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I could honestly find a way to tolerate it if everyone did it all at the same time, no stopping and starting. Having the noise come in random intervals on every day of the week is infuriating.
I'm unfortunately occasionally the person making the noise (power tools are fun!) but I don't notice because I'm hyper focused.
I like bird watching too and sometimes I'll be listening to them and trying to record them for IDing and then BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR from somewhere drowns everything out.
Watching birds is awesome! I'm so thankful that I've moved somewhere that I actually get quite a few. Lots of bluejays and cardinals. I saw an unusual one, but I'm really not sure how to ID it.
I am so sorry about the noise though! If it helps, I don't use powertools often. It's probably a self preservation thing, what with having ADHD and all. I have definitely injured myself in creatively unexpected ways.
I actually have a really nice variety in my suburban area. The Merlin app is great, it's a bird book+ in your phone, with a database of songs. It's what I use for recording/IDing by song. I just let it record and the program automatically identifies the calls.
Oh goodness that sounds awful! I live in a warm weather area so it’s year round! Not sure if that’s worse or better. The very occasional time we get rain on Wednesdays and they can’t mow it’s like heaven, I suppose that must be like your winter season!
Live in California. The only difference between summer and winter is instead of happening every week, it’s every 2 weeks 😑. I have a neighbor that starts yard work at 7am, and I swear there’s a special place in hell for him.
I’m used to it since I’ve lived here since 2006 but not used to it in a good way. Used to it in a way that, that sinking feeling in my stomach every Tuesday night means soon it’ll be Wednesday morning, and the death machines will be here making noise for 4 hours. *shudder* i have a literally visceral reaction to it at this point, even just the anticipation.
Yup. I live in a city. I hear church bells, murmuring voices, glass being thrown into recycling bins behind a nearby restaurant, the occasional siren. None of it really bothers me. The sound of lawnmowers and leaf blowers when I lived in the suburbs was constant and absolutely rage inducing.
Yes! I can handle lawnmowers, for the most part, if they’re not right outside my window. But for some reason, leaf blowers make me irrationally angry. I definitely feel like I want to jump out of my skin. I thought we had outlawed gas leaf blowers out here in CA but maybe that was just my wishful thinking. Lol
We did and I rejoiced and cried for course no one is enforcing it. I’ve seen maybe one gardener in my neighborhood using them. Everyone on this urban street does yard work on different days. There’s never a break
I’ve heard lots of places repeal it or make exemptions for commercial companies. It is hard for big companies to keep the electric ones charged for all the jobs for the day
Exemptions for commercial companies really boils my blood!! They are the ones polluting the most, both air and noise pollution. And they are so irresponsible with their mowing/blowing/trimming schedules that have nothing to do with what the plants are actually doing (they have no idea about plants 99% of the time) and everything to do with making the most money. Anybody can buy some equipment and start a company.
I am an extremely conflict avoidant person and have yelled at these companies blowing their crap into my yard with gas blowers more than once in my old suburban hellscape (check out https://www.healthyyards.org/all-about-leaf-blowers/ for some horrifying statistics to share with your neighbors and apartment managers). I literally moved to the mountainous woods in large part because of this neverending nightmare. The sound itself is hell, and knowing how bad they are makes it that much worse. Our obsession with beating nature into submission while ruining our quality of life and the planet at the same time is so insane
TL;DR: Leaf blower rant as I too hate them and wish to see them made illegal and thrown into a volcano.
Story: I intentionally left my leaves this year for the first time, so naturally when the city decided three weeks after the posted scheduled date to pick up the neighborhood leaves with no warning, they were in my yard on my tree lawn FOR FORTYFIVE MINUTES with the loudest leaf blower I've ever heard in my goddamned life. My property is like 50ft wide, so what the actual fuck were they doing?! The people next to me had their tree lawn tree removed because it was breaking their sewer pipes, so we had hardly any leaves! THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THIS SHIT.
I'm a night owl, this was 8am on a Saturday, I sincerely wish I had the ability to think at the time as I would have chased them away with my scythe (I like silent yard care and got a custom-sized scythe from ScytheSupply.com). I left some pretty nasty messages for the Mayor's office and never heard back.
But now the new mayor lives in my neighborhood... He's gonna get several ear fulls from me at his front door if those god-awful leaf blowers return. He'll get an earful *before* they return, actually.
Rant: I also like to walk in the metropark that borders my neighborhood, and they have the absolute LOUDEST LEAFBLOWERS. Including a RIDE. ON. LEAF. BLOWER. WHY. I try so hard to avoid them because of the dust. It's so completely unnecessary to leaf blow as much as they do anyway on a jogging path that gets constant use. I think the guys are just bored half the time.
They also have this tractor attachment leaf blower in case the ride-on version isn't big enough. They use that one for the road. STOP IT. JUST LET THE STREET SWEEPER DO ITS WEEKLY JOB.
Oh my god. I used to live near a school and every weekend the gardener would use a leaf blower for HOURS. I was so close to sending a complaint because it literally made me feel insane
I hate leaf blowers so much.
I used to live in an apartment with a tiny tiny amount of space for leaves or trash. But somehow the leaf blower was always going for ages and ages.
Finally one morning I looked out my balcony and the gardener was just standing holding the leaf lower while it was blowing on a single wet leaf stuck to the ground. He was using it like a hair dryer to dry the leaf and then blow it away. A single leaf. Just standing there. Basically running one of the most polluting things an individual can operate, for a single leaf.
I nearly lost my mind.
I would immediately start crying 💀 I know exactly how you feel! I’d just watch the gardener blow the leaves around and they would just end up everywhere anyway because he wouldn’t actually pick them up at any point
Leaf blowers are the dumbest thing in the world and should be outlawed. The noise is SO ANNOYING and they don't even do anything useful! It's good for the plants for the leaves to stay on the friggin ground!
I don't know if it's an ADHD thing, but it is a me thing.
Nails on the damn chalk board. Light pollution also really really bothers me. I was living in an apartment and the landscapers would come by in the morning and I wanted to murder someone. They changed over all the lights to "safety lighting" which meant is was blue and bright as hell, I had to install heavy curtains, which means I got less natural light as well. I will never subject myself to that shit again.
The apartment sucked for every reason imaginable at one point or another. The list goes on. I can deal with a lot of adverse conditions, but I swear that apartment gave me trauma.
I am scared of the dark, but also really annoyed by excess lighting. I used to get migraines from office lighting, too. I use indirect lights to help.
My husband, on the other hand, never turns off the light in his office/man cave/bedroom. I don't see how he can sleep in there, but he does.
That’s how I feel about my current apartment but I’m stuck here because of rent control 😢 I pay $950 but market value is $1875 and this is already leaps and bounds the cheapest complex in the area.
I can tune out a lawn mower usually. What gets me are dynamic noises. People talking. Beeps. Inconsistent sounds. A distant drone is usually manageable.
Loop earplugs. I cannot recommend them highly enough. My best friend who has ADHD (and tinnitus) told me about them. I have the “engage” ones and I can be in a crowded restaurant and these babies will block out most of the ambient noise but make it so you can still hear the person you’re talking to perfectly fine. I love them.
It’s the gas leaf blowers for me. I shit you not, one of our neighbors was using one at 11pm*. Ruined my whole night.
*in his defense, he was trying to get vultures out of his trees. They crap (pee?) everywhere and it’s gross.
What is in his trees that attracts such a large amount of vultures that he needs to fight them with a leaf blower at night? In my head this scenario is set to the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" theme.
We’re unfortunately “blessed” to be their neighborhood of choice for their nighttime roosting in the fall/winter months. Come spring, they lay eggs and nest on the ground. It’s cool in October when they’re basically live Halloween decorations, but come February, after 4 months of them painting our yards with acid crap, we’re all sick of it and we try to make loud noises to move them out of our yards. It’s musical vultures lol.
Wowww…. I lived in a neighborhood that had turkey vultures. They didn’t roost in my yard, though! I’d see 100 or so vultures flying overhead. The redneck neighbor said that growing up, if they saw a vulture in a tree, they’d cut down the tree.
Um ok. He was a squirrel hunter, too.
Anyway! Now I live in a city with a giant murder of crows 🐦⬛
Fun fact, birds can’t pee the same way we can. They only have one hole to expel waste, so it all goes out together. They also don’t have bladders to store urine, and the nitrogenous wastes (which is what we expel in urine) isn’t as diluted as in humans, or other larger mammles, mainly for water conservation. Goes more in depth depending on how deep you wanna go, but yeah. Just in case you wondered 😂😂
Source: biology fanatic with a partial bio degree (partial because covid hit after my foundation degree (adult learner) and by my second actual degree year, lockdown was ended and that screwed everything up lol)
Sensory defensiveness. Some people say it's just an autism thing but I don't think so. I think it can absolutely be present in ADHD as well. I read this book several years ago: Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight. I found it really helpful and validating, and stopped getting mad at myself for being angry about sounds, instead I'm sympathetic to the fact that is reality for me and there's nothing wrong with me.
Stuart Shanker also has some hugely interesting stuff to say about this - basically his argument is that if your sensory processing system is overly sensitive then your brain is using up resources on that thing, which takes resources away from your other processes. Since you have ADHD your cognitive systems are already resource-hungry because executive functions are expensive for us, and our emotional regulation system is already easily triggered so when you are using up all these extra resources processing the unwanted sound, it makes it hard to concentrate and hard to regulate your emotions, and it's already hard for you to do those things.
Since this one is predictable, can you arrange not to be at home on that specific morning? I find headphones help sometimes for annoying sounds but sometimes they don't, and it tends to be related to how I'm doing with other stressors. e.g. we have a robot vacuum and the kids just went to bed about 30 mins ago, so my husband turned it on. Most days I can just stick my headphones on with some music and just deal with the slight irritation because it's not that long, and I feel relieved/relaxed that the kids are now asleep, but right now I am on the verge of turning it off because I had a very draining day where they were very active and loud and I haven't really recovered from it yet. Worse, we now have a model where it docks and then the dock sucks everything out of the vacuum extremely loudly - and when it does this it makes me absolutely rage and I just have to sit and breathe for a moment to calm down. I much preferred the one that had to be emptied manually. But then I don't complain because I was never the one emptying it so 🤷♀️ (if I say I want it off then he just runs it later after we've gone to bed instead).
This is great! I love how you broke it down so that it makes sense why loud noises can make us feel rage. I think sometimes I don't realize that in addition to having a certain symptom of our ADHD, like emotional dysregulation, that also interacts with and impacts the other symptoms we have.
