Night-time bedroom soundscapes: embodied geographies of housing and home

ABSTRACT

This article examines night-time bedroom soundscapes to highlight the significance of embodied geographies of home in understanding lived inequalities of housing. The article presents an analysis of responses (n =174) to the Mass Observation Project ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) directive, in which UK panellists were asked about their bedrooms. The mundane, ordinary and frequent noise disturbance from neighbourhoods and neighbours is documented to contribute to an understanding of the sensory geographies of night-time domesticities. The article demonstrates that embodied experiences of night-time bedroom soundscapes, including sleep practices, are shaped by housing, including residential location, building type, and ownership/tenure. The article concludes by arguing that attention to soundscapes is significant in developing an embodied understanding of the inequalities of contemporary geographies of housing and home.

Este artículo examina los paisajes sonoros nocturnos en el dormitorio para resaltar la importancia de las geografías encarnadas del hogar para comprender las desigualdades vividas en la vivienda. El artículo presenta un análisis de las respuestas (n = 174) obtenidas en el Proyecto de Observación Masiva ‘Tu Dormitorio’ (2017), en el que se preguntó a los panelistas del Reino Unido sobre sus dormitorios. Se documentan los ruidos mundanos, ordinarios y frecuentes que perturban l pasaje sonoro nocturno de los vecindarios y vecinos para contribuir a la comprensión de las geografías sensoriales de las domesticidades nocturnas. El artículo demuestra que las experiencias incorporadas de los paisajes sonoros nocturnos de los dormitorios, incluidas las prácticas de sueño, están determinadas por la vivienda, incluida la ubicación residencial, el tipo de edificio y la propiedad/tenencia. El artículo concluye argumentando que la atención a los paisajes sonoros es importante para desarrollar una comprensión encarnada de las desigualdades de las geografías contemporáneas de la vivienda y el hogar.

Cet article étudie les environnements sonores des chambres pendant la nuit afin de mettre en évidence le rôle de la géographie concrète du foyer pour la compréhension des inégalités vécues dans le contexte du logement. Cet article présente une analyse des réponses (n=174) à la directive «Your Bedroom» (votre chambre) (2017) émanant du Mass Observation Project ;(projet d’observation de masse), dans laquelle les participants britanniques ont répondu à des questions concernant leurs chambres à coucher. Les perturbations de bruit banales, ordinaires et fréquentes provenant du voisinage et des voisins eux-mêmes sont documentées afin de contribuer aux connaissances sur la géographie sensorielle de la vie domestique nocturne. Cet article démontre que les expériences concrètes de l’environnement sonore de la chambre la nuit, notamment les pratiques de sommeil, sont façonnées par l’habitation, y compris le lieu de résidence, le type de bâtiment et la possession ou l’occupation. En conclusion, il soutient que l’attention aux environnements sonores est importante dans le développement d’une compréhension concrète des inégalités dans les géographies contemporaines du logement et du foyer.

KEYWORDS:

• UK
• home
• Mass Observation Project
• housing
• sleep
• sound

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• Reino Unido
• hogar
• Proyecto de Observación Masiva
• vivienda
• sueño
• sonido

MOTS CLEFS:

• Royaume-Uni
• foyer
• Mass Observation Project
• projet d’observation de masse
• logement
• sommeil
• son

Housing inequalities and their spatial articulation in residential locations, domestic architectures and everyday living arrangements shape embodied geographies of home and the lived sensory atmospheres of domestic space (Dowling & Power, 2012; Hingley, 2013, Imrie, 2004; Kerr et al., 2018; Law, 2001; Rinkart, 2022).¹ To further develop geographical understanding of the complex relationships between housing and home, in this article I examine night-time soundscapes in bedrooms and their impact on embodied domestic sleep practices. The concept of ‘soundscapes’ refers to the ‘acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context’ (ISO, cited in Kang et al., 2016, p. 285) and it encompasses both human and non-human sounds (e.g. vehicles, technologies, people, animals, weather) in the constitution of an acoustic environment (Kang et al., 2016, p. 286). It also highlights the listener’s participation in making sounds meaningful (Kang et al., 2016, p. 286), including the interpretation of unwanted sound(s) as ‘noise’ (Atkinson, 2007).

To explore bedroom soundscapes at night, I draw on archival evidence in the form of written responses (n=174) to the Mass Observation Project’s (MOP) ‘Your Bedroom’ (Spring 2017) directive. The accounts highlight the impact of sensory domestic textures on geographies of home: since sound ‘produces affective atmospheres, which interface with bodies on auditory and other listening registers’ (Gallagher et al., 2017, p. 625), our listening to, and absorption of, sound is ‘part of a broader, everyday, relational socio-spatial practice’ through which home emerges (Duffy & Waitt, 2013, p. 470). Crucially, bedroom soundscapes not only support socio-spatial and embodied night-time experiences of relaxation, rest and sleep, but unwanted sound(s) may also contribute to fleeting or chronic experiences of wakefulness. This article seeks to explore bedroom soundscapes as a significant element of the broader (un)homely sensory atmospheres that saturate domestic space and imbue it with meaning for the embodied resident. While MOP panellists also described being disturbed by those they lived among (most often, by snoring partners), the analysis here is focused on sounds originating from the wider neighbourhood and neighbouring dwellings. Findings demonstrate some of the ways that bedroom soundscapes are shaped by residential location, building type, living arrangement, and ownership/tenure, yet a social and moral geography of how sleep is discussed obscures how these (classed) housing inequalities impact sleep practices, instead encouraging personal responsibility for achieving sleep norms. Since living with ongoing sleep disturbance has long-term health effects, such as an increased risk of cardio-vascular illness (Babisch & Kim, 2011), exploring bedroom soundscapes contributes not only to the illumination of domestic geographies of home but also provides insights of relevance for the urban planning of sustainable liveable cities (e.g. Adams et al., 2006, 2007; Atkinson, 2007; Kang et al., 2016).

