“I hear every noise my upstairs neighbors make, even when they close the toilet bowl.” Sophia*, who has been living with her husband in Luxembourg, in a “poorly insulated building from the 1950s” for almost a year, says she has been in neighborly conflict with her owners for several months, to the point of having been physically attacked by them, on April 10.
“It was around 11:45 p.m., they were making a lot of noise, so I turned up the volume on the television. The owner then came to our landing and knocked on the door, breaking the lock. She then poked me in the eye and broke my glasses. Her husband also arrived to separate me from his wife. He pulled out my hair.”
Sophia*, who is around twenty years old, adds that her husband was not able to defend her because the scene took place in a “narrow hall”. Contacted, the police confirmed the “quarrel” and indicated that they had notified those involved of the possibility of filing a complaint. “Traumatized” following the incident, Sophia says she did not go to work for two days. She was supposed to file a complaint this Friday.
Regarding the origin of the conflict with her neighbors, the resident explains that she had tried to resolve it through dialogue, “in vain”. “I called the police for the first time, last October, but I didn’t really have any proof of the commotion,” says Sophia*. Another time, my neighbor called him to complain about the volume of our music. A third time, it was me who called the police, because my neighbors were listening to techno music with bass.” Sophia* signed a two-year lease with her husband. She says she would like to move.
For their part, the police say they do not have statistics on neighborhood disturbances. “There is indeed the category “nocturnal noise”, but it includes all cases, that is to say also establishments in which the music is too loud, people who make noise in public, vehicles which make too much noise. noise, etc., notes a spokesperson. It should also be noted that in most cases of neighborhood and noise disputes, there is no filing of a complaint and the matter can often be resolved on the spot.
As they also do not record the reasons for cases of neighborhood disputes, the police say they cannot make a general statement on this subject. “But it is true that the reasons can be very diverse,” slips the spokesperson. Social mediation non-profit organizations interviewed by The essential noted in this respect that noise pollution was often explained by noise at night, barking dogs or even heat pumps. Without forgetting the planting problems (non-compliance with pruning hedges, trees and shrubs, leaves in the neighbor’s garden, etc.).
*The first name has been changed