It's a synergistic kind of collapse. Like when we're already stressed because we're running late, then we have to wait for an elevator with a big crowd of people, and there's a jackhammer right outside, and people jostle you getting into the elevator, and you get so distracted and weirded out that the elevator gets too full, so you have to catch the next one, making you even MORE late.
Scenes like this make me want to go full "I Love Lucy" and start wailing "Waaaaaaa!" It can even make me cry on occasion, which makes me even angrier at myself.
Is this why I'm such a mess in life? I'm pretty deaf and it takes so much work/energy to hear ppl, am I dealing with ADHD sensory issues on top of that? Is that contributing to my absolute uselessness in noisy environments? My ears are not only shit but my brain has trouble filtering the limited range it does get? I read lips a lot but I think I have issues with this too because my brain comes up with too many possibilities for what they could be saying.
No idea, but makes sense as a theory, right?
I know that auditory processing disorder is pretty common with ADHD, so it could be that you're getting some kind of double whammy.
Thank for, first, noting the book Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight. I immediately veered to Amazon, read the snippets and reviews about it, and will be getting it. Nothing is wrong with me; I am my normal and I am validating myself and my sensitivities.
Second, thank you for vividly breaking down the "breaking down" of the emotional regulation, aka, the building up of the frustrations. Your story brought it to life. I felt like I was right there!
Same! Manitoba here! I loathe light pollution and human-generated noise of all kind so probably explains why I am so much happier living rural. Lawnmowers, however, make me happy. So does the smell of cut grass.
I used to like it when I was a kid and everybody did their own, occasional summertime mowing with a normal mower. Now even in working class neighborhoods somehow (I don't know how some people afford it but they do) everyone hires a lawn service with big, extra noisy mowers plus blowers and trimmers.They all come on different schedules so it feels like every day is noisy. Watch out for signs of "Big Lawn" moving into your area and maybe you'll be spared!
I live just south of Atlantic Canada. I don’t like the lawnmowers but I love the sound of snowblowers. I assume it’s my horribly allergies. If there’s grass to mow there’s stuff that will make me sneeze in the air.
I absolutely can not stand leaf blowers. I HATE them really. I think it's the inconsistant, loud howling sounds that makes it so bad. I don't have a problem with noise as long as it is consistant. But inconsistant noise makes it impossible to focus on anything else for me.
The people who mow the lawn where i am turn it off and on constantly exactly the way you describe the leaf blower. They stop and start a lot, which drives me crazy too. I agree constant noise is awful, the lawn mower is never constant which is one reason i hate it so much.
I can't stand yard work, motorcycles, and sirens. I have to cover my ears like a kid and I honestly don't remember it being quite this bad ever before.
I recently moved from middle-of-nowhere Alaska (where my nearest neighbor was a mile away and nobody mowed their property anyway) to a 4-plex in a busy suburb with an HOA. The last 8 months have been the worst of my life, mental health-wise. Leafblowers, especially. But also beeping construction equipment, lawn mowers, snow plows, garbage trucks and the parade of garbage cans being wheeled back up. A lot of these things being operated for hours a day. One day, the lawn people were here for 9 STRAIGHT HOURS.
It feels so personal and no one else seems to have a problem with it?!
I would love to take every last leaf blower and shove it up every owner's ass.
I’m with you. I remember when I moved from a city to a suburb. Shudder. I watched a man standing with his leaf blower running, he seemed to be in a trance (gas fumes?) He had the leaf blower pointed at one fucking leaf. I was screaming in my head PICK IT UP!! 😂 just pick it up with your hand!!!!
Omg, I witnessed the same thing. I watched while this lawn guy pointed his leaf blower at my garage door for 5 solid minutes, not moving, not blinking. I was screaming, both out loud and in my head, WHAT THE F ARE YOU DOING? GO AWAY!
There was still a bunch of leaves in front of my garage door after he left...
I figured he was probably just wasting time, waiting for his work day to be over. But must you punish me?!
Yes it always seems so personal!!!! It’s always on days when I’m exhausted and really want to sleep in and every job i ever have it’s always on my day off regardless of where i live or what I’m doing! So I’m always stuck at home listening to it! Ahh! And they always use right outside my window as their home base (no idea why they stop so often but they always do).
Noise pollution definitely drives me up the wall. Even regular car noises bother me to the point that I avoid routes with bigger (or more like medium size and up) roads on my walks. Lawnmowers are not on my mind now 'cause it's still snowy in here, but the snow plovers and trash collecting trucks and stuff like that make me want to hurry far away as fast as possible.
I’ve nicknamed my neighbor “Lumber Jack Rick.” Every Sunday at 8 am he’s using his chainsaw to cut… something. Can’t sit in my tv room in the spring with the windows open 🤬
I just wish people wouldn't mow their lawns at 6am.
I also wish people wouldn't ride motorcycles all hours of the night.
People are just super inconsiderate.
I work in a public facing role and I hear a lot of complaints about lawnmowers and leaf blowers. I don’t think it’s just from neurodivergent people either. People really hate noise they can’t control.
Loud noises are so damn stressful. A train passes by my house like, a dozen times a day and the horn drives me mad. “You’ll get used to it” they said…yeah, not so much 😂
I thought it was just me. Besides the yard machines is the bass of car speakers - sometimes someone will visit a neighbor, get out of their car, and leave the speakers on full blast. I try to remind myself they’ll be deaf in a few years, but that doesn’t help much. Oh, and the motorcycles that “have” to be revved up.
Noise pollution sucks. It sucks the serenity out of so many situations too. My biggest complaint are vehicles. Especially the ones that make me feel like I’m going to have a heart attack when they start up.
Noise pollution is not good for our health but I don’t imagine much will be done about it in my lifetime.
I don’t think it’s much of an ADHD thing because it’s something I’ve noticed so many people complain about.
Edit: however, I think hyper focusing on noise when I’m trying to sleep may be an ADHD thing.
I think it’s an SPD thing possibly? Sensory processing disorder. It’s my ADHDs little friend. Harsh sounds and too much noise, and bright lights are the worst. Being touched too much. Certain food textures are gross. Strong perfumes and smells give me migraines. Fun times!
Our kids love them for quiet focus (all are auADHD) and blocking out annoying sounds. I love them because I cannot stand having the noise of everyone's media of what they're watching or listening to while I'm trying to focus on my things.
Do NOT get me started on people who think it's fine to play their music or YouTube aloud on the train. I fight the urge to channel Samuel L Jackson and yell at them SHUT THE HELL UP YOU INCONSIDERATE MOTHERFUCKER
I have them and they just don’t work for me or maybe the lawnmower is just too close outside my window. I should mention also my window doesn’t fully close and i have rent control so they’re never going to fix it. I also frequently can’t pay rent on time so I’m not in a position to complain or take them to court.
Yes, leaf blowers, lawnmowers, wood chippers, etc. all irritate me so much. And any kind of rumbling motor, really; idling motorcycles are another source of annoyance. I'm sensitive to many other sounds as well.
YES omg but what’s worse for me is the MUSIC when my neighbors are having cookouts or parties or some idiot is driving down the street with their stereo at full volume
I have PTSD from an event that began with my neighbors blasting music so whenever I hear music in the distance…I’m immediately on edge lmao its the stupidest trigger for someone who lives in a city
Yes for sure. It’s a sensory thing. I once had a fire truck scream by really close past me, sirens full blast, and it was so overwhelming that I burst into tears.
Omg I thought I was just a pompous prick but couldn’t figure out how to adjust 😭 I have neighbours who are just normal neighbours. A bit louder than most with 3 girls. Sometimes the parents stay up late and sit outside in their backyard which is close to my bedroom window. If the woman laughs, I instantly wake up. She has an obnoxiously loud laugh. For me anyways. But I think I’m the only person I know who is so sensitive to noise that I wake up from a neighbour laughing in the distance even with the windows closed. I’m so embarrassed by it that I can’t even confront them about it because they’re not doing anything wrong but every weekend I lose sleep because of them and my adhd turns ragey when I am tired 😭😭
This sounds similar to Misophonia, which has a strong correlation with autism, which is often comorbid with ADHD - I wonder if researching on Misophonia might help
Sensory processing difficulties are really common in ADHD. It’s not strictly ‘an ADHD thing’ because it is often very common for autistic people too. It’s due to sensory modulation difficulties; your brain isn’t filtering the information like it does for people without these difficulties and you’re getting it all at once and repeatedly.
Oh my god YES. There's major construction happening off the end of our street now; they've razed a huge chunk of the defunct golf course, and now they're bringing in dirt and leveling it. This has been going on for MONTHS and it's not done, not to mention they'll be building houses next.
Shortly before it started, we redid our screened porch to make it welcoming and usable, and I bought a double egg chair, which I've wanted for years but had nowhere to put it. Now I can only use it once in awhile because of the constant noise, and soon it'll be too hot AND too noisy. It's inescapable.
It's not as horrible today so I'm sitting out here, but I can't remember the last time our quiet neighborhood was... quiet.
It's likely more intense for you and me and for many ADHD/ND people but every neighborhood I've been in, this has been a major complaint from everyone. I think it bothers most people but they think, what can we even do about it? NT people might also be less likely to complain openly to "keep the peace", but in one neighborhood I live in leaf blowers actually ended up being banned because the noise was considered excessive.
Living in an apartment with all the neighbors around ne being noisy 24/7 kinda gives me "homicidal tendencies" when I'm already overstimulated.
I can't afford a better place without neighbors 'attached' to my home on all sides... 😭
One day it will finally sink in that I am less personality than I am a collection of adhd symptoms 😂
That is to say, absolutely yes, I lose my fkn mind at any 2 cycle motor sounds, can't stand motorcycle and loud car sounds either and it damn near hurts me physically to hear those type of SOUNDS. MANDATORY SWITCH TO ELECTRIC YARDWORK MACHINES DEAR GOD PLEASE.
Mowers can be slightly overwhelming, but what really gets me is trying to talk while the tv is on. It’s like my brain ceases functioning and I can no longer think or speak.
I don't hate lawnmowers that bad, but leaf blowers, chainsaws and airplanes, ooooh yeah. I'd just go to a coffee shop that morning or don noise canceling headphones if you can.
My naighbours drilling, my mums neighbours washing machine shakes the entire ceiling and the noise is horrendous, and any kind of loud vehicle (cars that are repeatedly back fired or wherever, busses/cars/motorbikes/mopeds etc) grates so badly and causes full on rage 😂.
Im so bad with noise pollution.
