# Why are some noises so annoying? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 29, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426 "2011-01-29T17:40:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![silvermist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@silvermist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silvermist)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/1 "2011-01-29T17:40:50Z")
It seems that people are bombarded with sounds that drive them crazy. I can’t stand the sound of a vacuum cleaner, unless I’m the one using it. Or the sound of someone turning and refolding the pages of a newspaper, or that snowplow beeping when it backs up. Why do these things bother us and what sounds really get on your nerves? ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/2 "2011-01-29T17:59:30Z")
Car alarms and cars beeping make me crazy. Car alarms have totally outlived their usefulness and should be abandoned, as far as I’m concerned. No one ever thinks “Oh, a car alarm, I should call the police.” They think (or at least I think, maybe it’s just me) “You’ve got three minutes to take care of that before I go out there with a bat.” And people who sit outside a house beeping need to be shot. Hey asshole, exactly one person in the world needs to know you’re here, and it’s not me. The entire neighborhood does not need to be alerted to your presence, especially not repeatedly. Either get your lazy ass out of the car and knock on the door, or call the person. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/3 "2011-01-29T18:10:05Z")
I’m very sensitive to sounds, and so any number of them have the potential to turn me stabby. Alarm clocks. I’ve never even quite gotten used to my own, and wake up daily thinking “What the HELL is that noise, and how do I make it stop?!!” Superfluous alarm clocks, like in commercials? Aaaarrrggghhh!!! Barking dogs. My last neighbors, whose backyard faced my bedroom window, had 5 (count 'em, **5** ) pit bulls, who barked at everything, including the sun coming up 7 days a week. Here, doggy doggy, want some chocolate??? Loud and obnoxious people, whose only purpose in life seems to be to say, “Hey, look at me, look at me!!” Die, die, die!! The sound the tv makes when you change the channel on the tv but not the cable- **ccchhhhhhhhhhhhh** - turn it off, turn it off!! I could go on, but I think you get the picture. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/4 "2011-01-29T18:15:42Z")
[ul] [li]chewing[/li][li]rustling bags[/li][li]excessive throat-clearing (ech-ech-ech-ech-ech)[/li][/ul] These are 3 things that have made me stabby in the past 12 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Al\_Bundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@Al\_Bundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al_Bundy)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/5 "2011-01-29T18:54:28Z")
At least some of it comes from the person’s bias and view about things. For example, some people hate the sound of kids playing, yelling or running around. Maybe they don’t like kids. Who knows? When I hear a kid running around, it makes me feel good. I imagine the kid smiling and having fun. The same situation goes on with dogs as long as the barking is not continuous. When my dog barks, she’s talking. It means she needs something or wants to warn me of a stranger at the door. It’s a good thing. If you are sleeping, almost any noise is a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/6 "2011-01-29T19:27:44Z")
Snoring. Drives me absolutely homicidal. Coughing. Sniffling. Loud breathing. Respiratory stuff is nasty. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/7 "2011-01-29T20:12:59Z")
TVs. Can’t stand the sound always on unless you’re actively, attentively listening to it, but it seems to form the continuous background for many households. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/8 "2011-01-29T20:18:41Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Snoring. Drives me absolutely homicidal. > > Coughing. Sniffling. Loud breathing. > > Respiratory stuff is nasty. To me, these are all annoying, but to really make me stabby, a noise has to be unnecessary or inappropriate to the place/hour. See car alarms, beeping, etc. Also on the list are power tools before 8:00 am and screaming that is unrelated to actual or impending danger or injury, ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/9 "2011-01-30T01:24:38Z")
“Enhanced” bass, and the rude morons who see fit to cram their taste in so-called music down everyone’s throats. Particularly in residential areas. Ditto to the “look at me, look at me” people someone mentioned above. That not quite peevish, not quite whiny, almost demanding tone toddlers and preschoolers get sometimes. You know the one, they know they’re not supposed to be whining or demanding, so that have this TONE, this subtle GAAAAH TONE that stops just short of that. Especially when they know a particular parent is susceptible to it (my granddaughter who’s 4 does this, not with me, but with her mom, with whom it works like a charm). STOP doing that! It teaches her that it works. grrrrrrrrrrr ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/10 "2011-01-30T05:38:11Z")
