It's 11 p.m. on a Monday that started at 5:45 a.m. and included a grueling day at work, ferrying the kids to soccer, choir practice and the library, finishing up the laundry that didn't get done over the weekend, battling over homework, TV watching and bedtime.
Finally you climb into bed, pull the covers over your head and fall fast asleep. Several hours later, you're awakened by shouting and crashing noises coming from outside your bedroom window.
Is someone breaking into the house?
You jump out of bed, look outside, only to discover the city trash
collectors have come a few hours later than usual.
People who live in the city become accustomed to the usual sounds outside such as children at play, music or laughter drifting from a neighbor's open
window or a muffled fire engine off in the distance. But the loud noises created by garbage collection late at night or a lover's quarrel in the alley appear unfamiliar because it catches us off guard while we are asleep.
Every home, even a country retreat, harbors at least a few noise hazards. And not all noise comes from outside, as any parent knows.
Yet city noise is something else again.
Experts say there are no simple solutions to coping with it. But urbanites can do several things to drown out unpleasant street sounds and to minimize inside noises, no matter where the din orginates.
"What we must do is isolate the noise in the street," says Bill Braham, director of the Center for Environmental Design and Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. "The problem with sound is that even a tiny pinhole in a wall allows noise to come through the house. This tiny pinhole acts as a tiny speaker. Concrete, brick and plaster provide insulation and help eliminate the openings in rooms and the paths of noise in a house."
Some homeowners use a "white noise" machine to help them mask the noise of the street. "What this machine does is create a relationship between background sound and noise outside," says Braham. "The machine is like a speaker that generates static on a low level. It's like playing a radio very low and the static fades into the background. Because it is so subtle, people do not perceive it as noise nor as disturbing static," he said.
Hammacher Schlemmer, a mail order company in New York City, sells several ''white noise" machines, including one that lets you dial up your favorite peaceful noise, like ocean surf.