Understanding geographies of bedroom soundscapes

Geographers have critically examined the inequalities of home ideologies and their materialization in lived domestic space (e.g. Blunt & Dowling, 2022; Brickell, 2020; Dowling & Power, 2012; Gorman-Murray, 2006), but relatively little is known about bedrooms specifically or their role in these processes. The exception perhaps is teenage bedrooms which have attracted significant interdisciplinary attention from researchers as an important site through which young people’s emerging subjectivities are negotiated in relation to a shared ‘family’ home and online/in-person social spaces (Kearney, 2007; Larson, 1995; Lincoln, 2005, 2016; Newson, 2017; Rebane, 2019; Wong, 2020). Younger children’s bedrooms have also been explored and identified as an important location for toy storage and play within the home (Arnold et al. 2012; Loebenberg, 2012; Plowman & Stevenson, 2013; Woodyer & Carter, 2020). Dowling and Power’s (2012) research with families living in large suburban houses in Australia reveals that the provision of separate bedrooms for children of all ages is one of the spatial strategies through which such homes afford middle-class expectations of respectability since, even with open-plan living spaces, children’s ‘noise’ and ‘mess’ can still be contained and family members gain privacy for independent activities. Indeed, the bedrooms of adult parents in family homes can take on significance as a space of sanctuary and retreat as part of bedtime routines (Arnold et al., 2012; Dowling & Power, 2012; Holloway et al., 2008). For cohabiting couples without children or for adults living in student halls, HMOs, nursing homes, and other shared housing, it is also apparent that bedrooms may have a different significance as the most personalized and private space within the shared home (Gorman-Murray, 2006, Holton and Riley 2016; Heath, 2004; Heath et al., 2018, p. 88; Nettleton et al., 2018). In contrast, Hingley’s (2013) photo-essay documents some of the material and space constraints of older siblings sharing bedrooms in social housing. The meaning of bedroom spaces as ‘private’ is further complicated by their function as the site of paid employment and digital entrepreneurship (e.g. Casey & Littler, 2022; Ruberg & Lark, 2021; Variyan & Reimer, 2022). Together these existing studies suggest that focusing on bedrooms has the potential to highlight shifting inequalities through which our personal, intimate, domestic, and social lives are navigated.

While this is not automatic (as the discussion above reveals), a focus on bedrooms could also help to illuminate night-time geographies of home, including domestic sleep practices. Geographers have asserted the significance of home temporalities, including the domestic routines, habits, and practices that constitute the lived home (Liu, 2021), but the home at night has rarely featured to date (except see Tomori & Boyer, 2019).² Approximately 47% of the time we spend in the home is spent sleeping (British Time Use Survey, cited in Shaw, 2015, p. 588) and, for the majority of people, sleep takes place mainly at night (except see Coveney, 2014 on shift workers and students) and mostly in specific rooms designated as bedrooms (although examples of study bedrooms, studio apartments, sleeping on the sofa, etc., complicate this later in the article). Yet, sleep geographies have been relatively little explored, perhaps because ‘the quotidian, taken-for-granted, unconscious, uncanny, ineffable nature of sleep ensures that it typically eludes and exceeds the terms, methods and foci of much human geographical enquiry’ (Kraftl & Horton, 2008, p. 510). While my primary focus in this article is not on theorizing sleep per se, sleep emerges in the ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) MOP directive as an important domestic practice through which quotidian geographies of the embodied night-time home are lived and experienced. Therefore, I draw instead on the much more extensive examinations of sleep that have emerged in sociological literatures, emphasizing the socio-cultural dimensions of sleep as embodied and embedded (Williams & Crossley, 2008, p. 2; see also: Hislop & Arber, 2003; Hsu, 2014; Meadows, 2005; Venn et al., 2008; Williams, 2005, 2007; Williams & Crossley, 2008; Williams, 2011). It is also important to note that the dominant sleep norm in the US (and also UK) – a single period of consolidated sleep at night – is a relatively recent replacement of biphasic sleep patterns and can be understood as part of the broader ordering of social life in pursuit of capitalism, yet disordered sleep is understood and medicalized in relation to these patterns often deemed ‘natural’ (Wolf-Meyer, 2012).³ The focus here is not on participants with sleep diagnoses, but instead on ordinary, everyday/night experiences of sleeping and waking, as discussed in relation to bedroom soundscapes and the embodied home.

In exploring the home as embodied,⁴ anthropologist Sarah Pink (2004, p. 69, 2017) asserts the significance of sound – along with other sensory dimensions – in constituting the atmospheric qualities of domestic space that render it familiar: ‘the sound of speech and conversation, of music, radio, television, domestic dogs barking, uninvited bats squeaking, windows knocking against their frames in the wind, the running water and clanking ceramics of washing up or an intentionally slammed door’. Sounds produced inside the home have also been highlighted by research focusing on music and radio listening practices (Anderson, 2004; Lincoln, 2016; Pink, 2004). However, the role of soundscapes in constituting an emotional ‘sense of home’ has been most fully elucidated by Duffy and Waitt (2013) in their study of 10 amenity-led migrants in coastal homes in New South Wales, Australia. Duffy and Waitt (2013, p. 470) suggest that home can be understood as a ‘sonorous assemblage,’ dwelling bodies triggered by the affective qualities of sound in a process of the relational production of home. Yet, while they recognize the possibility of alienation from place, the overwhelming focus of the amenity-led migrants is the appeal of sounds of nature, such as the ‘rhythmic affordances’ of ocean waves. In contrast, the discussion of bedroom soundscapes in this article, is focused almost entirely on unwelcome sounds intruding into the home at night, that is, auditory textures of domestic space that undermine home-making momentarily or longer-term.

