General household noise which would not be treated as anti-social behaviour are things like:

• babies crying
• children playing
• people talking or walking within their homes
• closing doors and windows
• vacuuming
• using white goods
• switching lights on and off
• flushing the toilet/running the taps
• DIY during the daytime/early evening
• Occasional noise made by someone with a mental health condition or physical disability
• One off incident of shouting/arguing/loud music
• Dogs barking intermittently

If you are affected by this type of noise, then you should speak with your neighbour and try to reach an agreement that you are both able to stick to. If you are not able to speak with your neighbour, take a look at the Neighbour Issues section of this directory to download our ‘Dear Neighbour’ card.

If this doesn’t work, you could download the Noise app to your smartphone.

The app will let you send in short noise clips to us so that we can assess the noise levels and advise you on whether we would deal with it as anti-social behaviour:

• download the Noise app for android
• download the Noise app for apple

You can also download the Noise app user guide:

If we can find a way to reduce noise transference by providing things such as rubber mats for washing machines, soft door closers, or anti-slam mechanisms we will work with you to provide these.

The next steps after this may be using a mediation service which we can organise for you. These steps are detailed in our Neighbourhood Management Policy:

If the noise is happening frequently or you are unable to use the noise app, we may offer the use of noise monitoring equipment for a fixed period to help us to assess the noise levels.

If the noise is coming from somewhere that is not owned by us, you should contact the local council and report this to them. They may also have an out of hours noise monitoring service who can tackle statutory noise complaints:

• Leeds Council
• Kirklees Council
• Wakefield Council
• North Yorkshire Council

Other forms of noise that the council can help with are:

• Noise from premises or vehicles, equipment or machinery in the street
• Noise at night (between the hours of 11pm and 7am)
• Noise that is above the permitted noise levels measured in decibels
• Noise from intruder alarms
• Noise from construction works
• Loud speakers in the street
• Model aircraft noise
• Noise from industrial, trade or business premises