What is the procedure for noise complaints?

Question

My neighbours consistently have very loud parties every week from 1:30-4am and have not desisted despite me asking them (nicely, I must add!) to turn it down. Where do I go from here and is there any likelihood that they will stop? Can I send the blue lights round? I need sleep and my young baby is woken up every weekend!!

Answer 1

Call the cops.  It's that simple.  Most places have a ordinance that there shouldn't be loud parties after midnight.  If you do this every time, the cops will get the picture.

Answer 2

call your local council and ask for the noise abatement dept, they will take your details and your complaint and send a letter to your neighbours telling them a complaint has been made about them. You will get a noise reference number to call with when a party begins and you can call them anytime of night and they will come to your property and measure the noise level, then they will go away and write to the offending party again telling them the noise was witnessed by an offical and that they will be served with a noise abatement notice which they will have to adhere to or risk arrest/eviction from their property if they are tenants.

Your details will not be divulged to the neighbours.

Answer 3

easily fixed. the police are often the easiest way of complaining about loud, obnoxious neighbours. just give them a call and with constant warnings, eventually fines will be enforced, and you and your baby will sleep easy again.

good luck

Answer 4

There is a noise ordinance that starts at 10 pm so you can go ahead and call the police. You're a saint for not having done so already!

Answer 5

Call the cops again and again until the problem is gone

Answer 6

Go to your local authority website. They will have a section on "Environmental Health". Each council have their own so I cant point you in the direction. Their officers will come and investigate. They have powers to prosecute and confiscate equipment.

xxFJ

Answer 7

Dude, 4am! That definetly isn't legal. Only call the cops if you have already called the authorities and nothing has changed.

Answer 8

Talk to your neighbors and see what they think. You may be able to complain all at once so you don't get singled out.

Answer 9

There are 3 routes - it depends how much fuss you want to make.

1) Complain to the local authority.  They generally take a low key approach and start by sending a warning letter.  They can issue a noise abatement notice and if that's ignored they will take your neighbours to court.  This approach is slow, but it's least likely to cause a feud.

2) Call the police at around 2:00am.  They will arrive with the blue lights and send everybody home.  And if they have to come back a second time, they will arrest your neighbours on a public order charge.  Don't expect them to speak to you politely again.

3) Go to the County Court and get an injunction banning them from making any sound that can be heard from your premises between 11:00pm and 7:00am.  You can claim up to £5,000 damages every time they ignore it.  You'll need to make sure that baby can't be heard from their premises or they'll do the same to you.

Answer 10

Complain to the police and they wont want to know.

Complain to the local council and they will tell you to keep a record of incidents. This will drag on for months until they finally decide to give them a warning and then it will drag on for more months until they give a second warning and after a few years they may actually do something about it.

The problem will never be solved because they may ultimately be evicted and then it becomes the councils responsibility to re house them and so the problem passes on to someone else.

Then they wonder why people take the law into their own hands!