It is clear from recent reviews (e.g. Gallagher et al., 2017; Paiva, 2018) that unwanted sounds have also received relatively little attention within broader geographical literatures where the emphasis is on music and performance and/or positive connections with landscape and place (e.g. Anderson et al., 2005; Atkinson, 2007; Doughty et al., 2016; Gallagher & Prior, 2014; Smith, 2000; Thulin, 2016). The relationship between sound and emotion is complex and varied (e.g. Bell, 2017; Berrens, 2016; Doughty et al., 2016; Holloway, 2022), but ‘noise’ is sound that is perceived as being ‘out of place’ (Atkinson, 2007, 1905, drawing on Gurney 1999). Of relevance here, then, are geographical contributions to a quite separate strand of interdisciplinary work on noise abatement policy and protest (e.g. MacFarlane, 2019; Oosterlynck & Swyngedouw, 2010; Rinkart, 2022). These debates stress the significance of the spatial-temporal context in which sound is made, heard, regulated and politicized (MacFarlane, 2019, p. 540), reminding us of the inequalities of listening and hearing. Sound also features in geographical work exploring the sensory city (e.g. Adams et al., 2007; Atkinson, 2007, 2011; Law, 2001, 2005). While middle-class residents of cities enjoy the opportunity to engage with city life, Adams et al. (2007, p. 212) argue, they also appreciate being able to retreat to quieter areas where the auditory experience of the city is less intrusive. Intriguingly, in these accounts of urban life, home is conceptualized as a space of relative quiet and calm, as respite, refuge, or sanctuary from unwanted sounds (e.g. Adams et al., 2007, p. 212; Atkinson, 2011, p. 13, p. 18). In contrast, this article demonstrates that the soundscapes of ordinary UK homes are more complex. I seek to explore more fully the embodied experience of the night-time, as revealed in Mass Observation Project data which is introduced in the next section.

Methodology: MOP’s ‘Your bedroom’ (Spring 2017) directive

Although there is much potential for creative methodologies in geographical work on sound (e.g. see Duffy & Waitt, 2013; Kang et al., 2016), Gallagher and Prior (2014, p. 270) acknowledge that phonographic methods are not always necessary to illuminate sonic geographies. Here I draw instead on archival research, using the ‘Your Bedroom’ (Spring 2017) directive, designed by the Mass Observation Project (https://www.thekeep.info/). An MOP directive is a themed list of open questions (see http://www.massobs.org.uk/images/Directives/Spring_Directive_2017.pdf), inviting a UK panel ‘to write freely and discursively about their views and experiences on subjects’ (Casey et al., 2014).⁵ In presenting quotes from the 174 responses, I have used their unique code (designated by MOP staff thereby providing anonymity), as well as information given by panellists (gender, age, location, etc.), adding further information where relevant to the analysis. One important limitation of MOP directive data noted by Olsen et al. (2020) regards the panel being predominantly white, middle-class and English. However, residential housing circumstances were varied, arising from class and occupation, generation (the age range is 23–96), and ‘household status’ (a term used within the MOP archiving to encompass how panellists choose to describe their living arrangements, sexuality, and marital/relationship status), geographical location (rural, suburban, urban), ownership and types of tenure, and different kinds of dwelling, including university accommodation, studios and other flats, shared houses with friends and parents, bedsits, houses of multiple occupancy, detached and terraced houses, and sheltered accommodation. Likewise, although overall the MOP sample is skewed towards women, 60 men submitted responses. As is common across directives, some responses were many pages, while others were much briefer (Kramer, 2013). Indeed, one of the many strengths of this methodology is also that the sample includes responses from relatively disinterested panellists (both men and women) who might have self-excluded from a research project specifically about bedrooms, domesticity, sleep, or soundscapes/noise.

I worked with the original written/printed materials of the ‘Your Bedroom’ directive responses, although earlier directives are digitized and available online. Following ethical approval from my university (application ER/KW68/5 and amendment ER/KW68/10), I initially read through about a fifth of responses, highlighting themes to follow-up in more depth. I was intrigued by, and attuned to, panellists discussing noise, in part resulting from my own home being impacted by mechanical noise (plant-room ventilation fans fitted in the context of the UK’s building safety crisis). I systematically (re)read all responses, analysing them as qualitative narrative data, similar to interview transcripts (e.g. Walsh, 2018a/b). The MOP directive responses are partial and constructed accounts, ‘fragments’ of story (Kramer, 2013), yet highly revealing of intimate domestic geographies (Bhatti, 2014; Charles 2017). This methodology helps manage ethical concerns about the potential for social research to be potentially intrusive in relation to domestic geographies of the night-time (Kraftl & Horton, 2008, p. 519) and sleep (Williams, 2008, p. 650), to access spaces that interview participants more often exclude during ‘home tours’ (Walsh, 2018b), and, thereby, to re-privatize and re-domesticate our understanding of sleep.

