Chorus of complaints over croaks and crowing

Blaring music, rowdy roosters and even ‘‘raucous tree frogs’’ have caused noise complaints around the country over the years. Given it is our largest city, it is no surprise that Auckland had the most complaints, with more than 330,000 in the past six years. Five of the country’smain city councils supplied Stuff with noise complaint data for the years 2015-20. In Hamilton, more than 6500 complaints were made in a similar period in 2020, as well as more than 4400 in Wellington City, 12,700 in Christchurch and almost 3300 in Dunedin City. The Dunedin City Council’s manager of compliance solutions, Ros Macgill, said North Dunedin and the CBD usually generated more noise complaints during the academic year, when students were in town. ‘‘Most of our time is spent dealing with noise complaints involving people playing music at excessive volume ... But we do get the odd bizarre complaint – rowdy roosters can occasionally cause problems in suburban areas, and a few years ago we even received complaints about raucous tree frogs.’’

The Christchurch City Council’s head of regulatory compliance, Tracey Weston, said the number of noise complaints tended to be higher in the summer months.

In Hamilton, about 200 noise complaints are made each week at the height of summer, compared with about 100 a week in winter. Loud stereos were often the greatest source of noise in the city, according to the city’s council.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, there was a slight increase in complaints made in central Christchurch. City council data shows 1263 complaints while the country was at alert level 4, compared with 1165 during the same period in 2019.

Weston said there was an increase in daytime complaints as ‘‘stereo noise, social gatherings and [DIY] construction noise impacted others who were working from home’’.

But in Auckland, it was the opposite. At level 4, just 1529 complaints weremade compared with 5694 during the same period in 2019. The nationwide lockdown also saw complaints tumble in Hamilton, from 726 in 2019 to 134.

In Wellington, just 24 noise complaints were investigated at level 4, compared with 528 during the same period in 2019. However, at level 4 noise control was stood down except for emergencies.

Complaints in Dunedin also fell about 36 per cent throughout both level 4 and 3 lockdowns.

More than 1020 noise complaints are made on average each week in Auckland.

Of the thousands of noise complaints made around the country each year, most are about music and some are about animals.