Ear plugs can not only protect your ears, but also your peace of mind as well! To be sure, a great number of folks actually enjoy a riot. But a significant number of people also need real peace and quiet — even in the city?
Get some ear plugs, that’s all! Inexpensive, they’re practically free when compared to what you get, some peace of mind. It’s an unfortunate fact of urban life that one’s neighbors are usually on the other side of the wall – or, even, the other side of the door in the case of roommates!
And that’s when ear plugs come in. They should be helpful to some degree, if not a perfect final solution. That’s because the ones you’re likely to find are only good for blocking up to 33 dcB of noise, which is about the level of a typical conversation. Those of better quality are not as easy to find and will require a bit of research to procure.
But it may be impractical to wear them continuously. While many people get used to them, others find the practice increasingly irritable, especially when reusing ear plugs. Ultimately, no one should have to live with noise pollution in the first place. Good luck getting anyone in government to care, however. In fact, even in New York City, reputedly the one place in the entire United States with stringent anti-noise laws on the books, enforcement is often wanting due to not enough resources being devoted to the issue, particularly manpower. In fact, while most noise complaints involve residential neighbors, it is precisely this class of disputes that authorities there avoid handling!
“Hell is other people,” noted the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, and municipal authorities in Gotham are loathe to intercede between neighbors. But what do the laws on the books do, then? And what else does a call to 311 offer besides a chance to gripe to someone?
It seems like most people don’t mind noise. “It is what it is,” and most don’t mind what it is. Hence, some things will never change. Folks likely aren’t all that aware how important mental sanity is – nor, even, the inverse relationship between it and noise pollution!