Complaints about noise pollution continue to increase: ‘Don’t yell over the fence or hit the heating pipes’

The increase also continued in the municipality of Utrecht last year. The police registered 8,743 reports. That is an increase of 18 percent compared to the first corona year. In the year before the pandemic, the police in Utrecht registered a total of 4,108 complaints. Since then, there has been a development of 113 percent.

Neighborhood mediation is for all residents of the city of Utrecht who are in a conflict situation with neighbors. There are currently about 140 neighborhood mediators active in the municipality. “It seems to us that the number of reports has remained the same. We were also unable to do much during the corona period and had to go online a lot,” says coordinator Ariadne Berk of Buurtmediation Utrecht.

“What we have seen is that there were house parties in student houses, for example. This is difficult to solve because the residents change more often, which makes building a bond more difficult. More renovations were also done during lockdowns and people suffer from this when they work from home. “

Tip 1 of Neighborhood Mediation is to talk to the neighbors at a quiet moment in the event of noise nuisance. “Don’t yell over the fence or hit the heating pipes. That all has the opposite effect,” says Berk. “It is also quite often that people tell us that they have never spoken to their neighbors. Sometimes they are afraid or it just doesn’t work. We then start the conversation with both parties.”

The help is free and voluntary and without coercion or pressure, Berk emphasizes. “Sometimes we are called in by the police, but people can certainly approach us themselves. We regularly manage to come to a solution. We bring people together to talk, but with the aim that they themselves are responsible for the results and the agreements. Neighborhood mediation only guides the conversation. We can also provide advice on certain issues. If we can increase the living pleasure, we are happy.”

Compared to the year before the corona crisis, the number of complaints has increased in almost every Dutch municipality. In almost 15 percent of the municipalities, the number has more than doubled. In Amsterdam the number of reports even rose by more than 150 percent, in Breda a threefold increase was registered.

Last year, Vlieland had the most complaints about noise pollution. Also from student cities such as Groningen, Leiden and Wageningen the police, given the number of inhabitants, caused a lot more nuisance than elsewhere in the country.

The number of reports has increased in all provinces since the start of the corona crisis. Groningen, Noord-Holland and Utrecht record the largest increase compared to two years ago. Compared to last year, the number of noise reports has also increased in almost all provinces. Only in Flevoland, South Holland and Drenthe was a decrease recorded compared to the first corona year.

The Netherlands was locked for the first time in March 2020 and since then there have been more complaints about noise pollution. In the twelve months before the first lockdown, the police registered 120,000 reports nationwide and that number rose to 187,000 in the first corona year. In the second corona year, there were 198,000 national noise complaints. That is more than 60 percent more than before the pandemic.