Neighbor Wars·
LOUD ALARMS, SILENT WALL
A late-for-work wakeup note sparks a sleep-deprived debate as a heavy alarm routine collides with a neighbor's quiet, forcing tough choices about noise and accountability.
Lower the alarms or keep the volume?
Be one of the first to vote.
A note on the door turned a neighbor into the hated one overnight.
The poster says they "received this note on my door today," and the complaint landed hard enough that they felt bad immediately. Their alarms, they admit, are "very noisy" and "very fucking early." But those alarms weren't always that way.
A few weeks earlier, the poster slept through them completely and woke up "THREE hours late for work." By then, the damage was already done. They called their boss, explained their ETA, and apologized, only to learn the boss had already found coverage. After that scare, the poster changed everything: more alarms, more often, and all of them set to the "loudest setting possible."
Now the setup is paying a different kind of price. The poster says they use an Amazon Echo on their nightstand and suspect the wall behind it may also be the neighbor's bedroom wall. That would put the blaring alarms right up against someone else's sleep. The poster says they are a "pretty deep sleeper," and the problem gets worse because they have "sleep apnea" and wear a CPAP at night. The machine helps them breathe, but it also adds noise and makes the alarms harder to hear.
So the result is a person trying to get themselves out of bed by brute force, and possibly waking the people next door at the same time.
The poster says they do not want to disturb other people. At the same time, missing work again is not an option. They say this is "very important" and that they "really cannot afford to miss work again in fear of termination."
That tension is what brought the question online: what can someone do when they need alarms loud enough to keep a job, but not so loud that they become the neighbor everyone hates? The poster asks for solutions and ends in distress, saying they "genuinely want to cry" and feel like "such an awful person."
For now, the only thing on the door is the note. The only thing in the post is a sleep emergency, a work scare, and one very loud alarm setup that may have reached the wrong wall.