Realizing things about yourself much later than you should have

The thread title is an excuse to say this again: aside from food, shelter and clothing, maybe the next thing in order of priority, for me, is: to be able to sleep without being disturbed. The last decade of my life has been spent living in apartments, more than half of which have made this difficult fairly often, not to the point where I am not getting any sleep, but to the point where I am not getting enough. I should never have seen apartment living as a long-term arrangement. Now, ironically, I am thinking of moving into a very expensive apartment in a high-rise, which will make it almost impossible to save for a house (unless I start making more money)--but, if what one of my co-workers says is true (and she seems pretty sure about the acoustics), I will not hear my neighbors there, and will be able to sleep.