We know intuitively that our modern society is louder than our bodies evolved to handle. It’s not uncommon to experience painful sounds from day to day, and many of our jobs or routines put us in regular contact with dangerous sound levels. While sound has to be above about 120 dBA (decibels A-weighted) to cause pain in the ear, even sounds as low as 85 dBA (about the loudness of a lawnmower) will cause hearing loss over an extended period. As many as 17% of teenagers have some degree of hearing loss in one or both ears as a result of the frequent exposure to noise in our world.

Our homes should be quiet places where we can get away from the hustle and bustle. Studies have shown that excessive neighborhood noise coming into the home can cause a range of problems like insomnia, elevated stress, headaches, cardiovascular issues, and of course hearing loss. We might end up having trouble concentrating, not just at home but also at work or school. Some issues that may show up as “personality disorders” could be at least partially the result of excessive noise at home.

Sources of Neighborhood Noise

There is a wide range of possible contributing factors to a noisy neighborhood:

• Traffic sounds; from proximity to a highway, poorly-maintained vehicles, honking horns or loud motorcycles and trucks

• Airplanes taking off and landing

• Music or sports venues

• Construction involving heavy machinery

• Factories

• Dogs

• Home improvement machinery like leaf blowers, lawnmowers, snow blowers, power tools

• Train tracks

• Fire or police stations, or hospitals

Administrative Measures

Some noises are preventable. A good first step is to see what your local or state laws have to say about noise. You may have some legal recourse to require that noisy activities cease during certain hours of the day, or that an individual or business take responsibility for limiting the amount of noise escaping from their own buildings. If traffic noise is an issue, your neighborhood association might be able to help with things like speed bumps that will lower engine noises and encourage drivers to take other routes.

Blocking Sound from Coming Into Your Home

If you need to block noise from coming into your home, look for places where noise is entering like drafty windows or cracks in doors. You can reseal or replace the windows and caulk the cracks in the doors. If that doesn’t do the trick, you could pursue additional sound-blocking windows or window plugs in some areas of the home. There are also some “soundproof” curtains on the market; these will reduce incoming sound by as much as about 6 dBA, while also blocking out all sunlight.

Even if you soundproof all your doors and windows, you might find you still have noise coming in through the roof or the walls, if either of these is not well-insulated enough for the noise levels in your area. There are some options for insulating already-built walls; you’ll want to consult a professional contractor if you think this is necessary.

You might also consider a fence in your yard. Plants help, too. A fence covered in ivy or a row of thick bushes can go a long way to keeping sounds at safe levels in your yard and/or home.

Reduce Reflections

Having drapes around the windows and rugs on the floor can actually help significantly by reducing the reflection of sound within the home. If the direct sound from outside is too loud, this won’t solve all your problems, but reducing reflections will reduce the overall amount of sound that ultimately reaches your ears.

Take Care of Loud Sounds Inside Your Home

It may also be the case that we have unsafe noise levels in our homes from washers or dryers, air compressors, or other in-home devices. Mounting these devices on rubber pads will keep them from transferring vibrations into the floor around them, which can effectively reduce the noise they transmit, especially to other rooms.

If there’s a lot of noise coming into your home from outside, this will have a cascading effect on volume inside the house. You’ll speak louder, you’ll set the television or radio louder, and consequently you’ll be exposing yourself to more damaging levels of sound in all sorts of ways. If you’re getting too much neighborhood noise in your home, start pursuing remedies sooner than later and protect your hearing and health.