How to cope with noise.

StormWarrior

started university this year and I live in halls. However, I'm a light sleeper and I'm having great difficulty coping with the noise from the other students who live there. Every night at least one of the students brings their friends round and stays up until about 3am playing music and talking loudly in the kitchen/corridors. It is possible to call security to tell them to be quiet, but as soon as security leave the building it starts again. It really is impossible to ever get a good nights sleep.
I have asked them to be quiet but they are all 18 and away from home for the first time and determined to make the most of it. It is not possible for me to move out of halls, and the doctor says I cannot wear ear plugs under any circumstances as I have a medical condition which would be affected.
I've tried putting some soothing dolphin music and the like on at night, but it doesn't drown out the noise. I've also tried lavender oil on the pillow. If it was just weekends I could put up with it, but it is EVERY single night. You would think after all this time they would be settling down, but they're not. If anyone has any suggestions of how to cope with the noise they would be much appreciated.

Miss Fluff

I know when I was in uni I lived on campus for the first year, the college housing people had assigned halls of residence as "quiet halls" and halls where your average student could get up to whatever they like. The quiet halls had a no noise after 10pm rule or something similar. Why don't you talk to the accommodation people and see if there is a quieter hall with mature students perhaps where you can be relocated to?

StormWarrior

My hall IS a designated quiet hall! Theres meant to be silence after 11pm but of course that depends on the willingness of the residents to comply.

Miss Fluff

What a nightmare! Have you spoken to other people you live with? If it's a quiet hall there are bound to be people who feel the same!

BeardyGit

You can move out. It's not that difficult - Go speak to your campus housing authorities and request a transfer. Tell them it's affecting your studies and that you really need them to do something about it.

If they won't listen, move off campus. If you're clever and can have someone help you with a deposit, you could lease a house that you could share with 3 professionals, and have them pay ALL the rent, leaving you with just bills. I'm in a 4 bed house costing 1500 per month in Dundrum - If I wanted to go back to college, I'd take the single room and the 3 large rooms would cover the rent for the whole house..... It can be done.

Best of luck anyway,

Gil

r3nu4l

Contact the Students Union and ask them to represent you with your complaint.

Then make your complaint in writing (separate to any SU letter) to the Accomodation office and the Head of Security. Ask for an appointment with the Accommodation officer and the HEad of Security, either separately or together.

Don't go on a rant, something like the post you have written here will do fine. Explain that every time Security leave, the noise starts up again. Perhaps, ask them to return to the hall 20 mins later. Contact the head of your year and tell them what is happening, ask them to intervene on your behalf.

Your complaint is valid. If this is suposed to be a quiet hall then you are perfectly within your rights to complain. If anyone accuses you of being selfish, just counter with their selfishness in keeping you awake every night

beans

Earplugs so you can sleep, drink a few glasses of water before sleep so you don't over-sleep. It's worked for me in the past, but you have to get the amount of water right, and this will take some fine-tuning so you don't wake up too early etc...

Edit - missed the fact that you can't wear plugs, woops

Red Alert

The Bose noise cancelleing headphones are good, or else building-site ear defenders (if you sleep on your back).

KTRIC

Gil_Dub wrote:

If you're clever and can have someone help you with a deposit, you could lease a house that you could share with 3 professionals, and have them pay ALL the rent, leaving you with just bills. I'm in a 4 bed house costing 1500 per month in Dundrum - If I wanted to go back to college, I'd take the single room and the 3 large rooms would cover the rent for the whole house..... It can be done.

Best of luck anyway,

Gil

If the 3 professionals found out you were doing this I would say the noisy corridors would be the least of your worries.

hunnymonster

OP, what uni are you at?

StormWarrior

as I said, I cannot wear earplugs.
I am at Roehampton university in London. I don't recommend it!
I can't move out because when i told them i would move they said they would not give me a refund, and I have no extra money. None of the other university halls are quiet, in fact they are even worse than the one I'm in!
The other people in my hall said I'm being a nazi and they want to have fun. Some of their parents live nearby but they choose to pay £90 a week rent just so they can party all the time.

chamlis

Sounds like you're screwed, man. You need to think about this and find more options. They are surely there to be found.

Good luck.

beans

Missed the earplugs issue. Sympathies dude. Before I tried earplugs I found listening to music with noise-dampening earphones worked for me, or as already stated site-muffs? Good luck.

LegacyUser

'

StormWarrior wrote:

as I said, I cannot wear earplugs.
I am at Roehampton university in London. I don't recommend it!
I can't move out because when i told them i would move they said they would not give me a refund, and I have no extra money. None of the other university halls are quiet, in fact they are even worse than the one I'm in!
The other people in my hall said I'm being a nazi and they want to have fun. Some of their parents live nearby but they choose to pay £90 a week rent just so they can party all the time.

Go back to them.
It's a quiet hall so no noise is essentially in your contract, if you're forced to move out by other people being noisy then that's their problem not yours and they should give you a refund or get moved. A room in a different part of the building for instance may be quieter.

Go to the accomodation office and keep requesting to talk to more and more senior people until you get the response you need. Bring evidence with you to back up what your saying eg:
Keep a diary documenting the noise, what complaints you've made and what's happened as a result. (Don't name/blame specific people in the diary, it'll make you look childish)
Tape the noise

Bring a union rep with you to the meeting.

If you can find a group of other people similiarly noise adverse, maybe you could suggest that you all be moved together to rooms close together on the top floor or in a specific part of the building. That way everybody is happy.'

Red Alert

Maplin electronics sell sound level meters which can be used to demonstrate how noisy things are. Get one that measures in dBA as well as dB as dBA is closer to how a human perceives noise. You might even pick one up on eBay. Rather than anything scientific, it will show to the higher ups you're serious about the problem.

StormWarrior

just got offered a place elsewhere. If things are too noisy there though, will try the headphones!

BeardyGit

KTRIC wrote:

If the 3 professionals found out you were doing this I would say the noisy corridors would be the least of your worries.

#

Not at all - I moved into this house to rent just one room for a set price. 3+ years down the line

The landlord set the rental income he wants for this house and the rest is down to me as far as he's concerned. I get to choose who rents a room here and what proportion of the house rent they pay, but the 3 people I share with have no visibility of my arrangement with the landlord. Each lad here gets a receipt each month from the landlord, for their tax allowance etc, so it's all above board. I'm not the landlord, I manage the household and have certain privelages because he knows the way I look after things here is worth it to him.

If I have 3 others here who will pay the rent for the house (very easy to do if I wanted) I could easily live rent free. I pay rent now in fairness, but if I was going to college it's the way I'd be running things. Why wouldn't you try to have others legitimately pay your way, lessening the burden on your own and your parents finances? If the people who'd share with you are happy to pay the rent, receive receipts etc., then where's the harm?

Anyway, I digress. OP - Glad to hear you got sorted. I actually moved out of a house forfeiting a deposit for my room at 4:30am on weekday morning because I'd had enough of the noise from the neighbours alarm. I can only imagine what it must be like with a load of brats making a racket like that.

Cheers,

Gil

fulofh20

I had that same problem, so I purchased ear plugs that had a specific design. I got a perfect uninterrupted sleep with them but one part become logged in my ear and I had to go to hospital to get it taken out(nothing serious).
Earplugs that are the right size to not get stuck in your ear, or that fall out during the night.