What can we do about noisy neighbours, asks a tired Edel Morgan

SUMMERTIME AND the decibel levels from your average noisy neighbour's property are rising. I'm writing this column in a sleep-deprived haze because last night (Saturday) a family who live in the estate behind us made yet another attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records for world's longest party.

It was in full swing until 8am with revellers spilling out into the garden and numerous stomping renditions of Queen's Radio Ga Ga were played. Even more distressing were the attempts to sing along to Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance with Somebody. Gratuitous warbling can have a strange effect on a tired brain and it was so loud it was as if Whitney herself was singing live from their patio.

Even a bloody punch up around 8.30am in the back garden didn't end it. By 10am there was still whooping, loud voices and some colourful language, making it impossible for us to catch up on our sleep.

There is nothing wrong with people having parties - we have the odd one ourselves - but shouldn't there be a cut-off point (say 2am-3am) in a built-up area and immediate imprisonment for anyone attempting a Whitney number? There was a time when missing a night's sleep wouldn't have been as serious but, with two small children to keep up with and just the precious weekend to do things as a family, we are now at zero-tolerance. We had to cancel our plans for the day because we were too exhausted to go out or even execute our devious plan to rev up our lawnmower for two hours in retaliation.

We fumed all day. Although we have never met them, we surmised they probably aren't the kind of people who would listen to reason. In the evening, as we were walking in the park near our house, my husband suddenly decided to march over to their house to complain. Before he got to the door, the owner who was sitting in his car outside, called him over. Bracing ourselves for argy bargy, we were slightly disarmed when a very soft spoken, friendly man apologised profusely and gave us his "personal guarantee" that it wouldn't happen again, saying he remembered what it was like to have small children.

Our story had a good outcome we hope - although it remains to be seen if party animals are so easily reformed - and shows that a civil conversation might actually solve the problem.

In modern communities where people don't know all of their neighbours, noise-related disputes can fester and flare out of proportion. There tends to be a surge in the number of noise-related complaints to the local authorities between June and September, peaking in July. The Gardaí, unlike police forces in other EU countries, have no real powers to tackle noise offenders, other than to ask them politely to desist. It takes fighting for them to get involved.

Local authorities are reluctant to get involved in noise disputes between neighbours, but one course of action is to make a complaint at the District Court under section 108 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992.

To be considered a nuisance, noise should be "so loud, so continuous, so repeated, of such duration or pitch or occurring at such times as to give reasonable cause or annoyance to a person in any premises in the neighbourhood or to a person lawfully using any public place". If the noise is occasional or fleeting, the chances are you will be told to grin and bear it or try to reason with the offending neighbour.

A court does not require a complainant to bring sound tapes or diaries to court but a solicitor I spoke to advises it. "Judges hate getting involved in disputes between neighbours because these people have to live beside each other when it's all over," she said.