Showerthought: the $12 box fan beats my $200 white noise machine for drowning out my upstairs neighbor

Shane Williams · 2026-09-22T06:35:04.077283+00:00

My upstairs neighbor stomps around at 6am like he's late for a flight, and I went through three noise machines over 8 months trying to sleep in. The fancy one with the ocean sounds died after 5 weeks, and the app based one needed wifi just to hiss at me, which is insane when you think about it. Then my buddy handed me a cheap 20 inch box fan from Walmart and set it on high, and it covers his footsteps better than anything else I own. It has run every night for 7 months straight with zero issues. The trick is you point it at the wall, not at you, so you get the hum without the cold air. Anyone else ditch the pricey gadgets and just use a plain old fan?

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Showerthought: the $12 box fan beats my $200 white noise machine for drowning out my upstairs neighbor | Apartment Hacks Central - Rigidtalk