Noise machine

I live in a terraced house with walls as thick as wallpaper. After six years of living next to a relatively quiet, retired man, we have a loud family next door that seem to have dinner parties each night.

I know my one-year-old son needs to get 'used' to noises but with the new neighbours and students trawling the streets all the time, he's gotta have a little background noise to block it all out.  We are currently using a fan but come winter, when our wallpaper walls don't provide much warmth, we'll need a new option.

Can anyone recommend a noise machine or a solution that worked for your kids (short of inserting earplugs/moving!)

We have ceiling fans in our bedrooms, they are great. But we also have a white noise machine for my son, we still use it. Its by Homedics. Its super cheap, here is a link to a place where you can buy it
http://www.justbeautifully.co.uk/homedics-soundspa-sound-machine.php

We switch between a fan and a dehumidifier for 'white noise' as we live in a small 1 bed flat with EXTREMELY noisy neighbour, but fortunately our 2 year old has really gotten used to the noises of the block of flats that we live in and she does very well with thumps & bumps, crashes & bangs...it's momma that is going a little batty from it 

We have this clock/alarm and I love, love, love it!

http://www.lumie.com/shop/products/bodyclock-advanced-200

It has a white noise feature that you can program to fade away or stay on plus the sunrise/sunset options for the light.

You don't need a "machine".  Just a white noise CD and a CD player. 

We have a very light sleeper - people who tell you "they just need to get used to it" are full of cr*p.  My husband is a light sleeper as well, some people just are.  White noise is a Godsend.

If you're on a tight budget as we are, you can buy individual tracks off of iTunes and burn your own CD, that's what we did.  Natural White Noise for Babies is a great one.  Just make sure your CD player is CD-R compatible.