Episode 4 Noise Squad

All over the UK, millions of people

just like you and me are being driven up the wall

by anti-social nuisance noise.

It's the worst thing anyone can go through.

It's just something that just goes on and on and on.

Persistent parties...

CAR ALARM SOUNDS

..aggravating alarms...

and banging builders.

They're keeping us awake,

disturbing our peace and quiet

and driving us to despair.

It really is stressful and irritating.

It's just a nightmare.

-But the fightback is on.

-You need to come and speak to us,

we're getting complaints about the noise.

Across the country,

dedicated enforcement teams are getting to grips

with nuisance noise 24/7.

We can, if necessary, get a warrant and force entry into the property.

You can't just leave it and let them get away with it.

You have to keep going on and on and on.

Enough is enough.

It's time to put an end to nuisance noise.

That's a legal requirement. You need to turn the music down.

If I have to come back tonight, it's a £100 fine.

It's time to meet the no-nonsense Noise Squad.

Creating a commotion today on Noise Squad,

one riled resident's secret filming

helps bring a banging building site to book.

You can clearly see it's 11:19

on Wednesday the 18th of May

and he then goes to the window,

puts his camera outside and you can see

lots of activity going on.

Officers get tough with a persistent nuisance noisemaker

who won't turn her music down.

If I have to come back, £100 fine, bring the police.

And silencing this early morning alarm

isn't going to be as easy as pulling a plug out of the wall.

-Could you bring them inside overnight?

-No, don't be daft.

Westminster in the heart of London is home to

a quarter of a million people and some of the nation's most famous landmarks.

It's also home to the country's biggest and busiest noise squad.

Last year Westminster council's noise team dealt with

a whopping 18,000 complaints,

and with new flats, offices and hotels being built all the time,

a good chunk of these were about

builders making illegal nuisance noise.

It's just so much noise. Then they started drilling

and then hammering and then sawing.

You almost feel like you are going mad because the noise is just...

it just goes straight through your head.

George Christian has worked for the Westminster noise team for three years.

People are well-informed in Westminster,

so they know what should and shouldn't happen.

If things happen that shouldn't, they soon get on the phone to us.

His clear and considered approach goes a long way

to getting nuisance noisemakers to pipe down.

If you go upstairs and do the same thing,

you will be committing an offence.

-All right?

-If you say so.

-I do say so.

Today he's investigating a complaint

about a group of builders building a hotel

that one local resident, Farid, claims has turned his life into a complete nightmare.

It does have a very important impact, since

my flat is overviewing the building site

and I can hear everything. I can almost hear them talking,

and whenever they're doing any sort of work I can hear everything.

Here in Westminster builders are only allowed to carry out noisy work

between eight and six on a weekday

and from eight till one on a Saturday.

Anything outside these hours, or on a bank holiday, is illegal.

Despite a few visits, the noise team haven't seen the builders

working after hours, and in order to take action

they have to witness nuisance noise first hand.

So Farid took matters into his own hands.

This is the footage that's been sent in

by a local resident showing this building site

working quite late into the evening.

What this guy has done,

he's actually filmed his television and he's actually

filmed the time off of his TV screen.

So you can clearly see it's 11:19,

Wednesday the 18th of May, and he then goes to the window,

puts his camera outside and you see lots of activity going on.

A huge great big truck has come in carrying a container.

This sort of thing shouldn't really be happening at this time of night

so he's obviously very upset by it.

This is actually really good evidence because it shows

the site operating in darkness,

and this time of year it's not dark till about half eight

or nine o'clock. So whatever time this shows the site working

is clearly very late,

plus the fact that he's also filmed the time off of his TV screen

just to sort of corroborate what he's saying.

Farid was at his wits' end

when he decided to film the site

breaking the legal quiet working hours.

Even though the noise team is very reactive,

it takes them about 30 to 45 minutes to call you back

and for someone to come over,

and very often, when they arrive here,

when someone of the noise team arrives here,

then the building site is already closed, or they stopped the work.

