Court Rules Children Are Noisy

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Fountain turned off because kids 'too noisy'
Children have been effectively banned from playing in a water fountain in a suburban Tokyo park after complaints to the local government about noise levels. The fountain has been turned off and skateboarders are no longer welcome at the Nishi-Tokyo Ikoino-Mori Park in western Tokyo. The Hachioji branch of the Tokyo District Court issued a provisional injunction Oct. 1 ordering the city government to turn off the water and to ban skateboarders from the municipal park. The complainant was a woman in her late 60s recuperating from heart disease at her home, which is just 45 meters from the fountain and about 90 m from the square for skateboarders and BMX riders... According to city officials, the voices of children playing around the fountain was measured at 60 decibels while the noise made by the skateboarders registered 58 dB. Those figures exceeded the limit of 50 dB set by the Tokyo metropolitan government ordinance on noise regulations. The law prohibits noise levels of more than 50 dB in that particular area between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m...The city government had argued that the voices of children playing should not be regarded as noise. But the court disagreed, ruling that the laughter and shouts associated with children playing can be considered as noise if the sounds exceed a certain level...A 25-year-old Briton and a 24-year-old Australian, both skateboarders, said they had not heard about the prohibition...more...

There's actually [I]a website for inline skaters and BMX riders at this park. They've been puzzling over whether they are banned or not since earlier this month. The map above shows a specific area for them at bottom right (picture below) which may or may not be near the fountain in question.[/I]

[eighty5er]

Bah =/

[tidbits]

There was also news about a father was asked to pay 36man to his downstairs neighbour by the court due to his children's footstep noises.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20071003i413.htm (Japanese)



crawl, man, crawl..

[Samurai_Jerk]

Both of these stories make me very happy. I fucking hate noisy kids.

[blackcat]

But the concrete diggers and idylling cars are no problem...nor the rightwingers and political trucks!

and they wonder why the birth rate is falling.

[tidbits]

[maraboutslim]

There is a local city college here on the san francisco peninsula that built a new sports playing field. Then the neighbors complained about all the students cheering! It's destined to be a court battle, I'm sure...

[L S]

But the concrete diggers and idylling cars are no problem...nor the rightwingers and political trucks!

and they wonder why the birth rate is falling.

Totally agree...
Kids screaming below my mansion while playing never woke me from a night of drinking, but the political trucks always did.

Both of these stories make me very happy. I fucking hate noisy kids.

SJ, am I wrong in assuming you don't have kids?

[Samurai_Jerk]

SJ, am I wrong in assuming you don't have kids?

No, you're not. What does that have to do with anything?

[L S]

No, you're not. What does that have to do with anything?

Your comment that you hate noisy kids just made me laugh b/c I often used to say the same thing...until I sold out and went to the other side and had kids. Now I have this ultra-powerful filter that blocks noisy kids attained from shear innoculation.

[Behan]

The town I live in came up with a devious plan to keep the skateboarders out of the square in front of the station. They re-tiled the entire square with tiles with big bumps on them making it impossible to ride over them.
There's a koban there, too, so you would think it would have been a good place to keep an eye on the kids. They weren't hurting anyone. I don't know why they couldn't have just left them alone.

[GomiGirl]

There was also news about a father was asked to pay 36man to his downstairs neighbour by the court due to his children's footstep noises.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20071003i413.htm (Japanese)

crawl, man, crawl..

Can anybody get that? My upstairs neighbour gets home from her hostess job at all hours of the night in her clicky clacky fucking heels up the concrete stairs outside our bedroom. I don't want to disturb the wa but damn she is noisy even through the concrete floor. Plus we have an illegal cat so I don't want to draw attention to us.


Edit: I am getting old and grouchy aren't I?

[Behan]

Can you train the cat to attack your noisy neighbor?

But, seriously, I would be annoyed by her, too.

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Complaints about noisy kids get louder

Should children be seen and not heard? Apparently so, according to the increasing number of complaints about noisy children by residents living near schools and parks. This growing annoyance manifested itself most recently when the Hachioji branch of the Tokyo District Court ruled the noise levels of children playing in a fountain in a park in Nishi-Tokyo, Tokyo, exceeded permitted levels and ordered the city to turn off the fountain. A Yomiuri Shimbun survey of 73 municipalities, including prefectural capitals and Tokyo's 23 wards, found many local governments are hard-pressed trying to handle complaints over the noise made by children. Forty-eight cities said they had received complaints about rowdy children.

Children running around in fountains are not the only ones to have irritated neighbors. In July, the brass band and chorus of a primary school in Kita Ward, Tokyo, held a concert in the gymnasium. The windows were left open during the concert because the gym has no air conditioner. However, after a person living behind the gym complained about the noise, the school had to shut the windows to continue the concert. "We had told the local community beforehand that the school would be holding a concert. However, it was difficult [to get understanding from everybody]," a member of the ward's education board in charge of the matter said.

A middle school in Matsuyama received complaints a few years ago about the noise made by its baseball club during training. Neighbors grumbled that the children were yelling too loudly, and about the sound of bat on ball. Yelling is part and parcel of baseball: children cheer every time they hit the ball to encourage each other. But after receiving several complaints, the school discussed the matter with neighbors and agreed to stop its players from yelling. These days, baseball training is conducted almost in silence, much to the satisfaction of nearby residents.

A "public children's house" is a place for kids to play after school. Since children can be boisterous, these places also can get on the nerves of neighbors. Nerima Ward, Tokyo, has received complaints about two such children's houses in the past year. As a result, the staff shut the windows and curtains and instruct children to be quiet when they play. They reportedly also caution any child who speaks loudly. The Fukui city government received an complaint in June from a resident annoyed by the noise made by children playing soccer at a park. The resident also was upset that some of the budding J.Leaguers sometimes trespassed onto the resident's property to retrieve their ball when it was booted over the fence.

A city government official went to the park to see how bad the problem was. The main source of irritation seemed to be the noise made when a ball was kicked against the metal fence surrounding the park. To alleviate the problem, the city placed a net in front of the fence, and put up a sign urging park users not to kick balls against the fence.

[Iraira]

Yomiuri: Complaints about noisy kids get louder

I remember watching some recast of one of those NBC Dateline-type shows, where some screwy bitch started suing everyone in the neighborhood who made any sort of noise (kids playing basketball gave her migranes, etc), and a bunch of her neighbors on TV basically said that "something might happen to her". Eventually, a judge took away her right to sue her neighbors, which was one of those happy endings. Hopefully, they killed her , but I think I went to sleep after the judge kicked her butt.
I can dig the sounds of silence after 10 or 11pm on a worknight, but man, old folks be gettin' strange regarding kids. Envy of youth, bitterness towards the shadow of death looming in the near future, etc are not grounds to take away the pleasures that you enjoyed as a kid from the ensuing generations. Of course, if the kids were singing off key, that may be another story. Crap, the stray cats in heat and crows make more noise in my hood than the kids playing soccer in the street.

[American Oyaji]

Basically, Japan does not want to increase its population.

[Iraira]

Basically, Japan does not want to increase its population.

And the a-holes complaining about the noise now, will be complaining about the bankrupt social security system not feeding them their due thanks to a lack of people paying into the system thanks to a lack of people.
"Take care of me when I'm old, just shut the fuck up now."

[tidbits]

[kamome]