Bedroom soundscapes in the archive: embodied experiences of the home at night

This section of the article presents findings from the MOP ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) directive introduced above and is organized into four parts. Firstly, I examine how panellists discuss neighbourhood sounds (animals, people, and vehicles) audible in their bedrooms at night. Secondly, I focus on their experiences of hearing neighbours in shared acoustic spaces. Thirdly, I explore how waking and personal responsibility for sleeplessness are articulated. Finally, in the fourth analysis section, I consider a range of strategies employed to cope with sound that is disrupting sleep, including modifications to bedrooms and the use of sleep-aids. Throughout, I note where housing inequalities play a role in shaping bedroom soundscapes to develop an understanding of the social geographies of soundscapes in the home at night.

Unwanted neighbourhood sounds: sleeping and urban ‘noise’

Sleep is an achievement of bodies, rather than a bodily state that can be taken-for-granted, shaped by ‘the affective relations between bodies and the spaces occupied by them in the process of trying to get to sleep’ (Ashmore, 2011, p. 213). As such, embodied sleep practices are shaped by the atmospheric qualities of bedrooms, including bedroom soundscapes. This section explores how neighbourhood sounds, or their absence, shape bedroom soundscapes to understand more fully embodied experience of the home at night.

For many panellists responding to the ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) directive, it was the absence of sounds in their bedrooms at night that they noticed and articulated comparatively:

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quiet. Out of the many places I’ve lived this is one of the most tranquil (G5994 Female, 57, cohabiting, Newcastle).

Having suffered years of noise from outside our former home, the peace and quiet here is sublime (B4290 Female, 47, Married, Administration, Suffolk).

So much nicer not to be woken by the smell of petrol fumes, revving engines, loud radio’s being switched off and car doors being slammed (B4750 Female, 40, Married, Student, Exeter).

There are no noises [.] I just feel absolutely safe as there are no children or youths messing around (J1890, Female, 85, widow, location unstated, recently moved into sheltered accommodation).

These narratives reflect that ‘quietude is entwined with home ownership’ and choices in residential location (Atkinson, 2007, 1910). Interestingly, for one panellist, it was ‘nice and quiet at night’, but perhaps too quiet: they needed to keep a radio on in their bedroom (R4526, Male, 56, Single, Retired Teacher, Belfast). Only a few external sounds were mentioned favourably by panellists, such as owls calling (W3994) or bats squeaking (P2138), with animal sounds more frequently identified as noise:

The foxes outside make a lot of noise at certain times of the year (C5991 Female, 63, Married, retired office worker, Essex).

[…] the seagull cacophony […] begins in the early hours from the rooftops opposite (W6129 Male, 32, single, archivist, East Sussex).

Noise is sound(s) perceived as being ‘out of place’ spatially or temporally (Atkinson, 2007, 1905, drawing on Gurney). Therefore, sounds do not have an inherent social meaning, but become ‘noise’ when they are experienced or interpreted as disruptive or harmful to the embodied listener (Duffy & Waitt, 2013, p. 470). The temporal and seasonal rhythms of animal sounds in urban space, sounds which cannot be regulated in urban policy, transform them into noise. Therefore, sound highlights the porosity of domestic space (Blunt & Dowling, 2022), undermining the bedroom as a ‘sanctuary’ for rest and sleep.

Sleep is an ‘ongoing, constant negotiation through bodily practice’ (Kraftl & Horton, 2008, p. 514) and the sensory geographies of the bedroom shape everyday/night sleep practices. Many panellists described ‘noise’ from people and vehicles, their frequency, volume, or tone, challenging the night-time liveability of urban neighbourhoods (Adams et al., 2007):

The road outside can be rather noisy at times because we have a bus service that runs on this road with a bus stop a few yards from the house. Sometimes on Friday or Saturday nights it is rather noisy outside because of people, walking home from the local pub or getting off the bus and talking loudly before dispersing (H2639, Female, 76, married, retired, Suffolk).

This drove me potty as I hate, in any circumstances, people who leave their engine turning over […] but the fact that it was happening at 2.30 am every night really became an issue, and even if I was asleep I’d wake up just before they arrived and wait, tuned in […] I used to lie in bed annoyed (R5682, Male, 44, Single, Didcot).

We often hear cars racing from 1-5am (C5991 Female, 63, Married, retired office worker, Essex).

The stress of noise exposure to traffic at home not only reduces sleep quality and duration but has longer-term health impacts, raising blood pressure and increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease (Babisch & Kim, 2011; Kang et al., 2016). Helicopters and heavier vehicles moving along main arterial routes produce a more fully corporeal disturbance to the sonic atmosphere of night-time bedrooms, resulting from their depth, sonic vibration, and volume:

Large lorries and buses trundle past on the main road outside which cause enough noise and vibration to be felt through the floor (A5375 Non-binary, 28, Married, Communications, Edinburgh).

My ideal bedroom … It would also not be by such a noisy main road where the lorries thundering down actually shake the floor sometimes (H6109 Female, 39, Single, Student Nurse, London, renting a studio flat).

Nothing much disturbs my sleep, apart from the rare occasion when a police helicopter turns up during the night to assist the local police – it can be very noisy (A6069 Male, 81, Widower, Retired, Barnsley).

Together, the accounts of these panellists suggest that sleep is disturbed by unwanted sound(s) – animals, people, and vehicles – during the night-time. This complicates Atkinson’s (2011, p. 21) assertion that urban noise is taken-for-granted, heard but not listened to. The variation in frequency of noise disturbance in panellist responses is revealing of sleep-as-privilege. Sleep practices are shaped by residential location, with bedrooms in intensely urban homes more likely to be exposed to routine or sustained noise intrusion throughout the night by their proximity to busy roads, bus routes, pubs, and parking schemes. Therefore, the sensory impacts of urban space are unequal, providing insight into how economic and social power orders cities (Atkinson, 2007). The next section further explores and documents experiences of bedroom soundscapes by highlighting neighbour noise.

