Summary: The complainant says the Council has failed to act on his repeated reports of noise nuisance from his neighbour. We will not investigate this complaint as there is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, I shall call Mr B, says the Council has failed to act on his repeated reports of noise nuisance from his next-door neighbours.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr B and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr B says the Council has done nothing to help him following his many reports of noise from his neighbours.
6. The Council confirms it has installed noise monitoring equipment (NME) in Mr B’s home 3 times.
7. Mr B told the Council his neighbours know when they install the NME, so they are deliberately quiet. To address this issue the Council have disguised Officer’s visits as delivery services, they have brought the equipment in a box, they have used different officers and they have pretended to remove the equipment.
8. The noise Mr B complains of is general living noise, slamming doors, children running around, people using the stairs etc. The Council confirms it has listened to the recordings made in Mr B’s home and it is satisfied there is no statutory nuisance. However, it has written to the neighbour who has made attempts to mitigate any noise.
9. The Council is also concerned that Mr B has removed the plaster in his walls back to bare blockwork. It says there are no internal walls upstairs, there are no floor coverings, curtains or any of the usual items which soften noise transmission. Mr B’s bed is also placed against the party wall.
10. The Council has installed NME 3 times and listened to the recordings therefore I cannot agree that it has failed to act on Mr B’s reports of noise.

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Final decision

11. I will not investigate this complaint. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman