About my neighbours phone?

[Bemyclementine]

I am I know.

I live in an end terrace, old house (120 yrs plus) solid walls. Old neighbour was indeed old. Very quiet. No neighbour for 3 yrs sndcreceny a young man moved in. Very pleasant, leaves for work early. No noise from him at all. Apart from....I dobt know if he has his phone on silent, I'm. Not sure I'd hear it ring anyway through the walks. What I can hear is the vibrate. It actually wakes me up several times a night, middle of the night. 5 or 6 times last night.

I can't really ask him to switch the vibrate off can I?

No I don't think you can. What you can do is turn your phone to vibrate and set it off when you know he's home so he can hear it too.

That's how I realised that my neighbour can hear our TV

I don’t see why you couldn’t talk to him and ask him to move it or put it on a felt mat or something. He probably has absolutely no idea you can hear the vibration and no intention of disturbing your sleep.

If you can hear the vibrate the walls must be pretty thin, so I'd imagine he can probably hear you too. Can you switch your bedroom round so the bed is away from the shared wall?

The walls can’t be that thick if you can hear a phone vibrate through them.

The walls are very thick, and solid. I think that's why I don't actually hear anything. And I only hear the phone at night (I'm sure it goes off at other times but with DC, tv, radio etc. I don't hear it).

My bed isn't against the shared wall although his might be.

@NumberTheory you don't think it's unreasonable to ask? I feel like it is as it might even be on silent

I don't see how it could be unreasonable to let him know it's waking you. It's only unreasonable if you take a confrontational attitude and make demands, which you wouldn't do.

The alternative would be to use some sort of masking sound, like a white noise machine. Sleeping/yoga headphones are good, too, assuming you don't need total silence to sleep.

Are you sure it’s his phone that’s vibrating? 😉

I can hear my phone vibrating downstairs in the back room when I’m in the front bedroom, so it’s amazing how much the sound travels. I’d casually mention it to him, if he’s a decent sort he won’t take offence.

Ask him if he can hear it and does he know what the noise is. Keep a record of the times. It might be something from outside thats using his house as a loudspeaker, although I suspect you are right. He's probably got in on top of a bedside table that is using the drawer part to amplify it. He could put it on a book or flannel or coaster etc to muffle it.

You could ask him if he's putting his phone on a shelf on the party wall.

We stayed at DBIL's a while back and DS put his phone on a shelf on the adjoining wall to DBILs bedroom. The following morning BIL politely asked DS if he could silence his phone at night as the vibration travelled through the wall and kept him awake.

Would it definitely be his phone? Most people wouldn’t be getting calls/messages throughout the night. Unless they’re emails perhaps?

Thats absolutely fine to mention it to him, in a very nice and friendly way. I'd be absolutely mortified if I knew something so simple to fix was waking my neighbours multiple times a night. Unless he's massively unreasonable I'm sure he'll take your point and turn off vibration straight away.

We used to have a similar issue and it turned out to be, randomly, that they had a pet rat in a cage next to the wall and the rat running in its wheel was making the noise lol

If you do ask him just make sure he's out before you use any sex toys 🤣

Don't they?! I often wake up to a whole bunch of notifications. I thought that was normal, that's why my phone goes on DND at night

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a conversation about something that’s waking you up several times a night, no. You can’t insist he does anything about it. If he’s a git or if it’s in the quietest place he can put it and still have it do what he needs it for, there may be nothing gained. But a friendly conversation isn’t a bad thing.

OP I feel your pain! My DH leaves his work phone downstairs overnight and it buzzes at all hours! ! I think it's the emails pinging through, maybe a text message. If he's left it on vibrate and I'm in bed I make him go and switch it to silent. It can be in a different part of the house and I still feel it so no doubt you could hear it from a neighbour.

I'm sure your neighbour wouldn't do it on purpose! He might be leaving it to charge and not aware it's bothering you.

He might have it on silent thinking he’s being considerate?

If it's 120 years old with thick walls are you sure it's a vibrating phone and not something bigger coming on and off, like a boiler.