A History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-46
PART 1
1. Sounds which have their origin inside the home
1.1 Three aspects of personal reactions to sounds in dwellings are considered in this section. The first is to discover how many people are conscious of hearing specific sounds, the second, how many of the hearers are troubled by them, and the third, how many are disturbed in their sleep by these sounds. These two latter categories are not mutually exclusive. Most people whose sleep is disturbed would be likely to say ‘Yes’ when asked “If sounds trouble them”. On the other hand some of the sounds concerned are much less frequent at night as is shown by the answers to the question “When were the sounds heard?”. It is, therefore, to be expected that the proportion of people whose sleep is disturbed by sound would be much lower than the proportion of people who are troubled by sound, as troubling represents the total experience.
82% of people said that they were conscious of hearing certain sounds which had their origin in their own homes, 18% said they were not. 25% said that they were troubled by sounds which had their origin in their own homes, 75% said that they were not. 18% said that their sleep was disturbed by these sounds, 82% said that their sleep was not disturbed.
Although in the main the sounds which are heard by most people are also important sources of trouble and disturbance, certain sounds are of much greater importance as sources of trouble and disturbance than others and it happens that these sounds have their origin in the structure and appliances of the house rather than in the activities which take place within it.
1.2 Sounds heard
Refer to Table 1
The sound mentioned by the largest proportion of people was ‘Wireless in other rooms’, followed by ‘People moving in other rooms’, by the ‘Cistern of the water closet or the hot water cistern’ and by ‘Doors banging’. ‘Conversation in other rooms’ and ‘Children playing in other rooms’ were also mentioned by large numbers of people. The table below shows the proportions of people who hear, are troubled and disturbed by sounds.
1.3 Sounds which trouble
Refer to Table 1
All sounds which were important in the first analysis are also important sources of trouble, but a difference emerges in the order. Whereas the ‘Wireless in other rooms’ was heard by 52% of people, it only troubled 5%. On the other hand ‘Doors banging’ which were heard by 39% of people troubled 13%. The ‘Cistern’ which was heard by 44% troubled 9%.
1.4 Sounds which disturb people’s sleep
Refer to Table 1
Although the incidence of disturbed sleep is less than the incidence of “Trouble”, “Disturbed sleep” being a special case of “Trouble”, the main causes of disturbed sleep are similar to the causes of trouble by sound and both the ‘Cistern’ and ‘Banging Doors’ are particularly important.
TABLE 1
A comparison of the proportions of people who heard, were troubled and whose sleep was disturbed by sounds made in their own home
This analysis shows that the sounds which are heard by the largest proportions of people are not those which trouble and disturb the sleep of the largest proportions. This suggests that continuous “background sounds” like ‘Wireless’, 'People moving in other rooms’, ‘Pianos or other musical instruments’ and ‘Conversation in other rooms’, although they are noticed are not irritating to the same extent as violent discontinuous sounds of a mechanical nature like ‘Cistern’ or ‘Doors banging’, or discontinuous sounds of human origin like “Babies crying’ or ‘Children playing’. The quality of the latter sounds may also in part be responsible. The incidence of these sounds differs considerably; Thus ‘Wireless’ may be expected to be heard for a much longer part of the day than most of the discontinuous sounds which are found to disturb so many.
This may be seen if the proportions of those troubled and disturbed are expressed as a percentage of those who heard certain sounds.
1.5 Comparison of the Age Groups
The results were divided according to the age of the person interviewed and this analysis showed that there was a difference between the proportions who heard sounds in their own homes.
85% of men between the ages of 19 - 35 heard sounds, 80% between 36 - 50 and 70 % of men 51 and over. The proportions for women were 90%, 85% and 76%.
1.6 Analysis by the Number of Adults
Refer to Table 2
Families in the sample were divided according to the number of adults in them and the proportions of people interviewed who heard certain sounds were analysed in order to discover whether the proportion depended on the number of adults in the house. The differences between the proportions in households with different numbers of adults for certain of the more important sounds are significant. They are given below. It will also be seen that the proportion who hear any sounds increases with the number of adults in the family from 67% where there is one adult to 88 % where there are 4 or 5.
TABLE 2
The comparison of the proportions of people who hear sounds which have their origin in the dwelling analysed according to the numbers of adults in the household
1.7 The Influence of the number of Adults in the Household on the proportion who are troubled by sound
The analysis shows no very clear relationship between the number of adults in the household and the proportion whose sleep is troubled. It is lowest in the group with one adult in the household, but in other groups the proportions are about equal.
