Road noise at holiday cottage:(

[JamSconeCat]

Would love an outside opinion. perhaps I just got unlucky with my booking!
So I’m in a gorgeous little cottage, lovely place, people, etc. arrived yesterday evening. I’m generally a late sleeper and tend to work late so don’t rise with the dawn.
Came for peace and quiet, cottage described s such by company and reviews. Not terribly touristy, but does get visitors.

But around 7 this morning the road out front kicked in.
It’s a slight yet long incline, and vehicles have to slow down at a tiny bridge then speed up again. Some cars are fairly silent but most sound like the groaning beast from hell. From what I see nobody is speeding or doing anything wrong, just constant whining noise and excessive slamming as people park up or go.

Using loud white noise app but no joy, the Revving and impact just blast through it. Tried headphones, no joy. Unless I am going mad, it’s like vehicles are a lot louder merely cruising than they used to be, it’s a fairly wall shuddering din.

What I can’t get my head around is I am in the attic bedroom, no windows on the road side! Just one velux facing fields at back. The noise isn’t entering via the window at all, it is literally shuddering through the front wall across the entire house.

Is it U to imagine I won’t get much peace here? Am here for 3 weeks as am doing work in the area but a lot of the time I will be indoors wfh too, so really paid a premium for the peace :(
Is there a way to ‘manage to ignore it?’ When the noise is so aggressive sounding? I’ve had such a bad time at home during covid due to environment noise so am definitely at wits end after paying out for this just to find more disturbance. Was already truly fed up so probably over sensitive too.

@Tarne

Complain to the company or BNb owner now! Of course reviews are selected! My friends have bnb's and don't publish reviews from any naysayer. Or they simply don't ask them for a review!

Google reviews and Facebook etc that's not possible. It's horrific when people leave bad reviews that are not true or exaggerated and I can't do anything to remove it. Of course on their own website is different

Don’t know if it’s an old wives tale, but I’ve read that for many people, on the first night you’re sleeping in a new place, you tend not to sleep well because your ancient instincts are telling you it may not be safe. Maybe that has heightened the effect and it’ll get better. If you were there long term, unless you’re particularly noise sensitive, your brain would eventually learn to ignore it, even blaring radios and slamming car doors.

Are there solid stone walls on both sides of the road? If so, they will reflect the sound and make it louder.

Anyway, I hope you manage to start sleeping better, or that you can move. It’s a real shame when something like that marrs an otherwise pleasant place to stay. Even though the company only had two places in the area, it might be worth contacting just to ask if they’ve any other options, if things don’t improve. Good luck.

I regulalry used to rent a cottage in Sussex that was closse to the A10 - but it draw attention to that in the description.
Living in central London, it didnlt bother me - I find really silent place quite eeire.
take some Nytol (the sleepy anti htamine one)

read the T&C, but I doubt your insurance would cover this

@Tarne

Complain to the company or BNb owner now! Of course reviews are selected! My friends have bnb's and don't publish reviews from any naysayer. Or they simply don't ask them for a review!

I own a holiday cottage and it is run through an agency and no way are bad reviews not published.

The cottage is situated where it is, you can't complain about that!

@JamSconeCat

Thanks, it all calmed down around 4pm. it isnt a village, it is a market town in Shropshire. Didn’t expect silence really, just not this much noise. It isn’t what I’d call busy, exactly, just that the road has short stay parking and is on a hill. The combination of continuous gear changing, parking and slamming mixed with the vehicles going uphill make it unfortunate. A corner or 2 away it would be fine. Just bad luck I guess :(

Some attractions are only open weekends so perhaps a bit quieter by Monday. We shall see.

Does anyone know, if I purchased insurance, could I cut the stay in half and have the remainder refunded?

No insurance doesn't cover unreasonable requests.

Always be suspicious of a place that has no bad reviews OP, sometimes it may be just that one bad review that you should never, ever, ignore. I always book a few places then at least some part of the trip is saved as, it’s unusual for both places to be noisy.

Oh no OP. This sounds awful. We live rurally and I’ve stopped trying to find peace and quiet on holidays because our house is always quieter. Maybe the reviews are from people who have come from louder environments?

Noise cancelling headphones are your friend

You’re either really close (how couldn’t you know) or you’ve got amazing hearing.

With the OP on this, traffic noise is horrible, very few places where it cannot be heard at all - if it were me, i'd go home - I I would never hol in the UK, too congested and we love using our cars for the shortest of journeys.

Next time Street view and Google earth the place

I understand completely. I am very sensitive to road noise. I understand every single word you are saying and would feel exactly the same. It would do my head in.
I suggest you email today, So it's in their inbox for first thing Monday morning and asked to be moved to another cottage.

The cottage is situated where it is, you can't complain about that!

