I Have Tinnitus Because of a Noisy Neighbor from Hell

Hi I'm David,

I've always liked the quiet, I lived in a quiet place until my upstairs neighbor sold their place to the asian lady from hell.

I didn't know anything was going wrong until she ripped out the carpets and put in tile flooring in her bedroom. Oh and btw, the contractor didn't put in any soundproofing...installing it like it was a ground floor.

As her condo has vaulted ceilings and no carpeting or sound absorbing materials (because she seems to like the echo) I noticed I heard (and felt) every vibration from upstairs. From the fan she leaves on at night on her tiled floor which is my bedroom's ceiling, to her watching TV that comes through my ceiling now.

I NEVER heard my previous neighbors except when they might walk heavily a couple times.

I determined I was being exposed to low frequency noise as I felt it in my inner ears more than I heard it. She forced me to sleeping on my couch in my living room which unfortunately exposed me to the air-conditioning unit that liked to make "wub wub wub" sounds that would literally vibrate my entire place now as her vaulted ceiling acted as an echo chamber and beat on her floor/my ceiling like a drum (due to no sound proofing).

I left her angry letters, she stopped responding to me and let me suffer (as I was just being "too sensitive"). I bought noise canceling head phones and then the next day noticed my inner ears burning. Not sure if the counter frequency they output reacted poorly to the low freq vibrations and hurt my ears or what.

I felt like i was going crazy (as no one else seemed to hear/feel the vibrations I was exposed to) so I invited a buddy to spend the night and see if he could sleep in my bedroom, I slept on the couch.

At 5am that morning went to the restroom only to hear a "rushing wind" sound in my right ear, scared the crap outta me. That day I asked him if I could move in with him (because my ears were getting damaged in this environment).

Moved in with my buddy then searched for how to cure my tinnitus, found this forum, found the LLLT konftec recommendation, and bought one. That was THE WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE.

I used the laser on and off (not even 3 days a week and only for 20 mins at a time) not realizing it could actually hurt my hearing and feeling like it didn't work anyway. Then 2 weeks ago following a session I heard a high pitched frequency in both ears that didn't go away with other sound....

I'm hoping it will partly heal at least.....

 

Hey Dave,

Sorry that you have joined our "club".
I suggest going through a more methodical diagnosis process with doctors (ENT, audiologists, blood tests, imaging, etc... as necessary) so you can check whether or not there is something obvious that is causing your problems.

You may have some condition that is affecting your hearing, and you may be pinning it on the events that happened those days (neighbor, AC, LLLT, etc) because you've been experiencing the worsening while these were happening.

If I were you I'd get started on the medical diagnosis.

Good luck.

 

Welcome to the forum. I know what you are going through, I had a moron neighbor living above me and his kids use to jump from the couch to the ground. It was brutal and i almost lost it. I took this issue up with HOA and they did nothing. I'm sorry that you are going through this...for sure i feel your pain...