Neighbour-noise: night-time geographies of shared acoustic space

Bedrooms are the site of many pre- and post-sleep domestic routines, ‘transitional practices and symbolic markers designed to ease us back and forth into waking life’ and to ‘facilitate the body into and out of the sleep role’ (Williams, 2008, p. 642). Along with sleep itself, these bedtime routines are the practices of night-time domestic relaxation and rest that are understood as ‘care of the self’ (Shaw, 2015). Bedroom soundscapes are, therefore, deeply implicated in our well-being and the intrusion of neighbour noise – the focus of this section – can become a significant problem in contemporary cities (Adams et al., 2006; Clifford Rosenberg, 2016).

The designation of any sounds, including those of neighbours, as ‘noise’ is not only about volume: ‘the whole context of the noise, its source, distance from the noise, its longevity and perceived level of control over it, all play a part in a person’s response to it and whether they would want to see it eliminated from their soundscape’ (Adams et al., 2006, p. 2394). Indeed, noise arises from the capacity of sound to escape, such that it ‘disrupts and reworks common spatial concepts such as boundary’ (Gallagher et al., 2017, p. 620). Sounds of neighbours travel through open (and sometimes closed) windows of suburban homes from neighbouring gardens, their repetitive rhythms frustrating panellists:

In the summer I hear a neighbour looking for his cat usually around 11.30ish. ‘Sylvia, Sylvia – puss puss puss!’ he calls repeatedly. It’s funny but really annoying. I think I once shouted: ‘Get a bloody cat flap!’ Who calls a cat Sylvia? (G4296 Male, 40, Single, Gay, Archivist, Cardiff).

Sometimes he even plays his music/drums and sings quite late into the night from his shed and it is the same bass lines over and over again as he’s practising (J4793 Female, 37, Married, Self-employed Creative, near Glasgow).

Even in the context of relatively privileged suburban housing then, unwanted sounds have the potential to disrupt bedtime routines and sleep, generating ‘social friction’ (Atkinson, 2007, 1910). Yet, panellists also showed tolerance and empathy towards neighbours making louder noise, when it was infrequent, forewarned, or beyond their control:

[…] occasionally the next-door neighbours have a party and barbecues with pop music until midnight. They always let us know beforehand and I rarely go to bed until around midnight anyway (L2604 Male, 78, Married, Illustrator, South-East England).

A couple of nights ago, for the first time, I was woken by noises from the home. One of the residents [with learning difficulties] was repeatedly banging a bathroom window and shouting. […] I suspect he was having a pretty bad day, as were his care workers. I was quite startled by the noise and remembered how disorientating it is to be suddenly woken up (L5604, Male, 36, Single, Teacher, Newcastle-under-Lyme).

Williams (2008, p. 642) notes that ‘sleeping at night in the privacy and comfort of one’s own home is a socially expected and endorsed practice, pursuit or pastime’, but this cannot be taken-for-granted. For panellists resident in terraced and semi-detached housing, more intimate sounds of their neighbour’s bodies were sometimes audible from adjacent bedrooms through ‘party’ (shared) walls:

We can hear our neighbour snoring, I have no idea how his wife puts up with it, but I find the noise comforting (S4002, Female, 38, Married, Administrator, Cardiff).

We can hear my neighbour cough and go on her exercise bike at night (J2891 Female, 52, Married with two children living at home, Administrator, location not stated).

Next door also make some noise when they’re having sex. This is somewhat irregular […] However you do occasionally hear the groaning or screaming “Yes, Yes” loudly on the other side of the wall (K5262 Male, 48, Cohabiting, Railway Engineer, Crewe, often sleeping on the sofa in the living room).

Interestingly, panellists did not comment on the potential for sound to travel in the other direction. The exception was a panellist who explained that he had recently started using apps to have casual sex (S6049, Male, 26, Single, Library Assistant, Swansea).

The impact on domestic rhythms of these shared acoustic spaces becomes intensified when adjacent households have residents from different generations and/or with temporally distinct routines:

A young family lives next door so sometimes I’m woken up by kids screaming (L5977 Female, 21, Single, Student, Cardiff).

Recently our old neighbours moved out and I do not miss hearing their teenager’s music, late night computer games and all the arguments (C5991 Female, 63, Married, Retired Office Worker, Essex).

We have students next door and they are not too bad, but like to cook in the middle of the night (M4780 Female, 33, Cohabiting, Support Worker, London).

Since noise since travels both vertically and horizontally, the possibilities for sonic intrusion are also increased when living in an apartment (Kerr et al., 2018) or when landlords create bedrooms from downstairs living spaces as in many HMOs. Among panellists renting bedsits, studio flat, student study-bedrooms or living in shared houses, neighbour noise was a routine dimension of night-time soundscapes:

Sometimes I have issues with noise from the people who live directly above me as the noise carries so badly with the wooden flooring (H6109 Female, 39, Single, Student Nurse, London, renting a studio flat).

There are one or two problems that can affect sleeping patterns. One is other tenants using the stairs at night … (A4127 Male, 54, Single, Theatre Usher, Blackpool, renting a bedsit).

Sometimes the tenants below keep us awake but it’s not usually too bad (S5012 Female, 37, Married, Sales Assistant, Exeter, living in an HMO).

It’s never been so bad that I’ve not been able to sleep but the noise can be quite substantial […] Sometimes there is literal screaming, the sort you might here where someone is afraid or in pain, and sometimes there is banging and crashing as though someone is having a fight (S5780 Male, 23, Single, Lancaster, living in student accommodation).