I was in Starbuck’s today and I the couple next to me were talking. He was talking to her in English and she was answering in Spanish. So obviously they both understood both languages, but it was driving me nuts. I couldn’t concentrate on my paper and I don’t know why. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/11 "2011-01-30T06:53:40Z")
I can trace some of mine back to a dog we had when I was a young kid. His name was Aussie, and he was an Australian Shepherd and a great dog. However, he had the habit of laying right outside my bedroom door and licking his dick. A lot. Like, going to his ‘happy place’ a lot. And the seed of annoyance/disgust was planted… Years later, freshman/sophomore year or so in high school, my brother’s dog (a different dog) slipped his collar and was caught running sheep by a local rancher, who shot him through the throat. Amazingly, the bullet went clean through and didn’t hit his spine, windpipe, digestive system or any major veins or arteries, but he did have some trouble swallowing even after he recovered. It would take him a good 2-3 minutes to take a drink of water, and eating his food was an especially slobbery licky mess. My parents adopted my brother’s dog because the vet bills had been so high and he needed a level of care and supervision that my brother’s early twenties lifestyle could not maintain. Exacerbation ensued and my visceral reaction to that class of sound was reinforced exponentially as the dog was a long-lived member of our family, and a dog’s gotta eat and drink. Needless to say, I am fully rationally aware that not all slobbery slurpy wet-mouthed sounds from pets are caused by their tongues lapping repeatedly at a slimy pink doggie dick, but that has nothing to do with my mind’s reactions to the sounds of tongues and mouths drinking/eating/grooming. I have always been surrounded by pets, I love my pets, and I will always have pets. Pets who love me back and learn to endure my occasional odd behavior of preferring to feed them in another room or shoo them away in the middle of giving themselves a bath if it happens to be within earshot of me. ---
**Author:** ![Claude\_Remains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@Claude\_Remains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claude_Remains)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/12 "2011-01-30T10:40:00Z")
The scraping of the fork on the teeth. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![desert29rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@desert29rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desert29rat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/13 "2011-01-30T18:35:42Z")
Crunching, munching, slurping, scarfing, eating noises, _especially_ when they are used intentionally by television advertisers trying to sell such food (a fast-food joint and a candy bar company come to mind). I can’t change the channel fast enough! Friends have expressed surprise that I boycott these products, just as I will boycott any product whose ads I find offensive. ---
**Author:** ![PapSett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/14 "2011-01-30T19:05:11Z")
You know that shrill, ear-piercing shriek that children do? Yeah, that. When someone in another vehicle has their stereo turned up so lously that it’s vibrating YOUR vehicle. Usually the boom-boom-boom of base. Baby/toddler scream/crying. GAH! ---
**Author:** ![Walmarticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/15 "2011-01-30T20:11:08Z")
> [@desert29rat](#): > > Crunching, munching, slurping, scarfing, eating noises, _especially_ when they are used intentionally by television advertisers trying to sell such food (a fast-food joint and a candy bar company come to mind). I can’t change the channel fast enough! > > Friends have expressed surprise that I boycott these products, just as I will boycott any product whose ads I find offensive. Exactly. It’s bad enough when my Dad eats corn on the cob. But why must advertisers be so intentionally annoying? ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/16 "2011-01-30T22:19:16Z")
A much-loathed coworker chewing on ice and rattling a giant styrofoam cup to get said ice into her maw. I hate it - and it’s nonstop for eight goddam hours. I want to break her jaw. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Mama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5ac83/32.png) [@Atomic\_Mama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Mama)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-noises-so-annoying/569426/17 "2011-01-31T06:30:45Z")
I have great difficulty listening to the sounds of my “Spikeys” or “YaxTrax” on indoor floors of any type. Especially industrial concrete. I.e., Fred Meyer or Carrs, or … any smaller location. They’re great on snow and sometimes even on ice. But … I’d almost rather fall down or fall over than hear them sounds. I can even stand the pops, hisses, etc. on 78’s. But NOT ice traction devices!