And then I thought, I have to get proof of what's going on,

so I grabbed my phone and I started taking videos.

Initially I thought, you know, how can I prove that

what I'm shooting is actually happening at that time?

So I had the idea of switching on my TV

and there was the date and the time and the news headlines,

and then I started by shooting

my TV and then moving to my window and shooting the building site.

Normally, officers have to witness nuisance noise first-hand

in order to take action.

Farid's evidence is so strong that the builders

were carrying out noisy work outside of permitted hours, though,

that George has decided to call the contractor.

It was incredibly disruptive.

The poor guy opposite didn't get any sleep till quite late.

In fact, you were still actually there till well gone 11 o'clock.

What I'd like to do is serve you with a Section 60 notice

to make sure you actually conform to the acceptable times in future,

unless you advise us otherwise.

A section 60 document is a legal notice

that clearly sets out the hours builders can carry out noisy works.

Once it's been served, builders who breach the rules

can be taken to court and fined five grand for each offence.

George heads off to the site to serve the notice with Sylvette,

who's on work experience with the noise squad.

This way.

And today she's in for a real treat.

This one.

She's getting a ride in George's company car, on the right,

and it's the envy of the team.

-GEORGE LAUGHS

-He wishes!

We're off.

After arriving at the site,

George is keen to speak to someone in authority.

I've just asked for the person in charge to come and speak to me.

It's a fairly loud site. There's little bits of breaking going on

and various bits of machinery, most of which is quite large,

so you can imagine at night, when the general location's quieter,

it will sound far louder than it is even now.

He has a chat with the foreman, and is firm but fair.

Right, I've spoken to the site foreman

and he's admitted that there were some serious problems

on the night that the footage was taken.

I've listened to what he had to say and in the real world, things do go wrong.

But the mistake they did make was not to inform us

when things were going badly wrong in the first place, so at the first

sign of trouble they should have been on the phone to let us know.

I've served him with a Section 60 notice.

What that means is that, in future,

he needs to keep us informed of what happens on the site

so if there's any sign of trouble,

anything that means that the site is going to overrun

or go beyond its normal times, he should get straight in touch with us

and let us know that that's the situation.

If we get complaints then,

we can let people know there is a problem and we can at least

tell them when it's going to be resolved. Hopefully now,

there'll be a better relationship between us and the site and we can communicate.

If we get complaints, we can let residents know the problem.

Farid's video was crucial in enabling George to get

a quick result and cooperation from the builders.

I noticed a big difference.

They are now respecting the working hours,

they are respecting the noisy hours,

so there was indeed a result from the action of the noise team.

Right now it's past 6pm, and fortunately the works are over

so I can have some peace and relax.

It's a quick and simple result for the noise squad.

To date there have been no more complaints about the site,

and no further action has been necessary.

Belfast in Northern Ireland is home to around half a million people.

The council's noise squad was set up ten years ago,

and one of the biggest problems they have to deal with are noisy parties.

Noise officers Steve and Philip

have eight years' experience between them,

and are no strangers to dealing with parties that have got a little out of hand.

You're very loud out the back in the alleyway.

If we have to come back it's a £100 fine,

bring the police, contact the university.

It's Thursday night and the calls are coming in thick and fast.

In order to investigate the complaint,

we need their address and your name and address.

15 and counting.

The lads begin their shift at eight,

but it's after eleven when the action really begins.

We usually get there about eleven o'clock

when people start going to bed.

People's toleration points and levels are crazy this time of night

cos they're trying to get to sleep.

It's going to be a busier-than-usual night

for Philip and Steve, as the police have asked them

to deal with some of the complaints they've received.

Tonight we've had about four, possibly five, calls from the police, and...

..some months go by where we maybe only get five calls from the police,

so they'll be using our service a lot tonight.