1.8 The Proportions whose sleep is disturbed analysed by the number of Adults in the Family
As in the previous analysis the only group which is significantly different from the rest is the group with one adult in the family. 11% of this group have their sleep disturbed by sounds made within their house compared with between 17% and 20% in the other groups.
1.9 Comparison between Families with Children and Families without Children
Refer to Table 3
As might be expected the proportion of persons who hear sounds is higher in families with children (88%) than in those without children (77%) and although this difference is quite striking it is obscured to some extent by the fact that in a few cases sounds ‘made by children' were complained of by families without children of their own, these may have had their origin in parts of a house inhabited by another family. As might be expected ‘Babies crying in other rooms’ and ‘Children playing in other rooms’ were important sources of additional sound in the households that had children, but many of the other categories were higher like the ‘Cistern’, ‘Conversation in other rooms’, ‘Movement of furniture in other rooms’ and ‘Doors banging’.
1.10 A comparison between the proportion of people who are troubled by sound in families with children and families, without children
Refer to Table 3
The proportion who are troubled by sound is higher in households with children - 32% compared with 20%, and the sources of sound which are responsible for the difference are mainly ‘Babies crying’, ‘Children playing’ and ‘Doors banging’.
1.11 A comparison between the proportion of people whose sleep is disturbed in families with children and families without children
Refer to Table 3
As might be expected the proportion of people whose sleep is disturbed is again higher in the households with children, and the sources of sound which are responsible for this difference are ‘Babies crying’ and ‘Children playing’.
Table 3
A comparison of the proportions of people in families with children and in families without children who hear, are troubled by and whose sleep is disturbed by sounds which have their origin in the dwelling
1.12 Periods of the day when sounds are heard
Questions were asked to discover at what times during the day people heard certain sounds. Two analyses are of interest; the first a comparison of the proportion who hear sounds at different times of the day and secondly a comparison of the proportions who hear the different sounds during the day.
The proportions who hear sounds rises from midnight through the day - they are 8% from midnight to 5 a.m., 39% between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., 53% of men and 70% of women during the day 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., 70% during the evening 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. falling to 37% 10 p.m. to midnight.
Refer to Table 4
There are certain changes in the relative importance of certain sounds; thus ‘babies crying’ is the most important sound between midnight and 5 a.m., whereas the sound of the ‘Cistern’ or ‘People moving’ is heard by most between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. During the day ‘People moving in other rooms’, the ‘Wireless in other rooms’ and the ‘Cistern’, are heard by the largest number and during the evening the ‘Wireless’ becomes the most important sound followed by the ‘Cistern’ and ‘People moving’. In the late evening the ‘Cistern’ is heard by the greatest number followed by ‘People moving in other rooms and ‘Wireless in other rooms’. ‘Doors banging’ are heard by many people at all times.
1.13 Periods of the day when sounds are heard - Men and Women compared
Refer to Table 4
The only important difference between men and women occurs during the day when the proportion of men who hear sounds is less than the proportion of women. (See above). This is true of almost every sound and is undoubtedly the result of women being more in the home during the day than men.
TABLE 4
The proportions hearing sounds which have their origin in their own home are heard during different periods ,of the day
1.14 Comparison of the proportions of people who hear sound in houses built before and after the last war
The incidence of sound in houses of different ages is related to two factors - house construction and house design - and it is not always possible to separate the influence of those two. House design seems to have been important in relation to the sound made by the cistern - particularly the W.C. cistern since in pre-war houses it was commoner to have the W.C. outside and in post-war houses to have this inside the house. On the other hand many of the sounds about which questions were asked should show whether or not, in general, the older or the newer house is the better insulated against sound transmission.
Refer to Table 5
The most striking difference is between the proportion who hear the sound of the cistern, these are 28 % of all those living in pre-war houses, but 60% of all those living in post-war houses. This is clearly- the result of the difference in design.
In almost every case the post-war house has a greater proportion of people who hear sounds.
1.15. Comparison of the proportion of people who are troubled by sound in houses built before and after the last war
Refer to Table 5
There are no very great differences between the two sorts of houses, except that the proportion who are troubled by the sound of the cistern is significantly greater in post-war houses.
1.16. Comparison of the proportion of people whose sleep is disturbed in houses built before and after the last war
Refer to Table 5
In the same way as in the previous analysis the proportion of people who are disturbed in their sleep by sounds is significantly higher in the case of the sound made by the cistern in post-war houses. There are no other important differences.