Re:Dear Architects: Sound Matters
by Silhouette on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @09:02PM
(#10810310)
Urban planners want us to live more densely and "efficiently." My primary response: Fix the noise problems. Then we can talk.
Absolutely. It's not a small problem or minor inconvenience. I once got home to my flat after work to find that my downstairs neighbours had come round and aggressively criticised my then-girlfriend for the noise we'd been making walking around the previous night... when we were staying with family 50 miles away. The noise was bad enough that normally pleasant people had apparently been very much not pleasant, and it was carrying across multiple homes such that they couldn't even tell who it was that was keeping them up all night. (Spoiler: It turned out to be the flat adjacent to ours on the same level, where the thin carpets originally installed had been replaced by otherwise attractive wood flooring.)
I had to make this decision recently. I am moving into an apartment soon. It is all concrete though, so I think it might be different to the types of apartments you tried. I did think about moving into a house in the middle of nowhere but the thought of a single person living in a 4 bedroom house with a yard was just too ridiculous for me. Also, the windows of the houses were only a few metres apart so I am not sure it would have been an better. The other problem was that the demographic was very different to me.
I'm single. I ended up in a house solely because every shared living space tried had serious noise issues.
I don't need all this room -- nor the maintenance. But I am most reluctant to share walls, ceiling, even a floor with someone else, ever again. Even if it's quiet, moving in, who knows what you're going to get next month, year?
Urban planners want us to live more densely and "efficiently." My primary response: Fix the noise problems. Then we can talk.