# We sleep with a sound machine and didn't hear the gunshots...



## Aikikitty (Nov 16, 2010)

So, the other night my husband and I were leaving to go to an event when one of our neighbors out walking her dog asked us if we heard the gunshots.  No!!!!!!!  We're renting in a pretty safe suburb area in New Orleans, which is a very high crime city and there are still abandoned houses (from Katrina) in our neighborhood although many people are back and rebuilt or still rebuilding.  The layout---Our particular area has back alleys to all the streets and our apartment door faces this back alley.  And this area is all "houses", not an apartment block.  It's been popular since the storm for people here to fix up and divide off parts of their houses to rent out so they have extra income to fix up the rest.

Anyway, A couple houses down diagonal from us, 4 men broke in through the window at 5:30-ish a.m. while the family was sleeping.  Pregnant woman living there with her brother's family until her house is finished, hears noises and gets up and literally walks right into one of the men!  She runs back to her room, locks the door and screams bloody murder.  Her brother (or husband) wakes up and chases the men out the house.  When the brother got to the back porch, one of the men fired 5 shots.  All missed him, thank God!  They drove away with the 3 tvs, laptop, house/car keys, they managed to steal.  

Some of the close neighbors woke up to the woman's screams, many more woke up from the gunshots...even ones who live farther away than we do.  

We slept through all that, the cops, the neighbors excitement and searching for bullet casings.  I'm sure there was quite the crowd right at our front door.  We slept through it all because we sleep with my sound machine sort of loud.  You know the kind that plays white noise, rain, babbling brook, etc..  I've slept with one for years because any little noise in the quiet would wake me up and sometimes my husband and dog snore. I didn't think the volume was up "that loud". My little spaniel was also staying at my parent's house that weekend because we were going out of town for a day.  I don't know if she would have started barking if she heard the disturbance or not.

So....no more sleeping to sound machines.  I really don't like it, but after having crime happen so close to us, or even in our own apartment, and not hear anything, I definitely see the sense.  My husband has numerous firearms and he keeps a couple in the bedroom in case an emergency happens.

Thoughts?  Comments?

P.S.  This was pretty horrible---my husband and other neighbors have called  the cops in the past to report suspicious persons poking around new  houses or abandoned ones and they'd show up in 2 minutes to check it  out.  That early morning, a neighbor SAW the men walking around the victim's  house and called the cops.  No one came out.  She called again when she  saw them going in the window and no one showed up until after the  scumbags were gone. My husband sells and installs security alarms so I imagine we'll have some of our poor neighbors coming to him for business.  Good for us, but very sad the reason!  : (


----------



## Flea (Nov 16, 2010)

Don't beat yourself up over it.  It could be that the machine isn't as loud as you think, but it conditioned your brain to filter out noise and sleep through it.

I've had the same problem in the past.  I lived in one townhouse and shared a wall with a couple who were both hardcore alcoholics.  They constantly bickered at top volume until 4am every morning.  I eventually learned to sleep through it.  After a couple years, I found out that the guy had been arrested for beating the tar out of her, both of them screaming, at about the same time of night.  I felt guilty for sleeping through it, I might have been able to help her.  But still, I had been conditioned to sleep through all their yelling for about three years.  What would one expect?

In my last apartment, I lived one block from an interstate, directly under the flight path to the airport, between two streets that were the city's main conduits for ambulances feeding the medical district, on a street that was also a major traffic artery.  Not surprisingly, there was a lot of night life, with restaurants holding outdoor concerts and the ubiquitous boom cars.  I had to sleep with earplugs most nights, and finally succumbed to a prescription sleep aid.  Every few months someone would try to break into my place, usually during the day.  I realized that I was making myself very vulnerable but sleep deprivation would have done the same thing.  I just put my trust in my cowardly but LOUD dog to wake me up if someone tried it during the night - not that I could have responded very well under the influence.

The point of this mindless ramble is that while it's admirable to be a good neighbor by being vigilant, it's important to take care of yourself.  If you don't get any sleep you can become a liability to your community by driving exhausted or doing any number of other things you shouldn't.  It's a trade off.  Balance it out in the way that seems best for you, but don't short change your own needs.  You're entitled to take care of yourself with a proper night's sleep.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Nov 17, 2010)

Some people sleep deep. others very light.
My youngest sits up when we check on her before going to bed and she is fairly lucid imediately.
My oldest otoh doesn't wake for anything. Sometimes, when putting away fresh laundry, we just enter her room, turn on the light, put clothes away, see her hanging half out of the bed, tuck her her back in and leave. And she doesn't so much as stir. 

Tbh I don't think your sound machine is to blame at all. If you were in the deep part of your sleep, then you were out good.


----------



## Stac3y (Nov 17, 2010)

The Opal Dragon said:


> pretty safe suburb area in New Orleans,


 
Um...I'd call that a contradiction in terms.


----------



## Aikikitty (Nov 17, 2010)

Stac3y said:


> Um...I'd call that a contradiction in terms.



Lol!  No kidding!  I guess the proper term is "relatively safe".


----------



## Flea (Nov 17, 2010)

Here's another way to look at it.  While you may feel like a bad neighbor for sleeping through the ruckus, the _real_ bad neighbors are the ones who did the robbery.  I know that's a forehead slapper, but sometimes the most obvious things are the easiest to miss.