It usually means they're under pressure

with a lot of parties and stuff

and they don't have enough vehicles to get around,

so they start passing the complaints they usually deal with on to us as well.

Steve and Philip have been called to a block of flats to visit a repeat offender.

It seems that this noisemaker likes their music and likes it loud.

As they're regular visitors to this block,

getting in won't be a problem.

Because we've been there so many times,

the Environmental Health Officer got us a key fob

to the actual apartment block, so it means any further complaints,

we just need to use the key fob for access problems.

We can assess it from the inside of the actual apartment complex.

The lads have been called out many times to this block of flats to deal with noisy neighbours,

and as they arrive, Philip's careful not to add to tonight's noise with a slamming door.

This inconsiderate noisemaker

doesn't seem to care that they're keeping their neighbours awake.

RINGS DOORBELL

LOUD MUSIC FROM FLAT

It might sound like there's a party of rowdy revellers

on the other side of the door, but in fact, Philip and Steve

think that this is an ear-piercing party for one.

Some cases when the noise is very loud,

we have to wait till the song stops to try and get their attention

as quick as we can before they put another song on.

LOUD MUSIC FROM FLAT CONTINUES

It's a heavy big door, like.

In other cases, we can't get them to come to the door at all,

and we end up having to post a notice on the property.

It's the council. Can you open the door, please?

They're not having much luck getting a response

and when Philip is finally heard he's told to go away...

BLEEP

..or words to that effect.

-This is not the apartment you've usually been to, is it?

-Mmm?

This is not the apartment you usually come to.

-It's the first I've witnessed anything.

-Oh, right.

The council need to speak to you, please. Can you open the door?

SHOUTING INSIDE

I need to speak to you, could you open the front door?

SHOUTING AND BANGING

That's your legal requirement, you need to turn the music down.

If we have to come back tonight, it's a £100 fine.

Right, well... We'll have to come back, £100 fine, bring the police.

This noisemaker has been served with a warning notice to stop the noise.

If they ignore it, Philip and Steve could be back with a £100 fine.

That girl had no intention of opening the door.

To my thinking, I'm thinking back to the previous complaints.

I think we tried to approach her on one other occasion

and got the exact same response,

so if we get another complaint, we can call with them,

take a measurement, and if it's loud enough we can

issue them with a £100 fixed penalty

which we'd serve tonight with police assistance.

Different councils deal with nuisance noise

in slightly different ways.

Here in Belfast, if the team think there's a problem,

they can serve the noisemaker with a warning notice.

This means they have to quieten down.

If they refuse, and the problem persists

they can be hit with a £100 fine.

If that's ignored they could be taken to the magistrates court

and prosecuted for not paying the fine

or not stopping the noise.

Now, who thinks that the lads will have to come back

to the nuisance noisemaker's property?

Yep, there they are.

It's been less than an hour since their first visit,

and Steve and Philip are back. Fed up residents have called in

to say that the noisemaker's music is still on.

We've returned to the apartment that we visited earlier,

and served a warning notice on the lady

by posting it through her front door.

She wouldn't come to her front door and was swearing and abusive.

This suspected party for one is still going strong,

so the lads are going to gather evidence

to help them dish out a £100 fine.

What are the levels like?

Cos we can take measurements for a fixed penalty if you wish.

One of the noisemaker's neighbours has allowed Philip into their home

so that he can measure how loud the music is.

He's assembling specialist sound equipment to monitor the noise.

If it's over the permitted level, this noisemaker's party for one

could cost her a pretty penny.

After recording the noise for five minutes, Philip checks the reading.

For a fixed penalty, we actually need

a measurement of ten decibels above the underlying level and at least 31.

On this occasion, the underlying level is 21 decibels,

so the permitted level is 31, and it's actually measured as 38,

so we've got the fixed penalty.

Under normal circumstances we'd phone for police assistance,

but because they're extremely busy tonight

and she won't actually open the door to us,

we'll try and do it ourselves again.