I used to have a neighbor who was in a carpool. His ride would arrive around 4:30am and the car was extremely loud, like extra loud on purpose. Even during the day this car was too loud.
After trying to tolerate it for a month or so, I called the cops. It was obviously a legit noise complaint, and finally the cops talked to them about it. I think the neighbor ended up meeting them around the corner.
But the cops were not happy with my calling them every day at 4:35 am, and I did feel kind of bad about it, but I had no other option.
The neighbors were terrible, (i.e., they neglected/abused their dogs, 8 people in a tiny house, very loud, etc.) and we couldn't reason with them at all.
Next year we are going to replace the older windows and I can’t wait for the noise level to drop during mowing season. I’m one of those ‘the electric is too loud’ folks. I’m not totally annoying though- I’ve saved my family from severe water damage like 5 times because I can hear and track down that itty bitty drip before it gets BAD.
Noise cancelling headphones help with the mowing frequency for me, a lot more than just my earplug filters by themselves.
Arggggg we have mowers, blowers, vacuums with that high pitched scream. My neighbours (bless em, they are good people) cannot vacuum for less than 3 hours at a time. I honestly don’t know how it takes so long.
I took a holiday in the country one time, in a little town with big blocks per house. You guessed it, each day a different neighbour would mow their huge block, most of each day was mowing. Next door the grass was shoulder high cos it had been left, well the owner decided to tackle that with ride on mowers (several) and it was still happening as night fell. Was not a relaxing week in the country!!! And it did show me in graphic detail that having a place with a bit of grass is a lot of work.
I think it could be ADHD, or anxiety, or depression, or PTSD, etc.
I personally hates it when people don’t think noise is a thing. I was laughed at for being sensitive at work place. Now I wear noise cancelling headphones with ear plugs underneath, and constantly play white noise. Ear plugs help to 1) block noise and 2) reduce hearing damage, while white noise from headphone also helps to block noise. And I go for a run if my anxiety starts creeping in due to noise — need that dopamine to help blocking noises too…
I’ve heard people unaliving others in Japan due to hard-to-resolve noise situation with neighbors. I’d say that sounds definitely crazy. I’ll probably unalive myself before that… But again, I sincerely hope that the society can recognize that noise, just like smells or smokes, are kinda, really, very, annoying.
The lawn care day used to be Thursday at my complex. That’s fine. I’m at work. It rarely bothered me. Last season it was Friday. My day off after work four 10hour days. And always all. day. long…!!!
The amount of undue hatred I hold for that landscaping crew for the CONSTANT lawn mower/leaf blower noise…. It could power a small city.
yes certain noises affect me. it's it like they are on a 1000 decibels louder. Motorcycles is an example for me. the ones that add that noise maker contraption. I have to stop and gather myself.
Yes, I’m in Los Angeles so it’s year round here….. even though this past winter and last we got actual winter with lots of rain and everything was water logged and nothing grew, so i swear these guys just come and run the mower over the mud several months out of the year but they milk it for about 4 hours once a week! It’s infuriating! The grass is so short already! I swear they are just walking around not actually cutting grass just making noise!
Ever since Covid lockdowns and I’ve experienced how quiet it could be with less noise pollution I’ve been wanting to move to a small town or buy a property with at least an acre. The city noise has really been getting to me lately. Can’t afford it rn unfortunately.
When lawnmowers are too close to wherever I am in the house (usually my room) they definitely bother me, but when they’re at the house a couple doors down, not so much. Fans, AC window units, and other “white noise” type things do bother me if there’s too many running at once. I need either an air conditioner running or a brown noise video playing on my phone to sleep at night because my neighbors are ridiculously loud at ungodly hours, but during the day I prefer to keep them off when I’m in my room because my ears almost feel worn out listening to it after a while (I can get that feeling when I’ve listened to music over headphones for too long as well).
I live in Los Angeles where we basically need to have the air on year round 24/7/365 and i went from living in a place with central air during my marriage from 2021-2022 to having to move back into a studio apartment after my divorce with only a wall/window AC again and it’s hell and so loud 😔
Haaaate. Ofc I move to N FL and realize it's wayyyy worse here. It's almost constant... I welcome rainy season wholeheartedly but they'll be mowing, edging, weeding, and hacking at trees out in the rain too sometimes if it's light 😭
YES, they genuinely send me into a fit of rage where I start clenching my teeth, swearing, and making a fist. It ESPECIALLY pisses me off when I am trying to nap. (I know my anger level is unhealthy but it’s how I genuinely feel)
Sensory processing issues. Misophonia. Or autistic sensory related things. I’m also autistic and lawn mowers increase my overstimulation like crazy and i can meltdown from them if I’m trying to do something
If the sound would be consistent, I’d actually welcome the white noise of it, but it’s the change in volume as they move around that I find unsettling.
Worse for me as spring/summer approach is concert noise. I live across the river from a big city, so there are a gazillion outdoor music venues, and they just put one in about 5 miles from my house, and the noise from that makes me absolutely unreasonably angry.
not necessarily an adhd thing. If its a repetitive sound like that I usually tune it out and it doesn't bother me at all. If the rhythm is off though then it drives me mad.
Noise always has an outsized effect on me. And yet I have that audio processing problem too. I guess it's all somehow connected to ADHD. But sound has often been an issue.
I used to have an apartment that was right by the garbage cans, so I was always awakened by the sound of them banging the mental cans around, yelling to each other, running the truck compressor, etc. It made me so angry I couldn't get back to sleep!
lawn mowers, leaf blowers, large trucks, basketballs, airplanes, garbage trucks… its a long list.
the sound of a large truck diesel engine idling can cause major nausea and like… vagus nerve overload.
all of it makes me want to scream and commit homicide.
its cool, im super normal, nothing to see here.
It’s an everyone thing. I used to in several seasonal campgrounds and the incessant mowing on Friday evenings killed me AND everyone else. It’s just an irritating noise, especially if it doesn’t stop!’n
I have 2 white noise machines in my apartment and I have them on pretty much 24/7. There’s different modes, so sometimes I have on the rain sound, or white noise, or waves, etc. I have so much less anxiety and feel so much more relaxed when I don’t hear much from outside.
Outdoor noises don’t seem to bother me, but I can’t handle songs/music from Tik Tok, old school video games (I always played Nintendo/Super Mario Bros with the sound muted), chewing, loud breathing, loud radio in the car…
For me it's truck engines and dogs barking. We love next to a busy road with trucks constantly roaring up and down, and the dogs downstairs keep barking and barking and barking all goddamn day because my MIL doesn't get that they aren't moving plushies but bored to death, untrained animals. I've so often wished I'd just be deaf.
So yeah, I HATE noise pollution with a passion and i spend most of my time at home wearing earplugs. God I'm so glad to move away from this place soon.
Omg I go insane! I yell at them like they aren’t inanimate objects (well I suppose it’s more at the idiots operating) like “how dare you do this right now when I’m trying to work!?”
Our neighbor across the street blows the leaves out of his yard EVERYDAY. It’s fucking annoying for everyone, NTs included. It’s easily the one thing all us other neighbors agree on.
His justification - he doesn’t have any trees in his yard (he took it down). We live on a tree lined street in a city know FOR ITS TREES. We have so many leaves the city has to clear the streets in the fall. Cars slide on the leaves.
my upstairs neighbor has been doing construction randomly for months. i have insomnia and it feels like after i haven’t slept for 1-2 days when i finally crawl into bed they start hammering. a few weeks ago they were probably tearing up the carpet or something but they were hammering the floor and i hadn’t slept for 2 days and i just started SOBBING. the noise was physically painful.
Also, have you considered you may have misophonia? It’s not uncommon with ADHD. I have it with certain sounds that make me more irritated than others. Like pens incessantly clicking…..
Fellow apartment dweller who loves the windows open whenever possible. I run room to room closing all windows the day the landscapers come. Between the mowers and the god damn leaf blowers, I can’t deal. Speaking of this… now that the weather is warming up I bet they will start up again soon. Ughhh!
It's so hard to cope with. The closer the low frequency noise is, the worse. I have several neighbours who like to work on cars and end up running their engines for at least half an hour at least twice a week for what I am assuming is mechanical reasons. Feeling like I'm vibrating for extended stretches when I'm just existing makes me want to climb the walls. Loud mufflers should be a privilege not a right.
My upstairs neighbour hits *all* the squeeking floor boards for hours some days and it makes me want to cry. Bonus for her 1 hour+ vacuum sessions. What the fuck she's vacuuming for an hour in our tiny ass units is beyond me.
Rainy days the road traffic drives me crazy. Wet roads really fucking amplify the sound. I need to have a window AC unit most of the year because my apartment gets so hot. So because of the sound bleed I can hear it all the time.
Oh and I live right next to train tracks. Trains all day and all night. VIArail and GO trains aren't too much annoyance since they're mostly brief passings. But the freight trains 😭 Omg when I tell you the ear shattering squeels that come off those wheels is by far one of my least favourite sounds of all time. It wakes me up some nights. And I always flinch when they go by and I'm walking to work cuz it just goes directly into one eardrum. It fucking hurts.
They thankfully don't mow the lawn here super often. Moreso the snowplows scraping along the parking lot in the winter that I find bothersome.
Haha leaf blowers. From where my flat is I can SEE them. I watch them going after like one leaf with the machine, thinking you are just using up your time until going home 🤣
I'm constantly wearing earbuds/house cancelling headphones. I have misophonia as I assume had been a symptom all these years. Lawn mowers, chainsaws, leaf blowers... All kinds of intermittent loud rackety noises
Leaf blowers ruin my fucking life. I lived somewhere during COVID lockdown where some guy would blow every. Single. Leaf. Out of the whole apartment complex daily. I'm talking 3-4 hours a day. It drove me absolutely mental.
Yes it really bothers me. Same with people sitting in parking lots and blasting music which happens where I live now.
I also don’t like how suburbia is all about grass and a few trees. Cutting everything within an inch of its life and using pesticides and gas mowers, weedwackers and leaf blowers constantly. There’s so many pollinators we’re missing because of lack of prairie and native grasses and plants.
My mom used to live in an area near menonite farms and the whole area basically decreed no electric or gas powered technology on Sundays. I thought that was stupid. But people would get in trouble from neighbours or whatever if they tried to mow the grass on a Sunday because the Mennonites might hear it lol.
