 

[Movingforward10]

I'm sorry about the poor quality housing. It sounds like normal activity in both your homes that each of you can hear?
It doesn't sound like either of you deliberately trying to be loud to disturb the other?

Is there something that can be done in terms of sound insulation to stop noise disturbance?

I sometimes hear the upstairs flat. They put wooden floors in and have a little child who runs about. But, I changed my attitude to it because we can only control how we respond to things. So it doesn't bother me so much.

Have you spoken to your neighbours about it?

 

[Donna]

Hello there, its council housing , the only thing we can do just to mask any noise is put a shelf up maybe in one corner off the shared wall . But as the living room is small it make smaller and in one corner with have 2 vivs , we thought having carpet upstairs would mask such things or soften anything but no . Sometimes his music it even tv I can hear from the bedroom as I said so these walls are extremely thing if there no tv in my house or anything I can hear them coughing urs thst bad thats why I have anxiety over anything I do in my own house as if I can hear them there can us . As for talking no he's the sort you can't talk too . And unfortunately this summer there was a incident with a dog which was reported by people and now I will not even look at him . And even though my hubby has tinnitus this morning he could hear in let's say personal matters at 6 in morning and has he's ill , his sleeping pattern gets a but crazy but it must have been loud for him to hear it so he's not slept so really noise wise my hubby said you can't report anything unless its too crazy . Whether he does it on purpose I dont know , but I know doing this tit for tat will not work either

 

[Sideways]

Welcome to the forum, @Ravenclaw50

With all the hypervigilance stuff that goes on with having ptsd, noisy neighbours can be particularly stressful. Finding ways to empty out that stress cup, as often and effectively as possible, has been absolutely critical to my own sanity when living in apartments with paper-thin walls!

Mod note:
Don’t forget to log in to post - that will avoid your posts getting held up in moderation

 

[PlainJane]

Welcome :)