Auckland high-rise residents sent ‘insane’ by intentional vibrating noise – Is it even legal?

Residents of Auckland’s prestigious Pacifica building had to deal with the sound of a phone vibrating in the walls of their home 24-7 for a month – but is such noise pollution even legal?

As many as 25 Pacifica residents were being bothered by the deliberately placed “rumbler”, a machine specifically designed for the purpose of taking revenge on annoying neighbours, according to a report by the NZ Herald.

According to the site that sells the Ceiling Vibrator System V2 Version, the devices are a “legal” way to get back at annoying neighbours.

“Countless people who have suffered from the noise of their loud noisy upstairs neighbours have returned peace life with its help [sic],” the website says.

Have they though? Because experience tells us there is nothing quite as petty, nor prone to escalation as a spat between neighbours, and that councils take a dim view on it.

READ MORE:
* Cyclone Gabrielle: What you need to know in your region
* Construction sites, burnouts and loud parties: Auckland’s noisiest streets revealed
* Are these New Zealand’s noisiest neighbours?
* Help, my neighbour is a nutter! – How to deal with neighbourhood disputes

Most councils have rules and regulations around noise in residential areas, so it’s highly unlikely such a vibrating machine would be “legal”, according to rules in the Auckland Unitary Plan.

The plan places limits on the noise that can be emitted between flats where they share a common building element, such as a floor or wall.

“The permitted noise limits within an apartment are set so that the permitted noise level should not interfere with the occupants’ sleep,” says Auckland Council Compliance Response and Investigations team leader David Frith.

A person causing deliberate annoyance with noise or vibration would also potentially be in breach of a section of the Section 16 of the Resource Management Act 1991, “although if the noise was at a very low level, a case-by-case judgement would be needed to determine whether it was actionable or not.”

Getting a ruling on noise can be a bit of a process, and that can be made even more difficult if your noisy neighbour is a factory, or heaven help you, a motorway.

In 2021, a Hastings couple claimed they hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in seven years because of “incessant noise” coming from a Hastings Wattie’s factory. They described it “incessant”.

Upper Hutt residents complained about noise coming from the nearby Farrah flatbread factory for 12 months, before someone finally listened in 2021. Testing showed machinery noise, and the filling of a flour silo exceeded sound limits. The company was given two months to quieten down, but even when it had complied with the independent commissioner’s decree, neighbours were still troubled by the noise.

Meanwhile in Christchurch, a then-new $290 million motorway had neighbours up in arms over being woken by what they termed “the roar” coming from the new road at 4.30am. Trucks travelling south were described as sounding, “like an earthquake coming,” one neighbour said.

At least you know where you stand with a motorway. Confronting problem neighbours in person is far harder, that goes double if they’re only temporary.

Neighbours of one Airbnb property in Richmond, Tasman, say they’ve come home to men urinating in bushes outside their home, rubbish strewn across the garden, and half a dozen deer and goat heads on the property’s lawn, attracting flies and maggots.

But by far the nation’s number one weapon in the arsenal of neighbourly disputes is the fence.

There is a long list of fence battles across the regions, but one stands out. The long-running court battle between Wellington neighbours Peter and Sylvia Aitchison and David Walmsley raged through the courts for four years.

It started when Walmsey got consents from Wellington City Council for a structure that was part-fence-part-play fort to run along the back of his property. Problem: It completely blocked the Aitcheson’s million dollar view of Wellington Harbour.

The tussle between the neighbours and council ended with the removal of the fence, and an order for Walmsley to pay $72,000 of the Aitchison’s court costs.

It’s not at all unusual for neighbour v neighbour v council disputes to end up costing a fortune.

Take the to-and-fro between neighbours and the council over Doyleston, rural Canterbury, resident Lance Thorne, whose neighbours first dobbed him in for moving a house onto his property without consents, and then again for running his automotive spray-painting business out of his American-style red barn.

That saga ran from 2018 all the way through the environmental courts, costing Thorne about $30,000 in legal fees, and was only resolved in February.

So before you send away for that thumper, or start building that fence, take a look at your bank balance and remember, no matter how bad it gets, there are always sound ways to resolve even the worst of neighbourly disputes, and none of them include purpose-built vibrating rumblers.