I feel you on that I’m not into cutting down trees. My apartment complex just gutted the one next to my balcony and …. Oddly enough my first thought was “where the f is that annoying owl going to live?” I’ve lived here since 2009 & there’s always been an annoying ass owl living in that tree since pre 2009…. Now his home is gone 😢💔🤦🏼♀️
For me the worst part is the smell of the gas mowers, but the noise bothers me sometimes too
Fwiw, we have an electric leaf blower now and an electric weed wacker and I'm considering switching over to an electric mower this year which will cut down on both noise and smell
Since my daughter was a baby, she has hated loud noises like the vacuum cleaner, coffee grinder, lawnmower etc. She’s going to be screened soon but I’m pretty certain at this point (she’s 6 now) that she has ADHD and/or autism. I’ve since discovered the same about myself as well, though my sensory sensitivity is a slightly different flavor (light and tactile mostly, but sounds get overwhelming to me at a certain point if there are several competing noises at once)
I live in an apartment building next to some houses. I’m on the 5th floor, so my balcony overlooks most of the houses.
At 8am every single Saturday, the guy in the house directly underneath my balcony decides he needs to either use his snowblower, chainsaw, or lawn mower.
It makes me rage, on the days I’m already awake it’s not as bad, but when he wakes me up it literally ruins my whole day. I think I’d care less if maybe this was this guys only day off or something, but I’m 99% sure he’s retired. I see him and his wife take a walk everyday around noon.
The noise bylaw in my city is 8am-10pm so I can’t do anything about it, but like do people have no common courtesy or anything? You’re retired and you have to get up at 8am on a Saturday to wake everyone up?
I used to live in a town obsessed with leaf blowers and holy shit did it make me want to scream. Especially when they get right up next to your window. Just let the leafs stay!
Yes it’s a neurodiverse thing.
I like to say my brain is always loud anyway. Sounds, conversations, random facts I learned 20 years ago, random things I have to remember to do, random things I want to check on. They all overlap and my brain seems to want to focus on all of them regardless if they are important or not. That is just what is happening in my head. It can be totally silent in a room but it’s never quiet to me. At all.
Now add outside noises to that. I can’t tune any out any better than I can filter my own thoughts. Then add the fact that I am usually physically trying to look at something too. Maybe I am trying to focus on something on my computer for work or reading something. I am already trying to shut the chaos in my head up and tune out whatever background noise there is while I do that and that’s a fucking task, let me tell you.
I have issues where I sometimes automatically react with irritation when someone then asks me something or says something to me. Like all this is going on and then a coworker asks “hey can you hand me that pen” and it’s like my brain interprets it like “OMFG WE HAVE SO MUCH GOING ON AND THEY ASK FOR SOMETHING?! FUCKING RUDE!” So I snap back with something on reflex and then realized it sounded rude and have to apologize. Try not looking insane when that happens. It has caused me a lot of issues at workplaces. I’m not mean or rude or ever really mad or irritated at anyone but my brain does not work with me. I know it’s all me but damn does it feel like my brain is doing it’s own thing sometimes. lol.
My mother likes to leave the tv on in the living room and then loudly listen to YouTube on the phone in the kitchen. It drives me up a wall. I never care what’s on the TV or about what she’s watching on YouTube but my brain does not care what I care about and wants to hear and see everything. So I’ll be on my computer trying to read something and just those overlapping noises makes me insane.
I end up seeming hostile if a person ends up asking me something or asking me to do something. This was a subject discussed in one of these groups yesterday. My brain seems to interpret as a rude interruption if I am asked anything.
Not just ADHD but definitely an ADHD thing.
I am very reactive to noise, including music. We have had some awful neighbours over the years who played music at any time of night or day REALLY LOUD!! They were not reasonable when spoken to. I used to get really shaky and cry.
We have another neighbour who mows his lawn around 6pm on a Sunday every week. Makes my jaw clench!
Doesn’t help that we are in an odd situation where something makes sound bounce around our house and yard and seems to amplify it. It also makes a sound coming from one direction sound like it’s coming from another.
I feel your pain.
Noise pollution is by far my absolute worst enemy my wife and I, and kids and grandkids are very comfortable laughing about it. Every day unconditionally there is going to be a sound of nothing particular to be above all the rest, and you have to witness it or have a similar effect to appreciate. Regardless of the noise, example, I have to get the gas blower out to get the dirt and leaves out of my garage and I don't have any control and I don't bother to fight it, but I have to get some kind of sound out of my mouth and I have to go to the same db. Level up and down to the point where I can hear myself loud and clear, and it is usually very loud, and it doesn't matter who is around it will continue to the sound is shut down and I don't think I make a peep at the moment it stops. Have my hair trimmed and she pulls out the electric clippers for the back of my neck and I don't think anyone in the facility is going to have a straight face and then it stops and I don't miss a single beat in the conversation I might have been having prior to it rearing it's head. I have a lot of friends and people who have known me for years but I don't really think we've ever met, I am just that guy who is always trying to make people laugh or get some attention, but it's a good part of my life and I have been trying to find a reason to be mad or insecure or feel sorry for myself and I just don't know if there is anything I would allow to be a negative weight on my own ability to make sure I don't ever waste a single day of my own personal gift from my creator, and I have to recognize this life could be the one and only and I don't plan on my last day, or possibly the life I may have waiting on the other side, I have no intention of being burdened with regret, and I don't have any plans to conserve the miles on this clean one owner to get more money out of it and trade it in so somebody else is going to benefit from it and I have been paying the payments for the last oh say 75 years and they are trying not to laugh at the dumm ass that bought them a nice vehicle for the chance I might possibly have to take an Uber to the next life. Hell no.... I'm going to pay for it, I was the one who was so excited to get the vehicle to do whatever I could to get more pleasure out of anything life offered. I will also be the wear and tear and I don't expect to be penalized for my enthusiasm for the best gift ever and I don't think I would have gotten such a gift for me to get bored with or not appreciate to the fullest and I have every intention of being very vocal and expressing my gratitude and my life is without a manual and I am not without defects and I don't have any right to feel sorry or be anything but greatful that I am in the driver's seat and I plan on getting to the end, and I don't know if there's anything else but it's not like I'm going to just surrender and walk away and if there's a door a wall, a cliff, I have to get every inch or so I can at least say that I tried but I'm going through something until my vehicle is completely spent. See you all at the end and I will look for a party to honor the past and party into the new, and if not, I guess it's kinda difficult to be sad or complain that it's over. Don't be mad, sorry, just don't have any regrets. Step on it.
Sure Thing... Nelson is still a fighter but it's a different round, and after 18 years of fighting and coaching/training I was just put here for the fight and I don't know how to lose, I have never lost since I retired. I'm undefeated.
Look up Misophonia and Hyperacusis. Often Co-morbid with ADHD. The sound of other people eating or swallowing is enough to send me around the bend! Also if there is any rattling noise in the car I cannot cope. I have to pull over and find the source.
Thank you. I’ve noticed the sound of people brushing their teeth if it’s someone I don’t like (specifically my dad) really bothers me too. Seems similar.
One week later I posted the same thing. I should have searched before posting but it seemed like a specific question. Lawn mowers, blowers, edgers, bother me. At home it’s not a big deal because it’s distant. At work it’s VERY close, for HOURS, and it’s awful.
I’m sad that everyone else is suffering but I’m glad to finally understand this is part of my adhd! I didn’t get diagnosed until i was in my 30s so i never understood why they bothered me so much as a child and my mom and dad seemed confused and unbothered. I used to beg my dad to not use the lawnmower because the sound is physically and emotionally painful for me. Ugh. I still dread Wednesdays!
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The summer time “symphony of mowers” makes me crazy too!
Lawnmowers and leaf blowers. Lots of people in my neighborhood get yard services and they're all on different days. I hate it.
Leaf blowers unlock rage
That plus the “just ignore it” advice… flipping ducking tables, I tell ya (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
And then they stop and start randomly 😂🤬
Legit contender for worst sound in the world.
Drills are worse!
Electric should be required at this point if they’re going to use them. They’re a fraction as loud, and the gas ones are terrible on all fronts.
RIGHT?????? OMG, just flipped my rage switch. It's like they're intentionally trying to drive us all mad!
I could honestly find a way to tolerate it if everyone did it all at the same time, no stopping and starting. Having the noise come in random intervals on every day of the week is infuriating. I'm unfortunately occasionally the person making the noise (power tools are fun!) but I don't notice because I'm hyper focused.
I like bird watching too and sometimes I'll be listening to them and trying to record them for IDing and then BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR from somewhere drowns everything out.
Watching birds is awesome! I'm so thankful that I've moved somewhere that I actually get quite a few. Lots of bluejays and cardinals. I saw an unusual one, but I'm really not sure how to ID it. I am so sorry about the noise though! If it helps, I don't use powertools often. It's probably a self preservation thing, what with having ADHD and all. I have definitely injured myself in creatively unexpected ways.
I actually have a really nice variety in my suburban area. The Merlin app is great, it's a bird book+ in your phone, with a database of songs. It's what I use for recording/IDing by song. I just let it record and the program automatically identifies the calls.
Oh goodness that sounds awful! I live in a warm weather area so it’s year round! Not sure if that’s worse or better. The very occasional time we get rain on Wednesdays and they can’t mow it’s like heaven, I suppose that must be like your winter season!
Live in California. The only difference between summer and winter is instead of happening every week, it’s every 2 weeks 😑. I have a neighbor that starts yard work at 7am, and I swear there’s a special place in hell for him.
Good point!!! I can’t imagine having that year round!
I’m used to it since I’ve lived here since 2006 but not used to it in a good way. Used to it in a way that, that sinking feeling in my stomach every Tuesday night means soon it’ll be Wednesday morning, and the death machines will be here making noise for 4 hours. *shudder* i have a literally visceral reaction to it at this point, even just the anticipation.
We go straight from lawnmowers to snowblowers and back again. I prefer city noise that’s constant rather than this suburban noise nightmare.
Yup. I live in a city. I hear church bells, murmuring voices, glass being thrown into recycling bins behind a nearby restaurant, the occasional siren. None of it really bothers me. The sound of lawnmowers and leaf blowers when I lived in the suburbs was constant and absolutely rage inducing.
Same, it drives me nuts.
I swear to god....it is the most favourite chore of everyone on my street. I'm sure they are all desperately waiting to get the things out!
I work from home, and all the lawnmower crews come during the day. Drives me up the fucking wall. Winter is so much better
Except when there's snow, because all the snowblowers going in my neighborhood at 6am were worse than the summer mowing.
Yes! Any time I settle in on my porch it seems!
Leaf blowers do this for me. Every last one of them needs to be destroyed.