If she doesn't answer, then we'll just post it on the property

and she has 14 days to pay it.

RINGS DOORBELL

MUSIC FROM INSIDE FLAT

It seems as though this noisemaker

is turning a deaf ear to Phillip and Steve,

but not answering the door isn't going to save her from a £100 fine.

As predicted, she's not going to answer the door,

so I'll just serve a fixed penalty notice on the property.

It's deemed served, and she'll have 14 days to pay it.

She might not have wanted to face the music,

but this nuisance noisemaker is being made to pay the penalty

for her behaviour, and has been given a £100 fine.

For most people that would be the end of the story,

but not for this noisy neighbour. She's been ordered to cough up, but she won't shut up,

and when Phillip and Steve's colleagues are called again

to deal with her, getting her to listen to reason

is going to be easier said than done.

-WOMAN: Who is it?

-It's the council noise service.

-Who?

-It's the council.

-Who?

-The council noise service.

Who?

From quiet villages in the countryside

to bustling streets in big towns and cities,

one type of nuisance noise

that really gets our goat is out-of-control alarms.

CAR ALARMS SOUND

Whether it's screeching car alarms...

-HOUSE ALARM SOUNDS

-...or howling house alarms.

These piercing pests drive us bonkers.

It's an irritating loud noise that

you wish you could turn off but you have no control of.

It just goes through your head constantly, it doesn't shut up.

After serving for three years on Westminster Council's noise squad,

George Christian has dealt with his fair share of annoying alarms.

Today he's on his way to investigate a complaint

from a seriously hacked off resident

who's been disturbed by an ear-piercing house alarm for two days.

The guy is disturbed by the noise affecting his bedroom.

It's something that isn't very loud in the street,

but he can clearly hear it inside his property

and he says it's preventing him sleeping at night.

So I'm going along there now

and see whether it's a nuisance or not.

The problem is the property's recently been sold

and the new owners haven't moved in yet,

so it looks as though for the time being the house is empty,

so we're going to have to do a little bit of detective work

and try and find out where the new owners are,

and make some sort of contact with them.

According to George the complainant says

the alarm isn't that loud in the street.

I'm not sure about that. Have a listen to this.

ALARM SOUNDS LOUDLY

Well, you can clearly hear the alarm from outside here.

The problem's clear - the alarm's on, but nobody's home.

George goes to visit the neighbour who's been driven to distraction by this annoying alarm,

but it seems that they've headed out in search of a bit of peace and quiet.

OK. The person making the complaint has gone out,

possibly because of the noise,

but you can clearly hear the alarm sounding out into the street

and if that's going to be going all day and all night,

you can see it's almost certainly going to be a nuisance.

What I'll do is I'll serve a notice,

a legal notice at the address,

and make enquiries with local estate agents

to see if they can find out who the new owners are.

This property has recently been sold

and is now unoccupied, although it has an owner,

but they clearly haven't moved in yet.

So we'll try and make some sort of contact with them.

House alarms are supposed to stop after 20 minutes.

If they don't, they're considered to be a nuisance.

George writes out a legal warning notice.

He's decided to give the homeowner 12 hours to turn off the alarm.

If they don't, George has the power to disable the alarm

with the help of an electrician, and if that happens,

the alarm owner will have to pay for the costs of doing so.

As the house is unoccupied,

it might seem a bit daft to post a notice,

but if he's going to take formal action and break in later

to silence the alarm, George has to do things by the book.

OK. Notice is served.

Normally the homeowner would have one hour to sort the problem,

but George has given them a bit longer to comply

so that he can try to track them down.

If we can't find the owner, then we can... I've served the notice

there already and I've given it twelve hours to expire

which means that by tonight,

if the owner hasn't surfaced,

we can if necessary get a warrant and force entry into the property

and actually silence the alarm ourselves.

Something we often do.

George has headed to a local estate agent

that's dealing with the empty property

to see if they can help him track down the owners.

After a quick chat, there's good news.

