Alex,
have a look at the link below to get some feeling about what the effect of the GW source in question is on "distant" object:
http://gizmodo.com/your-questions-ab...red-1758269933
I was surprised myself when I've read it.
"How far away do you have to be from this kind of black hole merger to live to tell the tale?
Stuver: For the black hole binary we detected with gravitational waves, they produced a maximum change in the length of our 4 km (~2.5 mi) long arms [of] 1x10-18 meters (that is 1/1000 the diameter of a proton). We also estimate that these black holes were 1.3 billion light-years away.
Now assume that we are 2 m (~6.5 ft) tall and floating outside the black holes at a distance equal to the Earth’s distance to the Sun. I estimate that you would feel alternately squished and stretched by about 165 nm (your height changes by more than this through the course of the day due to your vertebrae compressing while you are upright). This is more than survivable."
The above quotation summarizes the issue of noticeability.. provided the calculation involved was correct.