Inadequate sound proofing in many buildings leads to a lack of acoustic distinction between apartments (Kerr et al., 2018) and rooms in shared accommodation, increasing the likelihood of higher volume and more routine sonic intrusion at night. Like these panellists, those who rent in the UK’s private rental sector are more limited in their housing options as this housing sector (along with social rented accommodation) is dominated by flats, maisonettes, and apartments, whereas houses are more common among homeowners (ONS, 2021). The next section explores further how panellists explain their experiences of listening or sleeping in complex relation to their bedroom soundscapes.

Social and moral geographies of sleep(lessness)

The physiology of our bodies is important in sleep, but it also interacts with social and, therefore, moral understandings of sleep norms and practices (Williams, 2008). The focus here is on how panellists relate their own sleep, and that of others they live with, to their bedroom soundscapes or instead downplay these sensory textures informing their sleep. In doing so, the ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) directive responses are revealing of wider articulations of moral geographies of waking and sleep(lessness) and the navigation of sleep through broader social rhythms of everyday/night life (Wolf-Meyer, 2012).

Intriguingly, the routine intrusion of urban sounds into the bedroom no longer impacted the sleep of some panellists who had either become desensitized or found that noise had become part of the familiarity of home:

There is the railway line but we are so used to the noise of trains we don’t notice them (S2207 Female, 65, Married, Retired Teaching Assistant, Brighton).

I live in a tenement flat on the top floor […] on the ground floor of the building is a pub and directly opposite another pub. So in bed I can hear the noises from the pub and on a Friday night or whenever they have a function on, I go to sleep to the sound of badly sung karaoke […] on match days the street can be noisy and if there is an Old Firm tie on then it can become carnage. However, you get used to the constant noise and whenever I have to sleep anywhere else that is very quiet I find it very difficult (A3623 Male, 59, Single, Queer, Retired Social Care Manager, Glasgow).

I hear revving motorbikes, screams, neighbours chatting and drinking outside, children/babies crying, seagulls screeching, someone randomly sweeping in the middle of the night, parties occasionally. Seagulls scrabble on the roof above my head. Rain and hail also drum on the roof. These are the normal noises of the area and I don’t mind them. Yes sometimes I can’t sleep, sometimes I get woken, but I am in plentiful company (B3010, Female, 53, Divorced, Civil Servant, Jersey).

Such responses demonstrate some adaptive capacity of bodies in relation to night-time bedroom soundscapes over time, as panellists either manage to sleep despite noise or adjust their expectations of sleep duration and quality. Although shift workers and those with sleep disorders demonstrate otherwise, popular representations of sleep suggest it is a matter of sufficient willpower (Coveney, 2014; Wolf-Meyer, 2012). This is evident in how some panellists also make claims to being ‘better’ sleepers, often contrasting their own sleep competence with that of a spouse:

I am a heavy sleeper, and once my head hits the pillow, I am unaware of anything until I awake in the morning. My wife on the other hand, is a light sleeper, and hears every little noise going (S3035 Male, 70, Married, Retired Banker, West Sussex).

I get woken up by kittens, my daughter, and noises of cars outside but I don’t mind and I go back to sleep quickly. My husband does mind getting woken up and if that happens then he’s very grumpy and I do mind that (M5645 Female, 43, Married, Writer, Largs).

The construction of an embodied, social, and moral geography of sleep is such that, by implication, being identified as a poor sleeper can become a criticism of a person’s ineffective management of their own body in line with the expectations of others. Yet, Williams (2005, p. 3) reminds us that sleep is not reducible to the biological and instead arises ‘through the interplay of biological and psychological processes, environmental and structural circumstances […] and socio-cultural forms of elaboration’ (Williams, 2005, p. 3).

Beyond the simplistic binary of deep sleep and wakefulness then are a range of corporeal possibilities (Williams, 2005, p. 70, drawing on Leder 1990). Panellists, as ‘bodies within sonorous assemblages’, are ‘embedded within social identities and practices’ (Duffy & Waitt, 2013, p. 470). Whether sounds heard at night can be ignored or potential sleepers become, instead, active listeners, is related to the embodiment of sleep as practice. The burden of the unpaid ‘second shift’ (Hochschild 1989) and menopausal change to the physiology of the body, for example, may lead to gendered sleep, while in later life people may also be more likely to navigate illness and spousal bereavement (Hislop & Arber, 2003; see also Williams, 2008). Rather than invoke this social dimension of sleep, however, MOP panellists instead identified their own personal responsibility for being woken at night by ‘noise’. The sleepless body emerges from the listening body (emphasis added):

I’m not a great sleeper and sometimes on recycling day I’m kept awake by the foxes going in the recycling boxes or the cans blowing about in the street (M4130 Female, 45, Married, Teacher, Grimsby).

I am too easily awoken – the dawn chorus, whilst lovely, can be annoying if you’ve just been to the loo and dropped off to sleep again. As can caterwauling cats, as happened at 3 am the other morning (K798 Female, 66, Married, Norfolk).

I consider myself a light sleeper and ‘sensitive’ to noise and from time to time I wish my immediate neighbours many miles away. Only a few times a year, and usually on a Friday or Saturday, either one or both gets very drunk and I can hear a lot of nonsense and singing/shouting. ‘How can grown men, [50 something?] who have professional jobs be so stupid? (H2637 Female, 77, Widow, Retired Librarian, Surrey).