I've just called at the estate agents,

who confirmed they handled the sale of the property just recently.

They've made contact...

well, they've text messaged the new owner

just to say that there's a problem with the alarm,

it's been sounding for two days,

and can they attend the property urgently and switch it off.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that will do the trick.

This matter seems to be under control,

so George heads back out on patrol. But whilst he's on the move,

he gets a call from someone who says she's the owner of the property.

Hello, George, noise team.

And he tells her how long the alarm has been going off - for two days!

'Oh, my God. It's not even set.'

No, it's been going a while. I'm told it's been two days.

It's certainly going off today.

-'I'm so appalled by that, I'm sorry.'

-OK.

'Gosh. Has it been going on intermittently?'

No, I believe it's been going solidly for two...

'Oh, my God. I'm just so appalled by that.'

It's obviously nothing you were aware of,

so we can't hold that against you.

'Right, OK, I'll just have to get myself organised.'

Where are you now?

'I'm in Sussex, at least an hour-and-a-half away,

-'if not two hours, but I'm just appalled by it.'

-Right.

'OK, all right, I'm really sorry about that.

'I expect my neighbours are absolutely furious. OK, thanks.'

Will you give me a call once you've attended?

'I will, I will, OK, thanks, bye.'

Thank you.

The homeowner is deeply apologetic,

and is on her way to sort out the problem.

She got the message from the estate agent

and she's got in touch with me

to say that she will come up and deal with the alarm.

She was very, very apologetic,

and sounded in a bit of a panic, actually.

But the main thing is that she'll come out today

and deal with the alarm,

so her neighbours will get a good night's sleep,

which I'm sure they're looking forward to after two days.

George may have tracked down the owners of the house,

but that's not the end of this alarming tale.

This will be one alarm that refuses to go down without a fight.

-Well, I'm trying, you might know more than I do.

-Let's have a look.

And elsewhere, there are other cases still to be resolved.

In Belfast, officers are called back to a persistent nuisance noise offender

who won't answer her door and won't turn her music down.

You need to turn it down, or you'll end up getting fined later on.

And in York, a crowing cockerel is keeping its neighbours awake

but its owner can't hear the problem.

Basically I've shut off to them,

I can't hear them. I mean, the children,

they sleep through the crowing as well. I think what it is,

it's like anything, train noise, police noise, any siren,

you eventually just get used to it. But obviously this noise

is quite irritating for some individual.

All over the UK, thousands of people call their local noise squads every year

to complain about barking dogs.

There's a dog up the stairs, and that just goes on and on and on.

Any slight noise that...

walking up and down the stairs, shutting the door,

it barks, barks, barks, and it doesn't stop.

At night-time, just when you thought you're going to go to sleep,

all you hear was barking, barking, barking.

But pooches aren't the only noisy animals in town.

In some parts of the country, our feathered friends are also causing a racket.

In York, noise officer Craig Delorenzo and trainee Siobhan Metcalfe

of the council's noise squad are trying

to help a resident who lives not far from the city centre,

but is being plagued by a typically rural nuisance noise.

COCKEREL CROWS

We're just listening to a complaint of a cockerel crowing

in the early hours of the morning.

The problem has been going on for a while now

and we've just had some recording equipment

put in to the complainant's property

and we're recording the noise from the cockerel.

In this particular instance

it starts at ten to six in the morning,

and is crowing 14 times in five minutes.

COCKEREL CROWS

If someone's being woken up before six in the morning,

it's no wonder this cockerel's ruffling a few feathers.

Well, I'm often asked about decibels,

and decibels can be a bad way of describing noise,

because it's the annoyance that the noise causes

rather than just how loud it is.

For instance, we've got quite high noise levels of bird song,

so tweeting of sparrows, blackbirds, and things,

and those noises don't bother anyone.

But you have an out of the ordinary noise

such as a cockerel in a city centre location,

and that can disturb people.

The following week, Craig and Siobhan hit the road.

