Sometimes the people we share a space with can be noisy, whether it’s something they can help or not. This can be difficult to deal with if you need to sleep or study during the day, but your roommate wants to watch a movie, cook, or invite a bunch of friends over. Lucky for you, soundproofing works both ways, both inside out and outside in.
To soundproof a bedroom from noisy roommates, it’s best to first insulate the bedroom door using foam weatherstrip tape. If this doesn’t work to mitigate the sound, try mounting foam acoustic panels to the walls. If the bedroom is shared, a soundproof divider curtain could do the trick.
Continue reading to learn more about these soundproofing methods, plus a few more ideas. Sometimes, simply communicating with your roommate about noise just isn’t enough to get them to quiet down when you need them to, so follow our soundproofing tips and you’ll have your peace back in no time.
Discuss Your Noise Concerns with Your Roommate
If you haven’t already, it’s always a good idea to try to talk out your noise concerns with your roommate before taking measures to soundproof your room.
If they’re making noise from practicing an instrument, ask them if they can go to a practice room on campus, or see if they can practice while you’re at work or not at home.
If your roommates are loud while they’re cooking, watching a movie, playing music, or doing other tasks, respectfully express these concerns to them and ask them if they can try to keep the sound to a minimum at certain times of the day or night.
If they often invite noisy friends over to your apartment or dorm, let them know that the chatter, music, or movie-watching they do together is bothersome while you’re trying to study or sleep, then try to come up with a compromise so they can only invite friends over for a limited amount of nights per week or only at certain times.
Then, on nights when they have friends over and you need to sleep or study, you can plan ahead by finding somewhere else to sleep or study.
If these compromises won’t work for you, or your roommate is not being compliant or respectful in minimizing the amount of noise he or she makes, you can try the following methods to soundproof your bedroom and keep the noise out.
Try Soundproofing Your Bedroom Door
The first thing you’ll want to try to help minimize the noise from your roommates is to soundproof your bedroom door. This is generally where most of the noise travels from the outside of your room to the inside, as it is usually much thinner than the walls of your apartment or dorm.
Try installing a rubber draft stopper to the bottom edge of the door to prevent noise from passing under the door and into your room.
You can also work to soundproof your bedroom door by sealing up the gaps in your door using a roll of foam weatherstripping tape. You’ll do this by opening your door and sticking the tape along the edges of the frame, right where the door would have contact with the door frame and where you would normally see light come through the edges of the door. Start with a small strip, then try closing the door to see if it will close or if the foam tape prevents it from closing.
If you can’t get it to close all the way, open the door once more and then try pushing the foam down so it’s not quite as thick, and then test the door once more. If this doesn’t work, you may need to buy a thinner roll of foam tape.
You want the tape to fit flush between the door frame and the door, but you also want it to close and open easily. Make sure to remove the weatherstrip and any adhesive residue on the door frame before you move out.
If this doesn’t do enough to soundproof your room, you can also try using some foam soundproof panels and mounting them to your door. This will help thicken the door itself so that much fewer soundwaves will be able to travel through it, plus, the foam panels will further absorb the sound. After this, you shouldn’t hear your roommates making noise anymore.
How to Soundproof Your Bedroom Walls?
You can soundproof your bedroom walls to prevent the noise of your roommates from coming into your bedroom, as well as to help isolate the noise in your bedroom, keeping it from traveling outside your room.
You can do this the same way and by using the same material you used to soundproof your door. Using foam soundproofing panels, arrange several of them next to each other on the wall that’s shared with your roommate or your shared living space.
Generally, this is the wall shared with your bedroom door. Oftentimes, these foam panels have an adhesive backing to them that you can simply stick directly to your wall. Otherwise, you can easily use command strips or double-sided mounting tape, which generally won’t cause any damage to your walls.
What About a Shared Bedroom?
You may be in more of a tricky situation if you share a bedroom with a roommate who is loud in your shared bedroom space. Generally, roommates of shared bedrooms are more respectful of each other’s privacy and minimize noise as much as possible while you’re studying, reading, or trying to sleep.
If you were unable to come up with an agreeable compromise with this roommate, or you’ve asked them to keep quiet or lower their volume to no avail, you may need to take matters into your own hands by hanging up a soundproof divider curtain.
While this won’t keep out all the noise, it will help lower it enough that you’ll be able to get better sleep or more peace and quiet while trying to study, especially with the help of some headphones, earplugs, or a space fan. Plus, both you and your roommate likely won’t complain about the extra privacy provided by the curtain.
