Need housing for sound sensitivity

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I got kicked out of my last apartment, partially for destroying my neighbor's washing machine, which she continually ran late at night, preventing me from sleeping, over the course of years.

So I desperately need quiet housing, but I have no money and cannot find anyone who will accept my housing voucher. I've mostly been looking for a mobile home to rent (cottages as well), but the mobile home parks either don't rent, have no rentals available, or charge rent that is too high for my voucher.

The housing search is driving me insane and all the phone calls I have to make are just aggravating my auditory disability. Does anyone know of an organization that can help me find housing? I'm in the United States (California). The federal housing authority's website mostly has resources for apartments, but sharing walls with other tenants is a nightmare for me.

Also, any idea what kind of organization I can ask to buy me noise cancelling earphones? I cannot afford them.

Yikes! I wish I knew what organizations could help you.

Here on WP we have at least one member who has had the experience of being homeless in California, who might be able to give you some useful advice from experience:

ASS-P
memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=9275

I was homeless in Seattle for years, got on disability while being homeless, then found a place OUTSIDE of Seattle. I capitalized "outside" because, from what I've seen, small towns are the way to go. Large cities have enormously long waiting lists. It's common for someone, for instance, to spend 10 years in a shelter until a subsidized unit opens.

If I was living in California, I'd focus on finding a subsidized apartment in a town of less than, say, 10K - 15K people. While they may not have an apartment available right away, there might be a shelter nearby where you could stay for about 6 months to a year until something opened up since their waiting lists are much shorter than in the big cities.

I have the same ultra-sensitive hearing issues as you. In my case, it's the heavy-footed OCD woman upstairs who stomps around in boots and rearranges her furniture EVERY F*CKING DAY. I bought active noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones from Amazon to deal with her. They're called Boltune BT-BH011 and cost $90 (Had cost $69 when I bought them). They work great. I should've bought these, or something like it, from day one.

If you need help finding a subsidized unit in California or abroad, I can help, but you have to be serious, not like the joker who spent years on WP pulling people's chains, asking them for help for nothing.

This is my third time being homeless, so I have experience. I'm in transitional housing right now and I can stay here for three or four more months.

I have been looking in small towns and I've lived in them before, it just exhausts me and costs a fortune to travel to all these places to apply/view the units, and I need to save my measly $275 monthly income for a deposit. I guess I have little choice but to continue doing that however.

I don't really need a subsidized unit; my voucher covers a lot of rent. My problem is that I can't live places where I share walls with people anymore. But thanks anyways. Honestly I would almost rather be homeless than continue fighting this. I prefer to live outside anyways.

Yeah, I understand. It does kind of bother me to sit in my own apartment with my noise cancelling headphones on all day, but at least it's Bluetooth so I watch TV and listen through it wirelessly. Either that or go back to living in a car, but I'm too old for that now.

You really need a white noise machine, ear defenders, and patience because there is no truly sound proof housing. Humans have right to make "noise" unfortunately.

I have rented all my life. Detached homes are no guarantee. Neighbors will throw parties, have loud kids, motorcycles, barking dogs, weed whack at 6 am... Bonus is homeowners are under the city/county/township noise ordinances. Your community/apartment landlord will not let (usually) weekly parties go on. Someone has a house, they can entertain from 7 am to 10 pm where I live, and there isn't s**t you can do about it.

Move to the country? Jackalopes shooting off guns at midnight, riding ATVs at all hours, barking dogs, parties, snowmobiles. Rural areas have less restrictions, and sound really travels. My friend can hear her neighbor's parties, and they are 1/2 mile away.

I tell you this, so you don't think house=blissful quiet. It can be, but when the noise ramps up, so is so little you can do about it. The landlord only controls YOUR unit. Not the homes around you.

The quietest places are ranch style attached condos/apartments where you share 1 or two walls. Older homes have cinder block, which can be sound damping except for sub woofers. I live in a two bedroom town house, but the walls are cinder block on either slide of me. Except when someone cranks up the bass, I don't hear much.

White noise machines, carpeting, eye defenders, noise cancelling head phones and no upstairs neighbors will give you an fighting chance not to lose your mind.

My SO is terriblly sound sensitive, where loud noise will trigger a king size meltdown. When it gets bad, and the sound is actually legal to do, I point that out on the lease and the city ordinance. Yes, the person running the mixer all day makes you stabby, but she has the right to do it from 7 am to 10 pm. For him, it takes the edge off know what the boundaries are.

He walks around with ear defenders on, because the kids SCREAM in the court yard. Legally, they can do that. A lawyer told him that, lol. The defenders/white noise machine and sound proofing in his office helps.

So renting a house is no guarantee, and apartments aren't all bad. At least with a multi unit rental property, you may have more rights for quiet than the neighbor down the street.

Good luck. I've had loud, awful neighbors. It's no fun.

I have this problem too. The trouble is in the UK is when you're working class and earning average wage or less, you are often lumped together in apartments or small council houses that are joined on to neighbours, and sometimes you're unlucky enough to live next to neighbours with noisy habits or lifestyles.

Me and my partner live in an apartment below a woman who is rather noisy to live underneath. But she's not the "having noisy parties frequently" type of noisy. She's the type who constantly moves about, has no carpets or anything down (so she just moves around on floorboards), and is often doing things like vacuuming several times a day, moves furniture several times a day, and makes other distracting bonking and banging and rumbling noises. I heard she has insomnia and OCD, so that might be the reason for her strange activities but it's still annoying to hear all day and night. But we don't want to say anything because we can't stop her moving about in her own home, can we?