----------



## Aikikitty (Nov 17, 2010)

Flea said:


> Here's another way to look at it.  While you may feel like a bad neighbor for sleeping through the ruckus, the _real_ bad neighbors are the ones who did the robbery.  I know that's a forehead slapper, but sometimes the most obvious things are the easiest to miss.



That is very true, but the main point is if sleeping with a sound machine might make us sleep through a break in on our own apartment.  That's what my husband is mostly concerned about.  But you had a good example when you said you had years of being trained to sleep through your neighbors fighting.  Or we could have been in our deepest mode of sleep.  So we could be trying to sleep without the machine (on my husband's insistence) for nothing. :disgust:

Robyn


----------



## Carol (Nov 18, 2010)

The Opal Dragon said:


> That is very true, but the main point is if sleeping with a sound machine might make us sleep through a break in on our own apartment.  That's what my husband is mostly concerned about.  But you had a good example when you said you had years of being trained to sleep through your neighbors fighting.  Or we could have been in our deepest mode of sleep.  So we could be trying to sleep without the machine (on my husband's insistence) for nothing. :disgust:
> 
> Robyn



I don't necessarily believe so.  

Gunshots are compression waves.  They are very loud, but they are also very brief.   Milliseconds.  Depending on your sleep schedule (and others), it may have woken you up briefly and you went back to sleep...or you may have stirred a bit.   Its not unreasonable for some people to start waking up around 5:30...they may have been more susceptible to hearing the sounds.

Personally I wouldn't do away with the sound machine. Instead I would make sure that you're abode is protected as it can be.  Contents insurance for your valuables, good locks on your doors and windows, hoping hubby has one of his alarm systems in place , a charged phone at the ready within easy reach of your bed, even weapons if that is an option (I feel a bit odd saying that to an aikidoka )


----------



## Bruno@MT (Nov 18, 2010)

Carol said:


> Gunshots are compression waves.  They are very loud, but they are also very brief.   Milliseconds.  Depending on your sleep schedule (and others), it may have woken you up briefly and you went back to sleep...or you may have stirred a bit.   Its not unreasonable for some people to start waking up around 5:30...they may have been more susceptible to hearing the sounds.



+1.

If you had to wake up for every millisecond sound out in the street, you wouldn't get any sleep at all. I've been known to sleep right through the sound of my youngest crying while my wife would wake instantly. Otoh I woke up a couple of times, instantly alert and taking a flashlight and improvised weapon to check the house, because I heard a soft 'bump' that was not normal.

So I don't think that your sound machine will make any difference at all, as long as it is not so loud that it actually drowns out all sounds from outside the room.


----------



## Aikikitty (Nov 18, 2010)

Carol said:


> I don't necessarily believe so.
> 
> Gunshots are compression waves.  They are very loud, but they are also very brief.   Milliseconds.  Depending on your sleep schedule (and others), it may have woken you up briefly and you went back to sleep...or you may have stirred a bit.   Its not unreasonable for some people to start waking up around 5:30...they may have been more susceptible to hearing the sounds.
> 
> Personally I wouldn't do away with the sound machine. Instead I would make sure that you're abode is protected as it can be.  Contents insurance for your valuables, good locks on your doors and windows, hoping hubby has one of his alarm systems in place , a charged phone at the ready within easy reach of your bed, even weapons if that is an option (I feel a bit odd saying that to an aikidoka )



All those things make sense. Our landlord won't (yet) allow him to install an alarm in the apartment, but my husband has his phone and a couple of his many guns on the table on his side of the bed.  I need to get more comfortable with my gun before I'd want to start keeping by me.  Only shot it once at the range and that was ages ago.  I have very sharp swords too, but those are definitely more difficult to use in small spaces like hallways.    I doubt my dog would be any help except "maybe" barking if she'll do even that.  http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=87&pictureid=2337

Robyn :asian:


----------



## Flea (Nov 18, 2010)

Robyn, all your dog needs is a little self-esteem builder.  This should have her swaggering in no time.

Have you thought about a simple chain lock?  They're not too effective, but it'll slow someone down long enough to give you a heads-up.  There's also the door brace, which I'm planning to get with my next paycheck.


----------



## Carol (Nov 18, 2010)

Flea said:


> Robyn, all your dog needs is a little self-esteem builder.  This should have her swaggering in no time.
> 
> Have you thought about a simple chain lock?  They're not too effective, but it'll slow someone down long enough to give you a heads-up.  There's also the door brace, which I'm planning to get with my next paycheck.



That's a great idea.  Also if you have windows that go up and down, they can be secured with dowels cut to size.

Would your landlord permit a monitoring system that wasn't an alarm per se, or didn't require anything permanent?  (In other words....would they permit something they didn't have to know about?)  Such as sensors on the windows that would trigger a call to a monitoring call center, that would then call you (instead of setting off a klaxon horn)? 

Just throwing ideas out there.  I'm really sorry this happened so close to home.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Nov 18, 2010)

The best idea to get a 'heads up' I know of is something I saw in 'Conspiracy theory'. Put an empty bottle upside down on the door handle. if someone turns the handle or opens the door, the bottle will drop to the floor and give you a loud warning (assuming no carpets)


----------