The cottage has been advertised as quiet, so you can absolutely complain that it's not as advertised.
"Came for peace and quiet, cottage described s such by company and reviews."

I don't think you can complain about road noise at 7am. That is a normal working day time for traffic.

You should look at google street maps before booking.

However I had a terrible similar experience in a city flat. It wasn't possible to see which flat from a street map and in truth I didn't think to ask the agency. The flat we had was almost right on a busy bridge with traffic to the local A&E, so sirens all night long.

I think the agency had removed negative reviews as I could find nothing online. When I emailed them after our short stay, they didn't even reply.

Flare audio earplugs. They come in different sizes and really work. I gave the titanium ones called sleeep.

Oh and you can get them quick delivery from Amazon.

@mathanxiety

The cottage is situated where it is, you can't complain about that!

The cottage has been advertised as quiet, so you can absolutely complain that it's not as advertised.
"Came for peace and quiet, cottage described s such by company and reviews."

But it's just normal traffic noise? Not everyone is slamming their doors when they leave the cars. OP is clearly very sensitive to noise. Loads of places would be an issue, unless you're going to book a place miles from anywhere, which without a car would be difficult.

We booked a house absolutely in the middle of nowhere a couple of years back. It was up a single file twisty road for the last three miles. We were sure it would be lovely and peaceful. First morning we were woken up before 6 by afield of very load sheep baaing excitedly for their breakfast, then the farmer came in a tractor with his dog and made some more noise shouting and feeding them 😀, turns out nowhere is actually quiet!
We still had a great holiday and it was peaceful all the rest of the time in fairness. I mostly always take a fan for each bedroom on holiday with me, it helps drown out unfamiliar noises

Which review sites can't have negative reviews removed? Trip advisor? Google maps?

This happened to us once in North Yorkshire. Lovely cottage in very rural location. Described as peaceful and quiet. Turned out it was right on a main road that was used all night for heavy agricultural traffic. Awful holiday, we returned home exhausted. I check Google maps and Street View meticulously when booking a holiday cottage now.

I would complain to the lettings agency - they shouldn’t be describing it as quiet.

I was relatively sympathetic until you said the cottage was in a town!

In the nicest way, what did you expect? You might be on holiday and wanting calm but the locals still need to shop, get to school and work and just go about their lives. Car traffic is just a normal part of urban living, surely?

If you want guaranteed silence, you need to go for a rural cottage down several miles of farm track with no neighbours for miles, not a house in a town with a population of about 10,000 people!

This is off topic but it worries me sometimes that I can’t hear what younger people hear. Did you ever do one of those hearing tests where it says how old you are by your hearing? There are loads of them online.

I have always had excellent hearing thank God, but this buzzing electrical noise I’m hearing in my house (that I was moaning about in the middle of the night) - I might not be able to in a few years. Isn’t that weird? My dad is deaf and no way would he be able to hear any danger now.
Sorry that is unrelated to the op, but hearing is an amazing gift. I hope you get sorted.

Well I found a ginormous, exquisite Dyson fan (dyson cool) so slept just fine last night. Road still very noisy but seems the current windows in the house let in a lot of noise.
There’s still the irritating slam of doors above the fan noise, and cars with fat, double exhausts are still quite audible - they vibrate the entire house and I’ve no idea why it’s even fucking legal to drive vehicles like that.

But I feel much better today. Will see how it compares to yesterday.
Thanks again, will update later and see if traffic drops a bit tomorrow.
Very sunny here!

Hey there BABA , yes everyone IS slamming their goddamn doors actually, all day, non stop, like they’re attached by an umbilical force or something.

And it is very, Very intrusive. Over two loud fans in an attic with no road facing window. The vehicles are revving loudly uphill and are generally either modded or large, or diesel. Wanna come and sit out front for a cup of tea with me, breathe it all in?
Or we could sit inside and enjoy the walls shaking.

We know this is normal life, of course we do, but nobody said it was healthy or optimal. Noise pollution that you can’t escape anywhere inside your house is not something we should promote as normal.

Next time, check on Google maps before you book anything. First thing we do.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts

I was relatively sympathetic until you said the cottage was in a town!

In the nicest way, what did you expect? You might be on holiday and wanting calm but the locals still need to shop, get to school and work and just go about their lives. Car traffic is just a normal part of urban living, surely?

If you want guaranteed silence, you need to go for a rural cottage down several miles of farm track with no neighbours for miles, not a house in a town with a population of about 10,000 people!

I don’t want silence,, I wanted what they put in the description - relaxing.

I’m familiar with rattling A roads and dual,carriageways. This place is sadly in a bad spot (hill, two rows of short stay parking). It is certainly more intrusive than most busy roads I’ve lived beside in the past.

Perhaps the fat exhaust gang are really into Ludlow