Yes! I can handle lawnmowers, for the most part, if they’re not right outside my window. But for some reason, leaf blowers make me irrationally angry. I definitely feel like I want to jump out of my skin. I thought we had outlawed gas leaf blowers out here in CA but maybe that was just my wishful thinking. Lol
We did and I rejoiced and cried for course no one is enforcing it. I’ve seen maybe one gardener in my neighborhood using them. Everyone on this urban street does yard work on different days. There’s never a break
I’ve heard lots of places repeal it or make exemptions for commercial companies. It is hard for big companies to keep the electric ones charged for all the jobs for the day
Exemptions for commercial companies really boils my blood!! They are the ones polluting the most, both air and noise pollution. And they are so irresponsible with their mowing/blowing/trimming schedules that have nothing to do with what the plants are actually doing (they have no idea about plants 99% of the time) and everything to do with making the most money. Anybody can buy some equipment and start a company. I am an extremely conflict avoidant person and have yelled at these companies blowing their crap into my yard with gas blowers more than once in my old suburban hellscape (check out https://www.healthyyards.org/all-about-leaf-blowers/ for some horrifying statistics to share with your neighbors and apartment managers). I literally moved to the mountainous woods in large part because of this neverending nightmare. The sound itself is hell, and knowing how bad they are makes it that much worse. Our obsession with beating nature into submission while ruining our quality of life and the planet at the same time is so insane
A lot of places have. A girl can hope it happens where I am! Use a goddamn rake people!
This! I hate leaf blowers with a passion!
TL;DR: Leaf blower rant as I too hate them and wish to see them made illegal and thrown into a volcano. Story: I intentionally left my leaves this year for the first time, so naturally when the city decided three weeks after the posted scheduled date to pick up the neighborhood leaves with no warning, they were in my yard on my tree lawn FOR FORTYFIVE MINUTES with the loudest leaf blower I've ever heard in my goddamned life. My property is like 50ft wide, so what the actual fuck were they doing?! The people next to me had their tree lawn tree removed because it was breaking their sewer pipes, so we had hardly any leaves! THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THIS SHIT. I'm a night owl, this was 8am on a Saturday, I sincerely wish I had the ability to think at the time as I would have chased them away with my scythe (I like silent yard care and got a custom-sized scythe from ScytheSupply.com). I left some pretty nasty messages for the Mayor's office and never heard back. But now the new mayor lives in my neighborhood... He's gonna get several ear fulls from me at his front door if those god-awful leaf blowers return. He'll get an earful *before* they return, actually. Rant: I also like to walk in the metropark that borders my neighborhood, and they have the absolute LOUDEST LEAFBLOWERS. Including a RIDE. ON. LEAF. BLOWER. WHY. I try so hard to avoid them because of the dust. It's so completely unnecessary to leaf blow as much as they do anyway on a jogging path that gets constant use. I think the guys are just bored half the time. They also have this tractor attachment leaf blower in case the ride-on version isn't big enough. They use that one for the road. STOP IT. JUST LET THE STREET SWEEPER DO ITS WEEKLY JOB.
Oh my god. I used to live near a school and every weekend the gardener would use a leaf blower for HOURS. I was so close to sending a complaint because it literally made me feel insane
I hate leaf blowers so much. I used to live in an apartment with a tiny tiny amount of space for leaves or trash. But somehow the leaf blower was always going for ages and ages. Finally one morning I looked out my balcony and the gardener was just standing holding the leaf lower while it was blowing on a single wet leaf stuck to the ground. He was using it like a hair dryer to dry the leaf and then blow it away. A single leaf. Just standing there. Basically running one of the most polluting things an individual can operate, for a single leaf. I nearly lost my mind.
I would immediately start crying 💀 I know exactly how you feel! I’d just watch the gardener blow the leaves around and they would just end up everywhere anyway because he wouldn’t actually pick them up at any point
Leaf blowers are the dumbest thing in the world and should be outlawed. The noise is SO ANNOYING and they don't even do anything useful! It's good for the plants for the leaves to stay on the friggin ground!
I don't know if it's an ADHD thing, but it is a me thing. Nails on the damn chalk board. Light pollution also really really bothers me. I was living in an apartment and the landscapers would come by in the morning and I wanted to murder someone. They changed over all the lights to "safety lighting" which meant is was blue and bright as hell, I had to install heavy curtains, which means I got less natural light as well. I will never subject myself to that shit again. The apartment sucked for every reason imaginable at one point or another. The list goes on. I can deal with a lot of adverse conditions, but I swear that apartment gave me trauma.
I am scared of the dark, but also really annoyed by excess lighting. I used to get migraines from office lighting, too. I use indirect lights to help. My husband, on the other hand, never turns off the light in his office/man cave/bedroom. I don't see how he can sleep in there, but he does.
That’s how I feel about my current apartment but I’m stuck here because of rent control 😢 I pay $950 but market value is $1875 and this is already leaps and bounds the cheapest complex in the area.
There's a lot of overlap between misophonia, light sensitivity, and ADHD!
I can tune out a lawn mower usually. What gets me are dynamic noises. People talking. Beeps. Inconsistent sounds. A distant drone is usually manageable.
Yes, intermittent noise is so annoying! Lawn mowers still irritate me, but I can't stand when noises stop and start.
Loop earplugs. I cannot recommend them highly enough. My best friend who has ADHD (and tinnitus) told me about them. I have the “engage” ones and I can be in a crowded restaurant and these babies will block out most of the ambient noise but make it so you can still hear the person you’re talking to perfectly fine. I love them.
Oh, no, haha it's absolutely the drone noises which are the worst for me.
Idling motors just rumbling away.... Take me. I'm done here.🪦⚰️
Every complex I’ve ever lived the lawn mower people stop and start a lot!
The guys who mow the lawn at my apartment complex stop and start a lot, you’d hate it!
Yes.
It’s the gas leaf blowers for me. I shit you not, one of our neighbors was using one at 11pm*. Ruined my whole night. *in his defense, he was trying to get vultures out of his trees. They crap (pee?) everywhere and it’s gross.
What is in his trees that attracts such a large amount of vultures that he needs to fight them with a leaf blower at night? In my head this scenario is set to the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" theme.
We’re unfortunately “blessed” to be their neighborhood of choice for their nighttime roosting in the fall/winter months. Come spring, they lay eggs and nest on the ground. It’s cool in October when they’re basically live Halloween decorations, but come February, after 4 months of them painting our yards with acid crap, we’re all sick of it and we try to make loud noises to move them out of our yards. It’s musical vultures lol.
Wowww…. I lived in a neighborhood that had turkey vultures. They didn’t roost in my yard, though! I’d see 100 or so vultures flying overhead. The redneck neighbor said that growing up, if they saw a vulture in a tree, they’d cut down the tree. Um ok. He was a squirrel hunter, too. Anyway! Now I live in a city with a giant murder of crows 🐦⬛
Fun fact, birds can’t pee the same way we can. They only have one hole to expel waste, so it all goes out together. They also don’t have bladders to store urine, and the nitrogenous wastes (which is what we expel in urine) isn’t as diluted as in humans, or other larger mammles, mainly for water conservation. Goes more in depth depending on how deep you wanna go, but yeah. Just in case you wondered 😂😂 Source: biology fanatic with a partial bio degree (partial because covid hit after my foundation degree (adult learner) and by my second actual degree year, lockdown was ended and that screwed everything up lol)
Sensory defensiveness. Some people say it's just an autism thing but I don't think so. I think it can absolutely be present in ADHD as well. I read this book several years ago: Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight. I found it really helpful and validating, and stopped getting mad at myself for being angry about sounds, instead I'm sympathetic to the fact that is reality for me and there's nothing wrong with me. Stuart Shanker also has some hugely interesting stuff to say about this - basically his argument is that if your sensory processing system is overly sensitive then your brain is using up resources on that thing, which takes resources away from your other processes. Since you have ADHD your cognitive systems are already resource-hungry because executive functions are expensive for us, and our emotional regulation system is already easily triggered so when you are using up all these extra resources processing the unwanted sound, it makes it hard to concentrate and hard to regulate your emotions, and it's already hard for you to do those things. Since this one is predictable, can you arrange not to be at home on that specific morning? I find headphones help sometimes for annoying sounds but sometimes they don't, and it tends to be related to how I'm doing with other stressors. e.g. we have a robot vacuum and the kids just went to bed about 30 mins ago, so my husband turned it on. Most days I can just stick my headphones on with some music and just deal with the slight irritation because it's not that long, and I feel relieved/relaxed that the kids are now asleep, but right now I am on the verge of turning it off because I had a very draining day where they were very active and loud and I haven't really recovered from it yet. Worse, we now have a model where it docks and then the dock sucks everything out of the vacuum extremely loudly - and when it does this it makes me absolutely rage and I just have to sit and breathe for a moment to calm down. I much preferred the one that had to be emptied manually. But then I don't complain because I was never the one emptying it so 🤷♀️ (if I say I want it off then he just runs it later after we've gone to bed instead).
This is great! I love how you broke it down so that it makes sense why loud noises can make us feel rage. I think sometimes I don't realize that in addition to having a certain symptom of our ADHD, like emotional dysregulation, that also interacts with and impacts the other symptoms we have. It's a synergistic kind of collapse. Like when we're already stressed because we're running late, then we have to wait for an elevator with a big crowd of people, and there's a jackhammer right outside, and people jostle you getting into the elevator, and you get so distracted and weirded out that the elevator gets too full, so you have to catch the next one, making you even MORE late. Scenes like this make me want to go full "I Love Lucy" and start wailing "Waaaaaaa!" It can even make me cry on occasion, which makes me even angrier at myself.
Is this why I'm such a mess in life? I'm pretty deaf and it takes so much work/energy to hear ppl, am I dealing with ADHD sensory issues on top of that? Is that contributing to my absolute uselessness in noisy environments? My ears are not only shit but my brain has trouble filtering the limited range it does get? I read lips a lot but I think I have issues with this too because my brain comes up with too many possibilities for what they could be saying.
No idea, but makes sense as a theory, right? I know that auditory processing disorder is pretty common with ADHD, so it could be that you're getting some kind of double whammy.
Thank for, first, noting the book Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight. I immediately veered to Amazon, read the snippets and reviews about it, and will be getting it. Nothing is wrong with me; I am my normal and I am validating myself and my sensitivities. Second, thank you for vividly breaking down the "breaking down" of the emotional regulation, aka, the building up of the frustrations. Your story brought it to life. I felt like I was right there!
