All of us who have lived in an apartment in Macau will probably be familiar with construction noise from neighbours remodeling and renovating their homes. Annoying as this is, at some stage, ideally – and by law before 8pm – the workers will go home leaving you to at least have a peaceful night sleep.
The worst and most upsetting kind of noise tends to be not from construction, but from neighbours who are simply thoughtlessly noisy in their life styles. In some of the buildings, poor construction quality, and thin floors and walls exacerbate the problem so that even a moderately noisy neighbour can be disturbing.
When one’s nerves have reached breaking point, the best advice is to call the management company to mediate on your behalf and to exercise its duty to have residents comply with the building rules and applicable laws. The trouble is, the management company is often represented, especially at night, by a lowly paid often elderly security guard, too timid to do much about anything.
It is critical that for every complaint you make, insist that it be registered in the management company’s incident log book which the night guard will have. If you are renting, you can keep your own log of incidents and inform your apartment owner. A responsible owner will agree to meet with you and the management to discuss what options they, not you, can take.
If all else fails, then the next step is to call the police, although unfortunately, they do not have the power to fine individuals making noise.
Ultimately, sometimes legal action is one’s only recourse.
In Macau there is a Decree Law 54/94/M that considers many situations and sources of noise ‘pollution’; article 3 covers residential buildings stating that there can be no noise on Sundays and Public Holidays, and in the period between 8pm and 8am of any day.
Penalties from MOP5,000 to MOP10,000 can be incurred and doubled or tripled in case of recurrence. In section 12 the specific fine is set taking into account i) the level of the disturbing noise produced, ii) the population density of the place where the disturbing noise is produced and iii) strangely, the financial means of the infringer.
Many of us don’t like the confrontation and unpleasantness of involving the authorities and I empathise with several tenants we know who have done all the above but to no avail. In their desperation for peace and quiet, they have eventually had to vacate their apartment and forfeit their security deposit.
