My father-in-law used to live in Federal Way, Washington, directly south of SeaTac. He swore you got used to it. The noise was amazing -- two parallel runways, his house just about smack in the middle between the two approach paths. Airliners would go over the house every minute (or less!) alternating between the runways. Flaps down all the way, gear down, making incredible amounts of noise. Inside the house you could tolerate it, but it was still noisy. Outside, you had to pause your conversation constantly as a plane went overhead.

SeaTac is well known, and the air traffic never really stops, so there is no way he did not know about it when he bought. I assume it made the house a lot cheaper than it would otherwise be. I guess it is the ultimate demonstration of a free market. For the right price, people will put up with anything.

I lived under the London Heathrow flight path. There are so many flights that the conversation would be paused for 25% or more of the total time.

Somehow, expanding this airport is politically desirable. 3 million people live under the flight path, and they are dismissed as rich or poor people who should have known better. They are rich and poor, there is plenty of range, and there certainly aren't a million spare houses they could choose to move to.

I assume you're in the US? If so, a noise disclosure was one of the required seller disclosures when transacting a house. We received this in both NC & CA when purchasing (and took it seriously).

It was the same for me in my previous apartment. I remember we were even amazed on how closely a plane was flying above the highway shortly before we took the exit towards the apartment when initially visiting, but didn't make the connection to how that would affect the apartment.

In the end, it wasn't a big problem, we got used to it quickly.

How did it not occur to you that there would be noise from airplanes if you live that close?

Or is it more of an airstrip where only ultra light aircraft depart?