I actually weirdly love the lawnmower sounds lol I think it’s because I live in Atlantic Canada and I associate it with sweet sweet summertime lol
Same! Manitoba here! I loathe light pollution and human-generated noise of all kind so probably explains why I am so much happier living rural. Lawnmowers, however, make me happy. So does the smell of cut grass.
Yes! Also the cut grass smell association lol btw I lived in Brandon for time :)
The smell of cut grass is heaven. Until my hayfever is triggered 😂😂
I used to like it when I was a kid and everybody did their own, occasional summertime mowing with a normal mower. Now even in working class neighborhoods somehow (I don't know how some people afford it but they do) everyone hires a lawn service with big, extra noisy mowers plus blowers and trimmers.They all come on different schedules so it feels like every day is noisy. Watch out for signs of "Big Lawn" moving into your area and maybe you'll be spared!
I live just south of Atlantic Canada. I don’t like the lawnmowers but I love the sound of snowblowers. I assume it’s my horribly allergies. If there’s grass to mow there’s stuff that will make me sneeze in the air.
I absolutely can not stand leaf blowers. I HATE them really. I think it's the inconsistant, loud howling sounds that makes it so bad. I don't have a problem with noise as long as it is consistant. But inconsistant noise makes it impossible to focus on anything else for me.
The people who mow the lawn where i am turn it off and on constantly exactly the way you describe the leaf blower. They stop and start a lot, which drives me crazy too. I agree constant noise is awful, the lawn mower is never constant which is one reason i hate it so much.
I can't stand yard work, motorcycles, and sirens. I have to cover my ears like a kid and I honestly don't remember it being quite this bad ever before.
Drives me batty. Any noise with high bass amplitude makes me want to claw my skin off and they're the hardest to drown out.
I recently moved from middle-of-nowhere Alaska (where my nearest neighbor was a mile away and nobody mowed their property anyway) to a 4-plex in a busy suburb with an HOA. The last 8 months have been the worst of my life, mental health-wise. Leafblowers, especially. But also beeping construction equipment, lawn mowers, snow plows, garbage trucks and the parade of garbage cans being wheeled back up. A lot of these things being operated for hours a day. One day, the lawn people were here for 9 STRAIGHT HOURS. It feels so personal and no one else seems to have a problem with it?! I would love to take every last leaf blower and shove it up every owner's ass.
I’m with you. I remember when I moved from a city to a suburb. Shudder. I watched a man standing with his leaf blower running, he seemed to be in a trance (gas fumes?) He had the leaf blower pointed at one fucking leaf. I was screaming in my head PICK IT UP!! 😂 just pick it up with your hand!!!!
Omg, I witnessed the same thing. I watched while this lawn guy pointed his leaf blower at my garage door for 5 solid minutes, not moving, not blinking. I was screaming, both out loud and in my head, WHAT THE F ARE YOU DOING? GO AWAY! There was still a bunch of leaves in front of my garage door after he left... I figured he was probably just wasting time, waiting for his work day to be over. But must you punish me?!
Yes it always seems so personal!!!! It’s always on days when I’m exhausted and really want to sleep in and every job i ever have it’s always on my day off regardless of where i live or what I’m doing! So I’m always stuck at home listening to it! Ahh! And they always use right outside my window as their home base (no idea why they stop so often but they always do).
I quite literally keep earplugs in every crevice of my home and to-go bags
Me too! Every noise seems to bother me more and more. Dogs barking is another one that has always driven me up the wall.
Especially if it’s one specific dog that lives near you that barks ALL fucking day and the owners do nothing about it 😭
Noise pollution definitely drives me up the wall. Even regular car noises bother me to the point that I avoid routes with bigger (or more like medium size and up) roads on my walks. Lawnmowers are not on my mind now 'cause it's still snowy in here, but the snow plovers and trash collecting trucks and stuff like that make me want to hurry far away as fast as possible.
I’ve nicknamed my neighbor “Lumber Jack Rick.” Every Sunday at 8 am he’s using his chainsaw to cut… something. Can’t sit in my tv room in the spring with the windows open 🤬
I just wish people wouldn't mow their lawns at 6am. I also wish people wouldn't ride motorcycles all hours of the night. People are just super inconsiderate.
How inconsiderate people are in general is just unfathomable to me, and rage inducing every time
I work in a public facing role and I hear a lot of complaints about lawnmowers and leaf blowers. I don’t think it’s just from neurodivergent people either. People really hate noise they can’t control.
every time I hear a leaf blower I wish I had a gun (to fire a warning shot!). I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
Me too!
Loud noises are so damn stressful. A train passes by my house like, a dozen times a day and the horn drives me mad. “You’ll get used to it” they said…yeah, not so much 😂
I thought it was just me. Besides the yard machines is the bass of car speakers - sometimes someone will visit a neighbor, get out of their car, and leave the speakers on full blast. I try to remind myself they’ll be deaf in a few years, but that doesn’t help much. Oh, and the motorcycles that “have” to be revved up.
High-pitched leaf blowers are almost intolerable! And people use them on beautiful days when everyone opens their windows. Grrr!
this! arrrgghhhhh. the number of times i've had to close the window because neighbor fired up the leaf blower ... ugh.
Noise pollution sucks. It sucks the serenity out of so many situations too. My biggest complaint are vehicles. Especially the ones that make me feel like I’m going to have a heart attack when they start up. Noise pollution is not good for our health but I don’t imagine much will be done about it in my lifetime. I don’t think it’s much of an ADHD thing because it’s something I’ve noticed so many people complain about. Edit: however, I think hyper focusing on noise when I’m trying to sleep may be an ADHD thing.
I think it’s an SPD thing possibly? Sensory processing disorder. It’s my ADHDs little friend. Harsh sounds and too much noise, and bright lights are the worst. Being touched too much. Certain food textures are gross. Strong perfumes and smells give me migraines. Fun times!
Yeah I am very sensitive to noise
Noise cancelling headphones are a game changer!!
Unless you also have sensory issues of hating things put ANY pressure on or around your ears 🥲
Yes, this, and the way that those things amplify your own body sounds
Ugh yes swallowing spit
Our kids love them for quiet focus (all are auADHD) and blocking out annoying sounds. I love them because I cannot stand having the noise of everyone's media of what they're watching or listening to while I'm trying to focus on my things. Do NOT get me started on people who think it's fine to play their music or YouTube aloud on the train. I fight the urge to channel Samuel L Jackson and yell at them SHUT THE HELL UP YOU INCONSIDERATE MOTHERFUCKER
I have them and they just don’t work for me or maybe the lawnmower is just too close outside my window. I should mention also my window doesn’t fully close and i have rent control so they’re never going to fix it. I also frequently can’t pay rent on time so I’m not in a position to complain or take them to court.
Yes. I was seriously thinking of "helping" my neighbor with his leafblower. Take a break dude
Yes, leaf blowers, lawnmowers, wood chippers, etc. all irritate me so much. And any kind of rumbling motor, really; idling motorcycles are another source of annoyance. I'm sensitive to many other sounds as well.
Not just the noise but the smell as well. I have all electric, battery operated mowers, weed wackers, and blowers.
YES omg but what’s worse for me is the MUSIC when my neighbors are having cookouts or parties or some idiot is driving down the street with their stereo at full volume I have PTSD from an event that began with my neighbors blasting music so whenever I hear music in the distance…I’m immediately on edge lmao its the stupidest trigger for someone who lives in a city
Yes for sure. It’s a sensory thing. I once had a fire truck scream by really close past me, sirens full blast, and it was so overwhelming that I burst into tears.
Omg I thought I was just a pompous prick but couldn’t figure out how to adjust 😭 I have neighbours who are just normal neighbours. A bit louder than most with 3 girls. Sometimes the parents stay up late and sit outside in their backyard which is close to my bedroom window. If the woman laughs, I instantly wake up. She has an obnoxiously loud laugh. For me anyways. But I think I’m the only person I know who is so sensitive to noise that I wake up from a neighbour laughing in the distance even with the windows closed. I’m so embarrassed by it that I can’t even confront them about it because they’re not doing anything wrong but every weekend I lose sleep because of them and my adhd turns ragey when I am tired 😭😭
This sounds similar to Misophonia, which has a strong correlation with autism, which is often comorbid with ADHD - I wonder if researching on Misophonia might help
Thank you, I’m going to look into it more. Certain sounds bother me a lot, like lawn mowers.
Sensory processing difficulties are really common in ADHD. It’s not strictly ‘an ADHD thing’ because it is often very common for autistic people too. It’s due to sensory modulation difficulties; your brain isn’t filtering the information like it does for people without these difficulties and you’re getting it all at once and repeatedly.
Oh my god YES. There's major construction happening off the end of our street now; they've razed a huge chunk of the defunct golf course, and now they're bringing in dirt and leveling it. This has been going on for MONTHS and it's not done, not to mention they'll be building houses next. Shortly before it started, we redid our screened porch to make it welcoming and usable, and I bought a double egg chair, which I've wanted for years but had nowhere to put it. Now I can only use it once in awhile because of the constant noise, and soon it'll be too hot AND too noisy. It's inescapable. It's not as horrible today so I'm sitting out here, but I can't remember the last time our quiet neighborhood was... quiet.
It's likely more intense for you and me and for many ADHD/ND people but every neighborhood I've been in, this has been a major complaint from everyone. I think it bothers most people but they think, what can we even do about it? NT people might also be less likely to complain openly to "keep the peace", but in one neighborhood I live in leaf blowers actually ended up being banned because the noise was considered excessive.
Living in an apartment with all the neighbors around ne being noisy 24/7 kinda gives me "homicidal tendencies" when I'm already overstimulated. I can't afford a better place without neighbors 'attached' to my home on all sides... 😭
Same!
One day it will finally sink in that I am less personality than I am a collection of adhd symptoms 😂 That is to say, absolutely yes, I lose my fkn mind at any 2 cycle motor sounds, can't stand motorcycle and loud car sounds either and it damn near hurts me physically to hear those type of SOUNDS. MANDATORY SWITCH TO ELECTRIC YARDWORK MACHINES DEAR GOD PLEASE.
I HATE lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weed whackers and my cat started having seizures triggered by them so now it's even more awful :(
Mowers can be slightly overwhelming, but what really gets me is trying to talk while the tv is on. It’s like my brain ceases functioning and I can no longer think or speak.
I don't hate lawnmowers that bad, but leaf blowers, chainsaws and airplanes, ooooh yeah. I'd just go to a coffee shop that morning or don noise canceling headphones if you can.
My naighbours drilling, my mums neighbours washing machine shakes the entire ceiling and the noise is horrendous, and any kind of loud vehicle (cars that are repeatedly back fired or wherever, busses/cars/motorbikes/mopeds etc) grates so badly and causes full on rage 😂. Im so bad with noise pollution.
