Tape the neighbours: a new weapon against noise pollution

To measure and counter noise nuisance, Rotterdam is offering a ‘noise-o-meter’ to residents to monitor their neighbours.

For the last two-and-a-half years, a man who lives by himself in Rotterdam-North has kept a log of the noise pollution caused by his upstraits neighbours.

"Sunday, November 2, 2008, 15.36: loud screeching, crying, screaming, pounding, stamping and banging."

He writes the descriptions down on a notepad and then types them into an Excel file on his computer. The man asked not to be named, because he doesn't want his neighbours to know he is keeping records.

"Monday, February 23, 2009, 09.00-00.00: neighbour H. has escaped his house again. He has been told the family activities and visitors will last for a couple of days."

Since last month, the Rotterdam municipality is offering possible victims of ‘noise pollution’ a noise-o-meter to monitor the nuisance. Sound consultant, Rein Muchall, delivered the machine to the anonymous neighbour in Rotterdam. "If you experience nuisance, press this red button immediately," Muchall explained. "It then jumps back in time four seconds" to record the sound.

'Neighbourhood terror'

"Nice machine," the silence-deprived neighbour said, adding he would later explain to another afflicted neighbour how the device worked. His noise-o-meter would go in his bedroom, "where the noise is the worst".

The noise-o-meter is part of a campaign in Rotterdam to counter 'neighbourhood terror'. According to a city survey last year, nearly 49,000 people in the Netherlands' second city say they regularly suffer 'serious nuisance' from their fellow citizens. Noise pollution ranks highest. The noise-o-meter offers "an objective measure of the sound, which gives us a stronger legal case in case of an eviction request," said city executive Hamit Karakus about the new weapon.

If the noise pollution is proven, mediation efforts will be made by the municipality or housing corporation. If that doesn't help, sanctions follow. The ultimate remedy, the so-called ‘red card’, is a forced eviction of the person or persons causing the disturbance.

'A last resort'

Sound specialist Muchall visits residents to connect an amplifier-equipped laptop to a microphone on their ceiling. He sees the meter as "a last resort for desperate people". When he enters a house to install the equipment, he hides it in a grocery bag. "A suitcase can trigger suspicion," he said, and tip off the neighbours.

According to Muchall, one in ten people in the densely-populated Netherlands suffer from nuisance in their homes. The percentage is even higher in old urban areas because the houses have thin walls and poor isolation.

He disputes the suggestion that the equipment is used to eavesdrop on people. "This is about nuisance, that is why we have the red button. We are not interested in anything else people do in their homes. As long as they don't disturb their neighbours' peace."

Muchall laid out the legal limits to noise in the Netherlands. At night, the maximum is 25 decibels, during the day it can be 35. There are three classes of pollution: a little noise (35-40 decibels), a lot of noise (40-45) and inadmissible noise (45 and over).

By the end of the week, it should be determined in which of the three categories the noise caused in RotterdamNorth falls. The man who requested the noise-o-meter hopes it can serve as a weapon to force the family of six causing the problems to move. "The size and the lifestyle of this family do not fit this building," he said.