From Tony Cains
I have also used the “white noise” method to blot out noisy neighbours, but in my experience the elaborate installation described by Andrew Chester is not necessary (Letters, 26 August).
If you have an FM radio or a TV in your room, simply tune it away from a station and turn up the volume in order to silence intrusive noise from any source. The brain soon ignores the “hiss” as it contains no information, but as the ear’s response to sound is logarithmic, the nuisance noise appears to get much quieter.
The method enables you to get to sleep even at quite high nuisance noise levels, and I have even made it work in a hotel room. The only thing to watch out for is that the TV or radio is not on the edge of a station’s frequency range, as you will hear the odd snatch of music or speech which is guaranteed to keep you awake.