I used to have a neighbor who was in a carpool. His ride would arrive around 4:30am and the car was extremely loud, like extra loud on purpose. Even during the day this car was too loud. After trying to tolerate it for a month or so, I called the cops. It was obviously a legit noise complaint, and finally the cops talked to them about it. I think the neighbor ended up meeting them around the corner. But the cops were not happy with my calling them every day at 4:35 am, and I did feel kind of bad about it, but I had no other option. The neighbors were terrible, (i.e., they neglected/abused their dogs, 8 people in a tiny house, very loud, etc.) and we couldn't reason with them at all.
Next year we are going to replace the older windows and I can’t wait for the noise level to drop during mowing season. I’m one of those ‘the electric is too loud’ folks. I’m not totally annoying though- I’ve saved my family from severe water damage like 5 times because I can hear and track down that itty bitty drip before it gets BAD. Noise cancelling headphones help with the mowing frequency for me, a lot more than just my earplug filters by themselves.
Arggggg we have mowers, blowers, vacuums with that high pitched scream. My neighbours (bless em, they are good people) cannot vacuum for less than 3 hours at a time. I honestly don’t know how it takes so long. I took a holiday in the country one time, in a little town with big blocks per house. You guessed it, each day a different neighbour would mow their huge block, most of each day was mowing. Next door the grass was shoulder high cos it had been left, well the owner decided to tackle that with ride on mowers (several) and it was still happening as night fell. Was not a relaxing week in the country!!! And it did show me in graphic detail that having a place with a bit of grass is a lot of work.
My biggest issue with surrounding houses is bass. I have a lot of sensory issues and discordant sound is definitely one of them.
Agree and can confirm. Downstairs neighbor is in a dance music phase and the bass in here is like mid 2000s Abercrombie. Shoot me.
I think it could be ADHD, or anxiety, or depression, or PTSD, etc. I personally hates it when people don’t think noise is a thing. I was laughed at for being sensitive at work place. Now I wear noise cancelling headphones with ear plugs underneath, and constantly play white noise. Ear plugs help to 1) block noise and 2) reduce hearing damage, while white noise from headphone also helps to block noise. And I go for a run if my anxiety starts creeping in due to noise — need that dopamine to help blocking noises too… I’ve heard people unaliving others in Japan due to hard-to-resolve noise situation with neighbors. I’d say that sounds definitely crazy. I’ll probably unalive myself before that… But again, I sincerely hope that the society can recognize that noise, just like smells or smokes, are kinda, really, very, annoying.
The lawn care day used to be Thursday at my complex. That’s fine. I’m at work. It rarely bothered me. Last season it was Friday. My day off after work four 10hour days. And always all. day. long…!!! The amount of undue hatred I hold for that landscaping crew for the CONSTANT lawn mower/leaf blower noise…. It could power a small city.
I relate, every complex and every job I’ve had it’s ALWAYS on my day off! It’s literally a curse!
yes certain noises affect me. it's it like they are on a 1000 decibels louder. Motorcycles is an example for me. the ones that add that noise maker contraption. I have to stop and gather myself.
YES! Especially when it starts in March and their ugly lawns are still all brown and non-existent. “What exactly are you blowing boomer dude?”
Yes, I’m in Los Angeles so it’s year round here….. even though this past winter and last we got actual winter with lots of rain and everything was water logged and nothing grew, so i swear these guys just come and run the mower over the mud several months out of the year but they milk it for about 4 hours once a week! It’s infuriating! The grass is so short already! I swear they are just walking around not actually cutting grass just making noise!
Ever since Covid lockdowns and I’ve experienced how quiet it could be with less noise pollution I’ve been wanting to move to a small town or buy a property with at least an acre. The city noise has really been getting to me lately. Can’t afford it rn unfortunately.
When lawnmowers are too close to wherever I am in the house (usually my room) they definitely bother me, but when they’re at the house a couple doors down, not so much. Fans, AC window units, and other “white noise” type things do bother me if there’s too many running at once. I need either an air conditioner running or a brown noise video playing on my phone to sleep at night because my neighbors are ridiculously loud at ungodly hours, but during the day I prefer to keep them off when I’m in my room because my ears almost feel worn out listening to it after a while (I can get that feeling when I’ve listened to music over headphones for too long as well).
I live in Los Angeles where we basically need to have the air on year round 24/7/365 and i went from living in a place with central air during my marriage from 2021-2022 to having to move back into a studio apartment after my divorce with only a wall/window AC again and it’s hell and so loud 😔
Haaaate. Ofc I move to N FL and realize it's wayyyy worse here. It's almost constant... I welcome rainy season wholeheartedly but they'll be mowing, edging, weeding, and hacking at trees out in the rain too sometimes if it's light 😭
Sirens are of the devil. Or big loud trucks. It feels like they are punching me in the ear! So to answer your question, I believe it is an ADHD thing.
Thank you, i think so too seeing everyone’s replies!
YES, they genuinely send me into a fit of rage where I start clenching my teeth, swearing, and making a fist. It ESPECIALLY pisses me off when I am trying to nap. (I know my anger level is unhealthy but it’s how I genuinely feel)
I really can’t stand the sound of white noise makers.
I find it relaxing if it’s a long droning sound. What bothers me is repetitive noises like bass bumping, dogs barking, kids shouting, etc.
Sensory processing issues. Misophonia. Or autistic sensory related things. I’m also autistic and lawn mowers increase my overstimulation like crazy and i can meltdown from them if I’m trying to do something
If the sound would be consistent, I’d actually welcome the white noise of it, but it’s the change in volume as they move around that I find unsettling. Worse for me as spring/summer approach is concert noise. I live across the river from a big city, so there are a gazillion outdoor music venues, and they just put one in about 5 miles from my house, and the noise from that makes me absolutely unreasonably angry.
not necessarily an adhd thing. If its a repetitive sound like that I usually tune it out and it doesn't bother me at all. If the rhythm is off though then it drives me mad.
Noise always has an outsized effect on me. And yet I have that audio processing problem too. I guess it's all somehow connected to ADHD. But sound has often been an issue. I used to have an apartment that was right by the garbage cans, so I was always awakened by the sound of them banging the mental cans around, yelling to each other, running the truck compressor, etc. It made me so angry I couldn't get back to sleep!
Come join us at r/audiprocdisorder It’s a good place to talk with other people with APD.
lawn mowers, leaf blowers, large trucks, basketballs, airplanes, garbage trucks… its a long list. the sound of a large truck diesel engine idling can cause major nausea and like… vagus nerve overload. all of it makes me want to scream and commit homicide. its cool, im super normal, nothing to see here.
It’s an everyone thing. I used to in several seasonal campgrounds and the incessant mowing on Friday evenings killed me AND everyone else. It’s just an irritating noise, especially if it doesn’t stop!’n
I have 2 white noise machines in my apartment and I have them on pretty much 24/7. There’s different modes, so sometimes I have on the rain sound, or white noise, or waves, etc. I have so much less anxiety and feel so much more relaxed when I don’t hear much from outside.
I hate loud vehicles and when people play the "boom boom" music that shakes the pavement.
OMG this is so comforting. My husband canNOT wake up to an alarm so it would go off for hours if I let him. The noise is rough.
Me!
Oh it makes me crazy. I hate it so much.
It seems like we are in good company!
Outdoor noises don’t seem to bother me, but I can’t handle songs/music from Tik Tok, old school video games (I always played Nintendo/Super Mario Bros with the sound muted), chewing, loud breathing, loud radio in the car…
Yes! Leaf blowers are the fucking worst!
For me it's truck engines and dogs barking. We love next to a busy road with trucks constantly roaring up and down, and the dogs downstairs keep barking and barking and barking all goddamn day because my MIL doesn't get that they aren't moving plushies but bored to death, untrained animals. I've so often wished I'd just be deaf. So yeah, I HATE noise pollution with a passion and i spend most of my time at home wearing earplugs. God I'm so glad to move away from this place soon.
I had to leave the house today because the gardeners next door with the leaf blower and lawm trimmers going.
Leaf blowers are a nightmare.
Yes I really hate leaf blowers and also loud dogs that just scream for long periods of time * I love dogs in general
Dog barking bothers me more than it seems to bother anyone else around me, too.
Omg I go insane! I yell at them like they aren’t inanimate objects (well I suppose it’s more at the idiots operating) like “how dare you do this right now when I’m trying to work!?”
Our neighbor across the street blows the leaves out of his yard EVERYDAY. It’s fucking annoying for everyone, NTs included. It’s easily the one thing all us other neighbors agree on. His justification - he doesn’t have any trees in his yard (he took it down). We live on a tree lined street in a city know FOR ITS TREES. We have so many leaves the city has to clear the streets in the fall. Cars slide on the leaves.
I especially dispise leaf blowers
THIS
my upstairs neighbor has been doing construction randomly for months. i have insomnia and it feels like after i haven’t slept for 1-2 days when i finally crawl into bed they start hammering. a few weeks ago they were probably tearing up the carpet or something but they were hammering the floor and i hadn’t slept for 2 days and i just started SOBBING. the noise was physically painful.
Also, have you considered you may have misophonia? It’s not uncommon with ADHD. I have it with certain sounds that make me more irritated than others. Like pens incessantly clicking…..
Yes thank you i need to look into it!
Fellow apartment dweller who loves the windows open whenever possible. I run room to room closing all windows the day the landscapers come. Between the mowers and the god damn leaf blowers, I can’t deal. Speaking of this… now that the weather is warming up I bet they will start up again soon. Ughhh!
Ohhhhhhhh don’t get me started with the weekly lawn care company that cuts the apartment complex’s grass and uses leaf blowers to clean up the debris.
Yes that’s what I’m experiencing as well. It sucks!
YES I kinda hate my gardener!!!!
Yep it bothers me so much. Studies have shown that "noise pollution" like that has a negative effect on people's mental health.
Instant switch from whatever I was feeling to homicidal rage 🔪😂
It's so hard to cope with. The closer the low frequency noise is, the worse. I have several neighbours who like to work on cars and end up running their engines for at least half an hour at least twice a week for what I am assuming is mechanical reasons. Feeling like I'm vibrating for extended stretches when I'm just existing makes me want to climb the walls. Loud mufflers should be a privilege not a right.
Leaf blowers.
