We conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 people in Germany about how they think and feel about everyday noise. The questions were aimed at the perspective of each interviewee as a potential noise emitter as well as a noise perceiver. The study yields novel findings about 1) individual strategies to deal with noise, 2) the noise-related self-perception and 3) the social-psychological aspects of noise annoyance. The findings suggest that annoyance elicited by another individual’s noise has a strong social component that is only loosely connected to the auditory event. In a nutshell, the social component arises from the annoyer’s lack of self awareness which is perceived as (willful) ignorance by the annoyee, which, in many cases, could be solved through communication, but rarely is. Based on the findings, we outline a typology of noise polluters with the two dimensions knowledge and concern.