I recently moved into a new apartment a few months ago with my partner. I’ve lived in apartments my whole life, so I’m used to neighbor noise, but my new neighbor’s snoring is something else. It’s so loud that I can actually hear the bass vibrations of her snoring, even with 32db earplugs in. It’s impressive. At first, I didn’t even realize the strange bass sounds I was hearing were from snoring. I never thought snoring could transfer through apartment walls like this. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve started using a brown noise machine on my night stand to drown out the vibrations.

I’m highly sensitive to certain types of noise, especially low frequencies, and I try to be mindful that my irritation might not be something others find bothersome. But the snoring is so loud and disruptive, it’s really making it hard for me to fall asleep. Occasionally, I also hear her choking/gasping through the snoring, and the inconsistent breathing just makes me both uncomfortable and irritated. I’ve tried earplugs, but the vibrations are so deep that I can still “feel” them.

I’m wondering how I should approach this situation. Should I talk to her about it, or just leave it alone? It feels awkward to knock on her door and say, “Hey, I can hear your snoring through my pillow. You should get a CPAP pronto.” I don’t want to be unfair since I know she can’t control how she sleeps and it’s clearly a medical issue, but it’s becoming a big problem for me and my sanity.

On top of the snoring, she has a small dog that barks non-stop when someone walks by and sometimes howls early in the morning when she leaves for work. While the dog is annoying, it’s the snoring that’s currently the bigger issue, as it’s literally as exaggerated as cartoon snoring.

I don’t have the best social skills and tend to come across as passive-aggressive unintentionally or just spineless, which makes me even more nervous to address this. I have social anxiety and often worry about saying the wrong thing, which sometimes leads to me saying too much. Should I leave a note or talk to her directly? Or should I just suck it up (I’m leaning towards this because I’m worried about hurting her feelings and to also avoid confrontation)?

If this was your neighbour, what would you do?

Any advice is appreciated.

Edit: I’ve never met her before. Nor have we ever spoken before. I only know about her because my mom was in the same elevator as her when she came to visit me.