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Be the adult in the room and ask her if she needs anything. Offer to go buy her some cough syrup or whiskey, or make her a hit lemon with honey. Be kind. She is sick. At least pretend to care....she will know you are irritated after doing this a few times, and it might help the problem go away. She may not have health insurance.....which seems to be just fine in this country. Call 911 if you feel she cannot breathe and tell her that you will do so if she sounds really bad. Get your white noise device, too. You still need to cope.
Maybe she has Asthma or Bronchitis..maybe lung cancer.
What I am saying is that this is not some wild entertainment noise that is bothering, it is the sound of living (or dying Idk)
You have gotten a lot of good advice - maybe a noise maker, ear plugs...maybe moving - maybe you are just one of those people who have a hard time living in apartments because of the noise factor....maybe you should consider renting a house. (I am not saying this is your fault, I have had noisy neighbors - blaring rock music and video games 24/7 and that is irritating and thank God they finally moved! But sometimes a person can't help coughing (or sneezing or vomiting or whatever. It is probably a health issue. I doubt she is coughing just for the fun of it!
If it is smoking, then I can understand why it bothers you, I hate cigarette smoke! But unless you have moved into a non smoking apartment, there isn't a lot you can do.
You're acting like she has control over the coughing. News Flash---one can't control a difficult cough. one can only do so much. The past month I've had a bad cough that torments me. I do not smoke, and am not obese. Its that tail-of-the-end cough that comes with a bad cold. I've been to the doctor, have RX cough syrup, but cannot completely control it. For your information, I do not cough out of malice for anyone else. My body is wracked with pain, especially around the rib area, due to the coughing, and the coughing itself is exhausting.
I'm afraid there's not much you can do except wait it out. The HOA certainly isn't going to help you
Grow up and realize you chose to live in an apt with shared walls and live with it.
Be the adult in the room and ask her if she needs anything. Offer to go buy her some cough syrup or whiskey, or make her a hit lemon with honey. Be kind. She is sick. At least pretend to care....she will know you are irritated after doing this a few times, and it might help the problem go away. She may not have health insurance.....which seems to be just fine in this country. Call 911 if you feel she cannot breathe and tell her that you will do so if she sounds really bad. Get your white noise device, too. You still need to cope.
Police aren't going to arrest the woman for coughing
My husband has chronic nasal drip, and the cough that goes with it. Every day. Incessantly.
Well, it got worse lately. He had 2 bouts of acid reflux, and it irritated the sphincter that controls coughing. Dry, unproductive cough.
I did some research, and found some herbal marshmallow (Althaea) root/leaf tea. He has been drinking it now daily for over a week. The dry cough is almost gone now.
As far as being her neighbor...be a good neighbor, knock on her door, and ask is there anything you can do to help? Just be friendly, letting her know you are her upstairs neighbor, and can't help but hear her coughing fits. She is probably uncomfortable about things as it is, and there is really no way to just stop a cough.
So.... I googled this issue and the consensus seems to be that I can do nothing about it but the CD peeps sometimes have good ideas that are different.
Let me start by saying that I generally don't care what others do to themselves, smoking, obesity, etc. I don't have the energy to give a hoot. That being said.... There's a back story to the apartment below mine which makes me want to report them to the HOA but it's irrelevant. This last month, there's another female occupying the premise. She lays or sits directly below my bedroom in the same place the apparently deaf mother of a former occupant did. Most nights she keeps me awake coughing up a lung and clearing out a throat that has nothing in it. She's making the constipated-pushing-one-out noises.
To be clear, she does not do this outside or when she's walking around to and from her car etc. She reserves these grotesque noises just for inside. As well as smoking only indoors.
Today I hermitted and so did she. All. Friggen. Day. Long. It's bad enough to lose sleep and wake up all night, but now I can't even get any peace in the day. Today was rough. It was really hard not to go to Costco and buy a gallon of cough syrup and place it in front of her door with a note reading:
See a doctor or drink this gallon of syrup before I make the decision for you.
Terrible. I know. But I can't take it anymore!!!
Just in me writing this, she has had 3 attacks that sound like nothing more than her straining and forcing herself to cough for the sake of coughing.
Again, she does not smoke or cough outside that I have ever seen. Only indoors. If she did it outside, I'd hear her coughing at least twice before she got to our building.
Does anyone have any advice?
I would make her a 9x13 pan of ExLax brownies. That'll stop the cough for sure, I guarantee it!!
Although the smell might become the new issue....
She may have a medical condition that causes her to cough so much & even if she doesn't there isn't a lot you can do as she isn't coughing just to pi** you off... I have very noisy neighbours too (& a partner that snores very loudly) & the only way I can get any sleep is to use earplugs. As for the noise during the day well just play some music or have the TV turned up loud enough to block it out...
You've gotten some good suggestions, bad suggestions and some downright mean ones.
I think you should be a polite, concerned neighbor. Go buy a box of soothing herb tea and a jar of clover honey, then take it to her. Talk to her and tell her you are concerned about her because you can hear her cough every night.
While you're at it buy yourself an air cleaner. It will make noise and help keep your air dust free and healthier. Air plugs are also very helpful in these situations.
Perhaps you'll get lucky and she'll die soon. Won't you be relieved then?
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