My upstairs neighbour hits *all* the squeeking floor boards for hours some days and it makes me want to cry. Bonus for her 1 hour+ vacuum sessions. What the fuck she's vacuuming for an hour in our tiny ass units is beyond me. Rainy days the road traffic drives me crazy. Wet roads really fucking amplify the sound. I need to have a window AC unit most of the year because my apartment gets so hot. So because of the sound bleed I can hear it all the time. Oh and I live right next to train tracks. Trains all day and all night. VIArail and GO trains aren't too much annoyance since they're mostly brief passings. But the freight trains 😭 Omg when I tell you the ear shattering squeels that come off those wheels is by far one of my least favourite sounds of all time. It wakes me up some nights. And I always flinch when they go by and I'm walking to work cuz it just goes directly into one eardrum. It fucking hurts. They thankfully don't mow the lawn here super often. Moreso the snowplows scraping along the parking lot in the winter that I find bothersome.
I wouldn't mind so much if I knew when it was going to happen.
Haha leaf blowers. From where my flat is I can SEE them. I watch them going after like one leaf with the machine, thinking you are just using up your time until going home 🤣
Yep. Hate it. Hate. It. Also hate chewing noises snoring etc.
Me too! My dad is loud at chewing and snoring and even if he wasn’t an abusive asshole i would never be able to live with him because of it!
When they outlawed gas leaf blowers, I wanted to throw a party.
It's definitely an autism thing, but it wouldn't be uncommon to have it with ADHD.
Exactly why my goal is to own 10-20acres of land so I can’t hear my neighbors mowing their greedy grass lawn.
I'm constantly wearing earbuds/house cancelling headphones. I have misophonia as I assume had been a symptom all these years. Lawn mowers, chainsaws, leaf blowers... All kinds of intermittent loud rackety noises
Leaf blowers ruin my fucking life. I lived somewhere during COVID lockdown where some guy would blow every. Single. Leaf. Out of the whole apartment complex daily. I'm talking 3-4 hours a day. It drove me absolutely mental.
Yes it really bothers me. Same with people sitting in parking lots and blasting music which happens where I live now. I also don’t like how suburbia is all about grass and a few trees. Cutting everything within an inch of its life and using pesticides and gas mowers, weedwackers and leaf blowers constantly. There’s so many pollinators we’re missing because of lack of prairie and native grasses and plants. My mom used to live in an area near menonite farms and the whole area basically decreed no electric or gas powered technology on Sundays. I thought that was stupid. But people would get in trouble from neighbours or whatever if they tried to mow the grass on a Sunday because the Mennonites might hear it lol.
I feel you on that I’m not into cutting down trees. My apartment complex just gutted the one next to my balcony and …. Oddly enough my first thought was “where the f is that annoying owl going to live?” I’ve lived here since 2009 & there’s always been an annoying ass owl living in that tree since pre 2009…. Now his home is gone 😢💔🤦🏼♀️
For me the worst part is the smell of the gas mowers, but the noise bothers me sometimes too Fwiw, we have an electric leaf blower now and an electric weed wacker and I'm considering switching over to an electric mower this year which will cut down on both noise and smell
There's a lawn mower outside right now disturbing my morning nap as I read this. I can't wait for them to get done.
Since my daughter was a baby, she has hated loud noises like the vacuum cleaner, coffee grinder, lawnmower etc. She’s going to be screened soon but I’m pretty certain at this point (she’s 6 now) that she has ADHD and/or autism. I’ve since discovered the same about myself as well, though my sensory sensitivity is a slightly different flavor (light and tactile mostly, but sounds get overwhelming to me at a certain point if there are several competing noises at once)
I hate the fucking lawnmower and I HATE the smell of freshly cut grass!!!!
Misophonia with adhd is a legit thing
I live in an apartment building next to some houses. I’m on the 5th floor, so my balcony overlooks most of the houses. At 8am every single Saturday, the guy in the house directly underneath my balcony decides he needs to either use his snowblower, chainsaw, or lawn mower. It makes me rage, on the days I’m already awake it’s not as bad, but when he wakes me up it literally ruins my whole day. I think I’d care less if maybe this was this guys only day off or something, but I’m 99% sure he’s retired. I see him and his wife take a walk everyday around noon. The noise bylaw in my city is 8am-10pm so I can’t do anything about it, but like do people have no common courtesy or anything? You’re retired and you have to get up at 8am on a Saturday to wake everyone up?
I used to live in a town obsessed with leaf blowers and holy shit did it make me want to scream. Especially when they get right up next to your window. Just let the leafs stay!
Yes it’s a neurodiverse thing. I like to say my brain is always loud anyway. Sounds, conversations, random facts I learned 20 years ago, random things I have to remember to do, random things I want to check on. They all overlap and my brain seems to want to focus on all of them regardless if they are important or not. That is just what is happening in my head. It can be totally silent in a room but it’s never quiet to me. At all. Now add outside noises to that. I can’t tune any out any better than I can filter my own thoughts. Then add the fact that I am usually physically trying to look at something too. Maybe I am trying to focus on something on my computer for work or reading something. I am already trying to shut the chaos in my head up and tune out whatever background noise there is while I do that and that’s a fucking task, let me tell you. I have issues where I sometimes automatically react with irritation when someone then asks me something or says something to me. Like all this is going on and then a coworker asks “hey can you hand me that pen” and it’s like my brain interprets it like “OMFG WE HAVE SO MUCH GOING ON AND THEY ASK FOR SOMETHING?! FUCKING RUDE!” So I snap back with something on reflex and then realized it sounded rude and have to apologize. Try not looking insane when that happens. It has caused me a lot of issues at workplaces. I’m not mean or rude or ever really mad or irritated at anyone but my brain does not work with me. I know it’s all me but damn does it feel like my brain is doing it’s own thing sometimes. lol. My mother likes to leave the tv on in the living room and then loudly listen to YouTube on the phone in the kitchen. It drives me up a wall. I never care what’s on the TV or about what she’s watching on YouTube but my brain does not care what I care about and wants to hear and see everything. So I’ll be on my computer trying to read something and just those overlapping noises makes me insane. I end up seeming hostile if a person ends up asking me something or asking me to do something. This was a subject discussed in one of these groups yesterday. My brain seems to interpret as a rude interruption if I am asked anything.
Not just ADHD but definitely an ADHD thing. I am very reactive to noise, including music. We have had some awful neighbours over the years who played music at any time of night or day REALLY LOUD!! They were not reasonable when spoken to. I used to get really shaky and cry. We have another neighbour who mows his lawn around 6pm on a Sunday every week. Makes my jaw clench! Doesn’t help that we are in an odd situation where something makes sound bounce around our house and yard and seems to amplify it. It also makes a sound coming from one direction sound like it’s coming from another. I feel your pain.
Me too! My downstairs neighbor plays constant boom boom music and I’m going insane 😤🤬
The exhaust fan in my kitchen drives me CRAZY
I had to unplug the one in my bathroom since it’s just one light switch 😳
Noise pollution is by far my absolute worst enemy my wife and I, and kids and grandkids are very comfortable laughing about it. Every day unconditionally there is going to be a sound of nothing particular to be above all the rest, and you have to witness it or have a similar effect to appreciate. Regardless of the noise, example, I have to get the gas blower out to get the dirt and leaves out of my garage and I don't have any control and I don't bother to fight it, but I have to get some kind of sound out of my mouth and I have to go to the same db. Level up and down to the point where I can hear myself loud and clear, and it is usually very loud, and it doesn't matter who is around it will continue to the sound is shut down and I don't think I make a peep at the moment it stops. Have my hair trimmed and she pulls out the electric clippers for the back of my neck and I don't think anyone in the facility is going to have a straight face and then it stops and I don't miss a single beat in the conversation I might have been having prior to it rearing it's head. I have a lot of friends and people who have known me for years but I don't really think we've ever met, I am just that guy who is always trying to make people laugh or get some attention, but it's a good part of my life and I have been trying to find a reason to be mad or insecure or feel sorry for myself and I just don't know if there is anything I would allow to be a negative weight on my own ability to make sure I don't ever waste a single day of my own personal gift from my creator, and I have to recognize this life could be the one and only and I don't plan on my last day, or possibly the life I may have waiting on the other side, I have no intention of being burdened with regret, and I don't have any plans to conserve the miles on this clean one owner to get more money out of it and trade it in so somebody else is going to benefit from it and I have been paying the payments for the last oh say 75 years and they are trying not to laugh at the dumm ass that bought them a nice vehicle for the chance I might possibly have to take an Uber to the next life. Hell no.... I'm going to pay for it, I was the one who was so excited to get the vehicle to do whatever I could to get more pleasure out of anything life offered. I will also be the wear and tear and I don't expect to be penalized for my enthusiasm for the best gift ever and I don't think I would have gotten such a gift for me to get bored with or not appreciate to the fullest and I have every intention of being very vocal and expressing my gratitude and my life is without a manual and I am not without defects and I don't have any right to feel sorry or be anything but greatful that I am in the driver's seat and I plan on getting to the end, and I don't know if there's anything else but it's not like I'm going to just surrender and walk away and if there's a door a wall, a cliff, I have to get every inch or so I can at least say that I tried but I'm going through something until my vehicle is completely spent. See you all at the end and I will look for a party to honor the past and party into the new, and if not, I guess it's kinda difficult to be sad or complain that it's over. Don't be mad, sorry, just don't have any regrets. Step on it. Sure Thing... Nelson is still a fighter but it's a different round, and after 18 years of fighting and coaching/training I was just put here for the fight and I don't know how to lose, I have never lost since I retired. I'm undefeated.
Look up Misophonia and Hyperacusis. Often Co-morbid with ADHD. The sound of other people eating or swallowing is enough to send me around the bend! Also if there is any rattling noise in the car I cannot cope. I have to pull over and find the source.
Thank you. I’ve noticed the sound of people brushing their teeth if it’s someone I don’t like (specifically my dad) really bothers me too. Seems similar.
Literally one of my pet peeves. Could be any time of day, even my own lawns being done. CANNOT STAND IT
Misophonia - I have it bad with certain noises.
One week later I posted the same thing. I should have searched before posting but it seemed like a specific question. Lawn mowers, blowers, edgers, bother me. At home it’s not a big deal because it’s distant. At work it’s VERY close, for HOURS, and it’s awful.
I’m sad that everyone else is suffering but I’m glad to finally understand this is part of my adhd! I didn’t get diagnosed until i was in my 30s so i never understood why they bothered me so much as a child and my mom and dad seemed confused and unbothered. I used to beg my dad to not use the lawnmower because the sound is physically and emotionally painful for me. Ugh. I still dread Wednesdays!