They've written to the owner of the cockerel

and now they're going to visit her.

With six years of experience on the noise team,

Craig knows that however tricky the problem,

turning a blind eye and hoping for the best

isn't really an option.

It's very important that we're

determined to deal with these problems.

You can't just leave it and let them get away with it.

You have to keep going on and on and on

and investigate it thoroughly.

If you're being disturbed by noisy neighbours or any other type of nuisance noise,

your local council are on hand to deal with it,

so don't suffer in silence, give them a call.

Craig and Siobhan arrive at the owner's home.

With cases like this, noise officers in York

have the power to serve written notices

telling owners to quieten their animals down.

A written notice means that an animal owner is legally obliged

to keep their animals quiet.

Breaching this notice is an offence,

and the owner could be prosecuted in court and fined up to five grand.

Craig and Siobhan are led to the back garden

to meet the noisy culprits.

We've had a complaint about the cockerel

and just wanted to come and see you about it and give you some advice.

The owner's keen to let them know that

although her animals are her pride and joy,

she never intended to be the owner of TWO noisy cockerels.

-I had three hens and one cockerel...

-Right.

-and the fox took them on New Year's Eve.

-Oh, dear.

So basically when I got these, they were babies and you can't tell

the sex of them until they grow into adults.

So I've ended up with more than one cockerel.

Craig lets her know that there are people

who aren't so impressed with early wake up calls.

-The reason we're here...

-The noise.

..is we've had a complaint from a resident,

we've had recording equipment in.

Yes, I read the letter cos I didn't see your first letter

-and I received it when I got home from work today.

-OK.

I actually spoke to my nearest neighbours

before I got the chickens, and

obviously they've got children and they all come in the garden,

everybody gets the eggs, the kids come in, you know,

to see the chickens, to feed them, and everybody was like,

"Oh, it's a lovely noise compared to sirens."

Police cars going up all the time,

ambulances back and forth over there,

I thought, what's a cockerel going to do?

-But obviously somebody's upset.

-Yeah, but...

The majority round here, I wasn't like arrogant

to go ahead and not say anything,

but it's been a novelty having chickens in the street.

The complaint hasn't come from either of the neighbours who live directly next door.

The owner wants to come up with a solution,

and it turns out one of the birds is considerably louder than the other.

The only thing I was thinking,

because I was thinking of compromises before you came,

but first of all I wanted to see what angle you were coming from

and what you proposed.

You know, what we want is for a way of resolving the problem

that stops the cockerels crowing early in the morning.

Now, there are different ways of doing that.

Is there anywhere that you could bring them

-inside anywhere overnight, or...

-No, don't be daft.

The only option is the first stage I thought is, I'd get rid of the noisy one,

the black one, and then see how it goes,

and if complaints resume then the blonde one then has to go,

and I thought that was a compromise that was...

I'm happy to go with that compromise.

The owner thinks she can find the noisier black cockerel

a new home in around three weeks.

If there are still complaints after that,

then the other cockerel will have to be re-homed too.

We may find that once the other one goes,

the other one starts becoming more dominant.

He may, but he's a little gentleman.

Until now, the owner wasn't aware that her birds were getting someone in a bit of flap.

I was quite surprised to get the letter today

from the council, because prior to getting the chickens

I actually talked to the neighbours,

especially the neighbours next door, and asked them

if they would have any problems with me getting the chickens,

and everybody was quite, "Oh, it's great, unique, a new thing," and, you know,

it's brought fun to the children

and also the neighbours get all the eggs and they love them,

they actually come knocking asking for eggs.

But also through that, we've started trading vegetables with eggs,

so it all works out and I actually thought

we were working well together as a community.

And having had these feathered friends for a number of months,

her family have all got quite used to the crowing.

Basically I've actually shut off to them, I can't hear them.

I mean, the children, they sleep through the crowing as well.

I think what it is, it's like anything, train noise,

police noise, any siren, you eventually just get used to it.

