One day, my fiancé and I found a dream apartment in Brooklyn – with high ceilings and spacious rooms, and it was located next to a city park, so that trees and shrubs looked into our windows. But a problem soon surfaced: the upstairs neighbors had two small children, boys who woke up around six in the morning and started throwing toys, balls and chasing each other. When we got home from work around six o’clock in the evening, they again took up their own and continued to do this all evening.
We tried to come to terms with the noise for about a year. After all, we had lived in Brooklyn long enough by then to get used to the horns, car alarms, and fire truck sirens. We tried to ignore the sounds from above, constantly turning on the music and the TV. Nevertheless, my partner and I became more and more irritable and quick-tempered, and periodically quarreled. When we had our own child, we had to move. The windows of our new apartment overlooked the gas station, but at least there were no knocks from upstairs.
For a long time, I considered our flight as a sign of weakness: if we were not too sensitive, we would still enjoy the beautiful views outside the window.
But to be honest, we weren’t too sensitive. We reacted to the noise from above like any normal person. Residents of apartment buildings regularly suffer from what acoustic scientists call “thump sounds,” that is, short, distinct sounds such as slaps and thuds. In one study, it was noted that the sounds of hitting the floor were the most annoying type of noise in apartment buildings, and such noise is mainly produced by children between the ages of six and nine.
Not so long ago, a group of researchers led by Markus Muller-Trape from the National Research Council of Canada developed a series of experiments designed to find out how much noise from upstairs neighbors can annoy a person. The scientists recorded about sixty different sounds, from walking barefoot to the bounce of a ball to the fall of a hammer, and then played the sounds back to about 100 participants in Canada, Germany, and Korea, who rated their annoyance level from 0 to 100.
“People’s testimonies were slightly different from each other, but the result was always the same,” says Müller-Trape.
People could not stand loud footsteps, a bouncing ball and, of course, hammer blows. When I listened to these records, it seemed to me that bricks were falling on my head. I immediately became irritable and grumpy, just like in my old apartment.
Why are we so sensitive to the sounds of beatsas opposed to longer sounds like music or a monotonous hum?
“The traditional definition of noise is unwanted sounds,” says Matthias Basner, professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
People who go to rock concerts don’t mind loud music because that’s what they want to hear. On the other hand, noisy neighbors interfere with our daily activities, distract us from work and annoy us. No matter how hard we try, we can’t ignore them.
We have evolved in such a way that we pay attention to sounds that signal danger, and we hear them even when we sleep. Unexpected noise can be caused by sudden changes in the environment.
“Changing the environment is a signal of potential danger,” Basner says.
Think about the appearance of a predator or a falling rock. In the old days, when people lived in the savannah, when they heard a loud sound, they chose what to do – to run or fight.
Today, even if we’re not fighting or running from anyone, when our neighbors drop a hammer, our body triggers the same physiological response to a loud sound as it did in ancient times.
Loud noises release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. The blood vessels constrict, the heart rate increases, the intestines cease to function normally for a while, and the blood actively rushes to the muscles to develop maximum speed.
Even the blood itself clots more easily in a stressful situation, says Basner, in case he starts to bleed.
“All this leads to cardiovascular disease,” he says.
Research has shown that noise annoyance associated with a range of symptoms of mental and physical illness. And although in the mentioned work undesirable noises were considered in general, another study demonstrated that noise exposure damages the central nervous system, leading to emotional stress and anxiety, and increases the risk of depression, cognitive impairment, and neurodegenerative disorders.
According to the United Nations, by 2050, two out of every three peopleare likely to live in urban areas, so the problem will only get worse.
“The more we build huge apartment buildings, the more we need good protection from these kinds of sounds,” says Müller-Trapet, whose team is involved in developing building standards to make urban dwellings more soundproof. “Our goal is to provide design advice to all builders.”
In the meantime, angry tenants like my partner and I will have to look for quieter apartments. In the end, health is more important than the park outside the window.
