Dear Prudence,
My housemate has a habit that is seriously cutting into my sleep. Whenever she uses the bathroom, she blows her nose—and it’s obscenely loud. I can’t even work out how she manages to make so much noise doing this. Our bathroom acts like an echo chamber that amplifies all noise directly into my bedroom. So when she does this during the night or early in the morning (which she does daily), the noise wakes me up. I’m not a great sleeper to begin with, and it’s really impacting my life. I’ve asked her multiple times to stop blowing her nose in the bathroom when I’m likely to be sleeping, pointing out that she can do it to her heart’s content in any other carpeted location of our flat. Each time I do she apologizes profusely (and I think genuinely) and says that she “forgets.” She’ll be good for maybe a week or so, but invariably forgets again.
She’s generally not the most thoughtful and has a handful of other annoying habits around the place, and while they get on my nerves, I don’t bring them up because they’re minor. We get along really well in every other way and are quite close friends! What can I do? Reminder signs in the bathroom (that would make us look insane to visitors)? Is it totally nuts to ask her to move out (I own the flat, so quietly moving out myself isn’t an option) because of how she blows her nose? I’m sure I would also lose her friendship, which would be sad.