But obviously this noise is quite irritating for some individual.

Right, well, thanks for your help today.

I'll keep in touch and let you know

-if we get any complaints. All right?

-Yes, thank you.

-All right. See you then.

-Thank you very much. Bye.

After two months of building up a history to this case,

Craig and Siobhan can leave with an excellent result.

No written notice needed to be served.

I'm pretty satisfied with that resolution.

I think that three weeks is a reasonable time

for the complaint, for the person with the chickens

to get rid of the cockerel,

and I'm sure that the complainants will be happy with that.

And I'm going to get in touch with them and ask them

to keep me informed, and any more problems,

I'm sure they'll let me know.

It seems like Craig has the result he wanted,

and I think it's fair to say he's a happy man.

We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket

to resolve the issue, but hopefully

that should be the end of the matter.

Very good, Craig. Since his visit, this has become a case of cock-a-doodle-don't.

The noisy black cockerel has been re-homed.

There have no further problems with the other one,

and no further action has been needed.

In Belfast, the council's noise squad

have been dealing with a persistent nuisance noise offender

who won't turn her music down.

BLEEP

Despite their efforts to get her to answer the door and talk to them,

the occupant of this flat refused to cooperate with the council's noise team.

She wouldn't quieten down, and so was hit with a £100 fine.

As predicted, she's not going to answer the door, so I've just served

a fixed penalty notice on the property.

It's deemed served and she'll have 14 days to pay it.

Six weeks later, noise officers

Tim and Jim have been called out to the same address.

The stakes are getting higher.

The noise maker hasn't paid her fine and is continuing to be a problem.

We're headed to a block of apartments.

It's a property we've previously been out with.

The occupant likes to listen to music very loud,

so she's disturbing the neighbours who live around her.

We've had about four or five previous visits,

so, depending on what we witness here tonight,

if she ends up with another warning notice,

it's going to result in a permanent noise abatement order being served on the address.

It could result in her being taken to court.

A permanent noise abatement notice means that if the noise squad

witness any nuisance noise from the property in future

the occupier could be facing a trip to the magistrates' court

and a further fine.

One of the riled residents in the block of flats

has allowed Jim and Tim into their home

to monitor the music levels coming from the noisemaker's flat.

-A bit of music.

-Just music.

I don't know if she's got it playing or not.

She got a fine last time. A £100 fine, she did, the last time.

Jim explains that, this time,

the music isn't really loud enough for them

-to issue a warning notice.

-It's not loud enough to be notice,

it's sort of a grey area between verbal and a notice.

OK. We'll go up and try and talk to her.

If she doesn't come to the door,

we'll request that the day staff send a letter in.

The music might not be loud enough for a formal notice,

but it's enough of a problem

for them to give the noisemaker a verbal warning.

I'll tell you what, the insulation's pretty good in these properties. Cos that's...

She's in the lounge. We were in the complainants' bedroom.

That's what it is.

RINGS DOORBELL MUSIC FROM FLAT

-WOMAN: Who is it?

-It's the council noise service.

-Who?

-It's the council.

-Who?

-The council noise service.

Who?

Maybe if she turned the music down

she'd be able to hear who was knocking at her door.

It's the council noise service. You need to turn the music down.

It's causing a disturbance to your neighbours.

Despite his best efforts, Jim, like his colleagues before him,

is having no luck getting this noisemaker to open her door.

The music's very loud in there, or she's hard of hearing.

You'll need to turn it down or you'll end up getting fined later on.

To no-one's surprise, the noisemaker refuses to open the door.

Obviously, you're not going to be able to reason with her.

I've told her who we are and that she needs to lower it.

She probably won't. But there's not much more we can do from the point of view of the complainant,

unless the volume goes right up, you know,

you're always looking to be fair, to balance the two, you know,

between the needs of the complainant for peace and quiet,

and the needs of the person who's making the noise to enjoy their property.