In these directive responses evoking sleeplessness and frustration then, we also glimpse ‘attendant somatic states such as vulnerability, tiredness and exhaustion’ (Kraftl & Horton, 2008, p. 521). As documented here, panellist narratives of personal responsibility for sleep as a visceral accomplishment of the body, as well as comparisons made by couples sleeping in the same bedroom, evidence the way in which sleepers may assert a moral superiority from success in meeting expectations of wider socio-temporal rhythms which regulate and order domestic life (see also Wolf-Meyer 2012). However, these discursive tactics not only ignore the social embodiment of sleep and health inequalities that shape physiological response to sound(s), but also downplay the impact of (classed) housing geographies in shaping bedroom soundscapes which are further explored in the next section.

Responding to sound intrusion: modification of bedroom soundscapes

Since sleep is an embodied negotiation (Meadows, 2005), the sensory textures of bedrooms are highly valued. As the article has demonstrated, most panellists responding, even middle-class homeowners, did not have access to quietude and instead their bedroom soundscapes were shaped by unwanted sounds of animals, vehicles and people in the neighbourhood and neighbouring dwellings at night-time. However, residential location (rural/suburban/urban) and the type of housing/dwelling (semi-detached, apartment, etc.) were shown to impact upon the frequency and type of sound intrusion and, therefore, classed housing geographies do matter in acoustic geographies and their impact on home. Furthermore, homeowners also have more choice over their bedroom soundscapes, due to the ways in which ‘housing design, materials, size, and form iteratively shape everyday practices and experiences’ (Kerr et al., 2018; see also Dowling & Power, 2012). Firstly, living in three or four-bedroom houses alone or in couples, was much more common among panellists who were older homeowners in the UK. This allowed them to select a bedroom within their home (any adult children no longer needed to be accommodated in these examples). Accounts revealed how these decisions were shaped by soundscapes and how, at least for some panellists, soundscapes were a more significant factor than conventional (heteronormative) ideologies of home that designate bedrooms by size and status:

The front two bedrooms are bigger than ours, but we chose the quieter one at the back, with a view of our beautiful garden. The difference in noise is unbelievable. At the front we have a busy road, but you don’t hear anything at the back […] We can both sleep for England (A1706, Female, 70, Married, Retired, East Sussex).

I have tried earplugs but find them impossible to use. My remedy is sometimes to move into the back bedroom (H2637 Female, 77, Widow, Surrey, Retired Librarian, Surrey).

In this way, homeowners benefit from under-occupancy of their dwelling, in distinct contrast to the majority of those renting privately or claiming the housing element of universal credit who are subject to the classed UK policy of the ‘bedroom tax’ for any bedrooms deemed ‘spare’ (Nowicki, 2018).

Secondly, in the directive responses, it was apparent that homeowners with further financial resource are also able to transform bedroom soundscapes by making structural modifications to exclude noise as part of their home-making practices:

We had an awful house before this one, a back-to-back terrace in which you could hear everything so because we couldn’t afford a detached house, the very first thing we did when we moved in was fit sound-proofing (M5113 Female, 39, Cohabiting, West Yorkshire).

Several panellists also described fitting cupboards or additional materials to dividing walls in semi-detached housing. As a tenure type then, the relative permanency of homeownership, as well as rights/permissions over the building itself in the case of freehold properties, both enable and encourage further investment of financial resource in more permanent changes to the fabric of their home. This includes soundproofing specifically, as in the examples above, but also double glazing and extensions that create new bedroom spaces without shared walls.

In contrast, other panellists did not have the financial means to feel this sense of agency in relation to their housing, but instead felt an ongoing responsibility for their listening bodies (Gallagher et al., 2017, p. 622) and their experiences of sleep(lessness) (Meadows, 2005; Williams & Crossley, 2008; Wolf-Meyer, 2012). Some described sleeping with their window closed to make the bedroom ‘completely silent’ (A883 Male, 83, Married, Retired, Eastbourne), blocking out unwanted sounds:

The flat is on a main road. It is best to keep the window shut, as lorries start to come past early in the morning. I can’t hear them with the window shut (A6056 Male, 67, Divorced, Manager, location not stated).

Other panellists, living in apartments, discussed using sleep aids to resolve sleep difficulties and manage night-time sleep patterns in bedrooms where unwanted sounds undermine or fragment sleep more routinely (see also Hislop & Arber, 2003):

If the neighbours are loud then I wear earplugs and turn my audiobook up and that usually means I can get to sleep (M4780 Female, 33, Cohabiting, Communication Support Worker, London).

I use headphones at night, with a rain sound app, to cover the noises outside, neighbours coming in, drunk students passing (E5559 Male, 50, Single, Heterosexual, Exeter, Creative).

Although there are other bedtime practices (e.g. reading) and sleep technologies (e.g. mattresses) that MOP panellists described adopting to promote bedroom sleep, these particular examples are of sleep aids that reduce or mask unwanted sounds by layering other sounds to shield the sleeper (see also Atkinson, 2007). While ‘social acceleration’ suggests a broader cultural pressure to shorten sleep with the aim of increasing productivity (Hsu, 2014; Liu, 2021; Williams, 2011), MOP panellists appear to continue to prioritize sleep quality and duration, enacting an embodied negotiation of the uninterrupted night-time sleep perceived as normal and healthy (Meadows, 2005).

Where possible, then, residents modify night-time bedroom soundscapes, akin to the control of darkness (see Shaw, 2015), creating an optimum atmosphere for sleep. Panellist responses were thereby revealing of wider social constructions of our responsibility for sleep, as maintaining appropriate sonic atmospheres in their bedrooms to facilitate sleep suggested a reflexive awareness of sleep as practice (Meadows, 2005; Williams, 2005, 2011; Williams & Crossley, 2008). With unwanted sounds from neighbouring dwellings and streets intruding upon their bedrooms, panellists understand themselves as sleepers in relation to wider social rhythms and routines of urban space (Wolf-Meyer, 2012). Sleep thereby emerges as an embodied practice of home that is not only shaped by gender and generation, but also by access to housing privilege (in relation to building design, size, location and ownership) producing bedroom spaces conducive to sleep.

