And I've lived in apartments designed to be much more sound proof, then the neighbors could do whatever they wanted and didn't have tip-toe around each other.

All it takes is one good neighbor moving out and a bad one moving in next door…

I live in a similar place, though I'm not off-grid.

The drawbacks for me are that "town" is about an hour away. But amazon delivers here.

There's no city life, no ordering to-go food or pizza, no movie theater, no ice cream runs to sonic. You have to plan ahead. Socialization happens online or with people in your own home, pretty much exclusively.

It's often hard to find anyone to fix your stuff--you become a framer, a plumber, a roofer, a mechanic. I consider this a net benefit, but it can be taxing at times.

That being said, not everyone does it quite like I do. All my neighbors have jobs in the city, for instance.

I have no electricity except solar. It works well for all my needs, technology has solved this depending on your needs and how much money you have.

I have no water except the one I bring when I buy food weekly/every two weeks. I'm still renovating/building so I'll have a well in the future.

I heat my home with wood that I cut on my own property, I enjoy this very much. It's a workout that also produces something of value.

The drawbacks can be many depending on what kind of lifestyle you're after.

Sartre said "if you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company".

I do mountain biking, nordic skating and I have a dog; it works for me. A lady friend might be nice eventually :]

It's silent, I can hear my own heartbeat; civilization is 30 min away.

This is in Sweden.

I also can't stand noise and in my case the solution was to find a two storey apartment at the top floors. They're fairly common in my city.

Another thing that happened by itself was my neighbour with whom I shared several walls moving out. His landlord put the apartment up for sale, but a year later there are still no takers.

I'm seriously considering buying it if only to keep it empty and my place peaceful.

There are a few topics that illicit this kind of response. I've lived in apartments/condos ever since I moved out of my parents' home, and living through Covid in an apartment was the nail in the coffin. My wife and I decided we would not live in a shared building again - at minimum, we'd only look for places that have a private entrance.

Based on the behavior of real estate in our area (high density suburbs of NYC), I don't think we're the only ones? Condo prices have either fallen or remained static while SFH have skyrocketed.

> The problem is that bass music travels through everything.

It’s not just bass tones—low-frequency vibrations travel through everything. I live in a five-story pre-WWII building, and sometimes, when a neighbor runs their washing machine early on a Saturday morning, I don’t even hear the spin cycle. I just feel it, lying in bed trying to squeeze in a little more sleep. It’s an odd sensation, not painful, but definitely not pleasant.

> You don't "teach" your neighbors and you don't program them in a pavlovian way.

Sure you do. Punishment of bad behavior is a basic social rule. Words were exchanged. All they had to do was listen, understand and stop the bad behavior. Had they done that, things would not have escalated beyond a polite conversation. Unfortunately, people often choose overt disrespect instead. They choose to challenge the other guy to do something about it.

If anything they should be glad the punishment was as civilized as this. There are many places in this world where it could easily escalate to actual violence.

I actually had that too, but they don't stop sounds from inside the building like constant bathroom renovations etc.

The problem is also that the moment you walk outside you're bombarded with all the sounds of the city. ANC headphones exist but so do air-pollution masks, I don't think that's the way forward or at least that's not how I want to live my life.

He might have, and my experience is that you cannot teach inconsiderate people, they lack social object permanence: as soon as you don't stand in front of them, they become unaware of your existence and thus are also unaware that their music at two in the morning might be annoying to you.

Better windows don't help either - but they're great for noise outside. The only thing that helps against horrible neighbors is moving. If you've never learned that lesson, you've never had horrible neighbors.