She won't shut up and this noise maker

hasn't paid her £100 fine. Having ignored reminders,

the next letter she gets will be a letter from the magistrates' court,

where she'll be facing prosecution and a possible further penalty.

In Westminster, noise officer George Christian has been dealing with an ear-piercing house alarm

that's been going off at an unoccupied property for two days.

He's served a warning notice on the property,

giving the owners 12 hours to turn off the alarm

or face possible prosecution and a fine.

ALARM SOUNDS CONSTANTLY

Notice is served.

A visit to a local estate agent helped him

to track down the owner who's promised to get over

to the house sharpish to turn it off and she's called back with an update.

-'George, hi, it's Lucy here.'

-Hello there.

'We're in the house trying to get it turned off.

'We can't hold of anyone to come out.

'I just wanted you to let you know we're working on it

-'but we can't solve it yet.'

-OK, all right, just keep me informed.

-Just keep me informed.

-'I will, thanks.'

-Thank you.

-'Bye.'

George has done his job by tracking down the owners,

but duty calls, and he's decided to pop along to see if he can lend a hand

to silence this aggravating alarm.

ALARM SOUNDS CONSTANTLY

As he arrives, George is met by the homeowner's husband.

-I've just had a call from the new owner, Lucy.

-Yeah.

And she said say she was here to silence the alarm.

Well, I'm trying. you might know more than I do.

Let's have a look.

I'm not surprised people complained.

This ear-piercing house alarm would drive anyone mad.

The new owners didn't know it had been activated, so the neighbours

have been suffering with it for two days.

George, though, is on the case.

ALARM CONTINUES

ALARM BECOMES QUIETER

OK, I'm putting back this connection.

He's stopped the loudest alarm,

but this is one alarm that refuses to be silenced without a fight.

That's solved the noise problem.

-So the only problem you have now is obviously...

-To disconnect that.

..setting that up again.

It might be that you don't use that system,

cos it looks of some age. So you might want to get...

Yeah, we'll get rid of it.

-Really, really old system, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Looks like it's probably at least 20-years-old.

Yeah, it is. It's been...

The previous owners got it disconnected, but...

-You've got a sounder inside here.

-That's what we'll get rid of.

The only way to shut it down for good is to disconnect everything.

-There you go.

-Perfect.

So, in your view, is that completely disarmed now?

Yeah, I'm disconnecting all of the sounders,

so there's nothing else that can mechanically make that noise.

-That should do it.

-Perfect.

-It's done.

-You're very kind. Thanks very much.

-OK.

George has gone above and beyond the call of duty,

and this neighbourhood will finally get a bit of peace and quiet.

All right, there's a notice served.

Obviously, being aware of the notice, you've acted on it and complied,

so you've done everything that you, that could have been asked of you,

so as far as we're concerned, we won't take any further action.

We've not needed a contractor to enter the place,

or any warrants or anything,

so we'll now close it and it's really down to you

just to get the alarm sorted out for your own peace of mind.

-All right?

-Thanks. All right. I apologise for getting you out.

That's all right. Thanks for your co-operation.

-OK.

-Bye now. Have a good day.

Nice one, George.

A bit of detective work and some emergency DIY has delivered a real result,

and saved this homeowner hundreds of pounds.

The owner was here, but he had a little bit of difficulty

actually disconnecting the alarm internally.

As it turns out, it was just a case of undoing a few screws

and pulling out a few wires.

And this chap is delighted with the outcome.

George helped a great deal, because he knew

a little bit more than me about disconnecting alarms.

So I'm happy with that.

With the alarm off and disconnected,

there will be no need for any further action,

and this case is closed.

It's been a busy shift for the noise squad.

They've dealt with out-of-control house alarms,

rowdy revellers, noisy builders,

and an unwelcome early morning alarm call.

COCKEREL CROWS

There's no let-up in the battle against anti-social nuisance noise

and plenty more cases still to be dealt with by the noise squad.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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