Noise turns up as all-age issue

TURN IT DOWN: Noise from stereos was the overwhelming complaint received by noise control officers during 2013, but it's not just the youngsters causing the problem.PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER

Wairarapa's noisiest streets have been revealed and noise control officers' notes show it isn't just young people making a racket.

While officers have had to shut down youth parties blasting loud bass music, they've also helped annoyed neighbours dealing with noise from generators, TVs, fights, weddings, carpentry, industrial noise, barking dogs and log splitters.

Carterton's High St, Greytown's East St, Martinborough's Dublin St and Featherston's Wakefield St had the most complaints in 2013, according to information obtained from South Wairarapa District Council and Carterton District Council under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

Masterton District Council would not release the names of Masterton's streets for privacy reasons but did identify East Masterton, closely followed by Lansdowne as raising the most complaints.

In Martinborough on Dublin St, a boy racer convention of "rowdy, drunken youths" at 2am attracted a complaint, but the data shows it is not always young people being loud.

On Cologne St, a group of "mature, older people" got told to quieten down and in Featherston, the RSA made too much noise for one resident.

In their duties to create peace in the neighbourhood, officers deal with a variety of situations and sometimes arrive to find no noise at all.

One Greytown resident on North St said their neighbour was creating machinery noise on purpose but when the officer arrived there was no noise.

Sometimes, if there is no one home, officers have had to been inventive like one who used a broom to shut a window to block noise from a radio.

On one occasion, an officer asked patched gang members at a party to lower the volume, which they did.

Noise from stereos was by far the biggest reason for noise complaints in all four towns.

Of the total 139 complaints made in Carterton, 94 per cent were about stereo noise and in Masterton, 74 per cent were related to stereo and TV noise.

However, barking dogs were a significant reason for many of the complaints and in Masterton there were more complaints about dogs than party noise.

Thirty-three equipment seizures were made from the total of 1200 complaints last year.