Conclusion

Geographers have argued that it is necessary to go beyond the visual in our methodologies and analysis, accessing sound as a crucial part of exploring ‘immaterial, invisible, taken-for-granted atmospheres’ (Gallagher & Prior, 2014, p. 269). This article has demonstrated how attention to soundscapes has the potential to enhance our understanding of the embodied geographies of housing and home, especially the lived, sensory experiences of domesticity as it shapes the texture of everyday/night life. Since sound ‘produces affective atmospheres, which interface with bodies on auditory and other listening registers’ (Gallagher et al., 2017, p. 625), our listening to, and absorption of, sound is ‘part of a broader, everyday, relational socio-spatial practice’ through which home emerges (Duffy & Waitt, 2013, p. 470). Yet, researching bedroom soundscapes has highlighted not only socio-spatial and embodied experiences of relaxation, rest, and sleep in UK homes at night, but also fleeting or chronic experiences of wakefulness that arise, at least in part, from the intrusion of neighbourhood and neighbour noise. As Atkinson (2011) argues, the spatial unevenness of unwanted sounds in urban space, requires a critically engaged geographical understanding of ambient sounds and their impact on everyday experience.

This article has provided evidence of the way in which bedroom soundscapes in the UK are shaped by spatialized social inequalities in housing. A range of factors, such as location (rural-urban), proximity to neighbours and other land uses, tenancy/ownership, and building design/quality play a part in how this unfolds. As the intimate accounts in this article have demonstrated, idealized bedroom soundscapes are mostly the relatively quiet soundscapes supported by middle-class geographies of suburban home ownership, but sound may still travel across shared walls and from gardens. The findings suggest that those who are renting apartments or bedrooms within shared accommodation, however, are far more likely to encounter chronic or significant sound intrusion at night, both from neighbours and the location of their homes in busier urban areas and along arterial routes. The significance of this is emphasized by the affordability of home ownership declining in the UK since 1997, with younger generations increasingly reliant on the private rental sector and shared housing for longer periods (ONS, 2022; see also Kemp, 2015; Mckee et al., 2017; Timperley, 2020).

Historically, UK city planning took into account the spatial distribution of sound and sought to reduce the sonic impact of transport, leisure, commercial and other land-uses on residential neighbourhoods and their homes (Atkinson, 2011), but a transformation in urban morphology is producing increasingly compact cities (Adams et al., 2007). In the UK, this includes a shift in newbuild developments from semi/detached suburban housing to developments of leasehold apartments in mixed-use zones (Collinson, 2017). In this context, an understanding of sound as being a significant element of home assemblages (Duffy & Waitt, 2013) becomes increasingly vital, both for both academic enquiry into the geographies of home and for sustainable urban planning, because auditory geographies contribute to the constitution of classed geographies of home. While it is more frequently middle-class urban residents actively protesting against noise from planes, dogs, nightclubs, and neighbours (Atkinson, 2007; Clifford Rosenberg, 2016), the impact of noise on housing prices and rents (Baranzini & Ramirez, 2005; Boes & Nüesch, 2011) means that it is lower income urban residents who are more likely to be exposed to noise from industry, aircraft and traffic, and the associated health-risks which include stress and cardio-vascular disease (Babisch & Kim, 2011; Kang et al., 2016). Examining bedroom soundscapes is, therefore, an important part of understanding how inequalities are embedded in embodied experiences of home. Sleep geographies do not map neatly onto economic and social inequalities, but the creation and accessibility of bedroom spaces with sensory atmospheres evoking calm, relaxation and comfort, are a material and emotional privilege.

Acknowledgments

The Mass Observation Project data on ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) discussed in this article is available at The Keep, Brighton, UK. Thanks are due to the archive staff for designing, processing, and facilitating access to this directive, as well as the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their helpful comments. Permission to quote has been granted by the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive, University of Sussex, and panellists where required.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Imrie’s (2004) work on disability, demonstrating the extent to which able-bodied residential experience is privileged by home design, and Dowling and Power’s (2012) analysis of how middle-class family life is afforded through the size of large suburban dwellings, demonstrate the potential insights afforded by conceptualizing the embodied home more fully in relation to the fabric of housing.

2. The night-time is a neglected temporality in geographical research more generally (van Liempt et al., 2015). The home at night has recently drawn some disciplinary attention in research on drinking practices (Holloway et al., 2008), parenting practices (Tomori & Boyer, 2019) and darkness (Shaw, 2015). It is beyond the scope of this article to review the complex and varied research emerging on temporalities of home more broadly (for example and discussion, see instead: Blunt & Dowling, 2022; Blunt et al., 2021; Chambers, 2021; Liu, 2021).

3. Since Wolf-Meyer (2012) locates his research in US sleep clinics and focuses on sleep-disorders (e.g. sleep-walking, sleep apnoea, shift work sleep disorder), little attention is given in his account to more routine accounts of sleep and the impact of the home or bedroom space.

4. Discussion of the significance of home-making practices and belongings in the emergence of subjectivities in relation to domestic space also (though less explicitly) highlight home as embodied (e.g. Gorman-Murray, 2006; Liu, 2021; Longhurst et al., 2009; Tolia-Kelly, 2004; Walsh, 2018b).

5. For examples of topics covered by other directives, see: Bhatti (2014); Charles (2017); Holmes (2019); Olsen et al. (2020).