noise sensitivity & sleep deprivation

Tara is 51, divorced, works in the banking industry and remains living in the old house she moved into twenty-five years ago as a blushing young bride.

"I'm more like a flushing old woman these days," laughs Tara, "but my problem is not so much menopause as the noise of garbage collection."

"I never noticed the noise when my kids were home," says Tara, "but now that they've left home it's really getting to me."

For women like Tara who have spent most of their lives sleeping to the sounds of children in the house, learning to fall asleep and stay asleep when the kids have left home can be a big problem.

"Empty nests do tend to rattle a bit," laughs Tara, "but it’s definitely not the sounds of snoring kids that I miss. On the contrary, I couldn’t wait for them to leave home!"

Tara is kept awake at night by a new system of garbage collection, and although she laughs about her situation it is a lot more serious than she admits.

"I fall asleep okay," says Tara, "but once I hear the garbage collection noise that's it -- I can't get back to sleep and I guess I'm suffering from sleep deprivation. I have a tendency to start nodding off early afternoons at work and everybody is noticing how tired I look."

"The city has brought in a bizarre new system of garbage collection that sends a truck down one side of my street on Sunday night and the following night, on Monday, he does the other side of my street."

"On Tuesday night the garbage is collected on one side of the adjacent street, and on Wednesday the other side of the adjacent street gets done."

"I have no idea what the garbage collector does Thursdays to Saturdays, but I wouldn't be surprised if he works as a merchant banker," laughs Tara. "Everyone diversifies these days,"

"The point I'm trying to make is that from Sunday to Wednesday - particularly Sundays and Mondays - I am awakened by a monstrous garbage collection unit bumping and grinding its way from bin to bin," sighs Tara, "and from Thursday to Saturday I wake in anticipation of hearing it."

Having her sleep pattern determined by a garbage collector does not please Tara at all, and having her work productivity jeopardized by her inability to get a good night's rest does not please her either.

"I can remember when I first came here 25 years ago," says Tara. "Way back then we had an old tin garbage bin and one guy drove the truck and a couple of guys would pick up the bins and chuck the contents into the truck, doing both sides of the street, as well as the adjacent street, on the same night."

"Sure, it was abominably noisy, much worse than now," says Tara, "but we only had to put up with one night of really bad banging and clanging and cuss words, and that was it. Perfect peace for the remaining six nights."

"I can't remember exactly when the giant green plastic wheelie bins replaced the tin bins, but it must have been about ten years ago," says Tara. "They were the butt of many silly jokes such as: Q: "Where you been? A: "At my mother's." Q: "Liar, where you wheelie bin? A: "I wheelie bin down the pub."

"As far as I can remember, the introduction of wheelie bins didn't disturb my sleep," says Tara. "It is only since the garbage collection route changed that I started noticing the noise."

"I heard that when the wheelie bins were introduced thousands of casual workers were put out of a job," says Tara. "And I suppose it is not politically correct to call the garbage man what he is any more. Instead, I guess he calls himself a sanitation engineer. He is neat and clean and dressed in a uniform. What a change from the sort of dress the old garbage collectors wore -- colorful old boots, shorts, jerseys and beanies."

"The garbage collection unit picks up bins automatically, without need of a human being to touch them and it's less dangerous and more hygienic and efficient than the old system," says Tara, "but I don't understand why it was deemed inefficient to turn the truck around and do the other side of my street at the same time. Instead, the truck just keeps on going in a straight line, returning the next night to do the other side of my street. It's crazy!"

"One night, just for fun - or in a mood for revenge - I deliberately turned my wheelie bin around so that its handles were not pointing towards the road as directed by the instructions on the bin," says Tara. "I wanted to sabotage the system, I wanted the driver to actually get out of the unit and do some old-fashioned garbage collection work. Unfortunately, my bin wasn't emptied that night!"

"Sure, I've tried using earplugs but I ended up sleeping through the alarm and was late for work, and I've also tried complaining to the local authority to get them to change the route and system back to how it was and they didn't take any notice of me."

"You can't stop progress!" laughs Tara.

"Someone suggested that I should make 7pm my bedtime and get up at 2am," says Tara. "It would assure me 7 hours of blissful sleep but I'd have no life!"

"Another suggestion was to soundproof my home and do some double glazing," says Tara. "It would be costly, but then I worried that I wouldn't be able to hear things I wanted to hear - such as birds singing in the morning - or things I needed to hear - such as an intruder trying to break into my place."

"Yes, I really do hear birds singing in the morning on the fringe of the city where I live," says Tara, "and occasionally a house gets broken into, too."

"A further suggestion was to try recording the noise of the bumping grinding garbage collection unit and learn to go to sleep with it," laughs Tara. "Frankly, I would rather send the recording to my local representative in his fortress home in the hills and let him hear what the plebs have to put up with."

"One thing I will not do is take sleeping pills," says Tara. "And another thing I will not do is move out of the city completely to get away from noise because I've worked out that it is only because it is relatively peaceful where I live that noises sound ten times worse than they would in the heart of the city. In a whisper quiet rural setting, the slightest noise would wake me!"

"Using that logic, if I were to move at all it would be closer to the city in a really noisy area," laughs Tara. "It sounds crazy, but when you live with constant noise you get used to it."

"I'd miss the birds singing, though, if I moved," says Tara."I guess I'll go back to earplugs and buy half a dozen alarm clocks to make sure I wake up in time for work!