How many people across the country are being disturbed by noise?

Noise pollution is closely related to our lives. Some people can tolerate it, but others simply cannot stand it. So how many people are suffering from noise pollution? Let's look at a few cases.

Case 1:

Please allow me to say something. Last year, the upstairs neighbors were renovating. I tolerated the noise for three months, since renovations are always noisy. But then the nightmare started in the second half of the year.

Around October, the upstairs neighbors moved in. At first, it was fine. They walked around loudly every day, which was understandable, since they were two elderly people with heavy footsteps. They went to bed around 11 p.m., and I could tolerate it if I stayed up a little longer.

December is here and the weather is getting cold. Something strange is happening. Every night when I come home, I hear the clattering sound of slippers. I don't understand why they're hard-soled when winter slippers are supposed to be soft and cotton. I used to be able to read a book for a while after taking a shower at home, but now I can't concentrate at all. I'm quite annoyed, but I think, oh well, there's no need to say anything.

During the Chinese New Year, oh my god, the young couple upstairs came back, along with a boy and a girl and two children. My nightmare escalated.

The four adults often argue over trivial matters, throw things, and the child cries loudly. It breaks my heart to hear this. It happens about once a week. I think to myself, what kind of family is this?

When they're not arguing, the little girl plays the piano intermittently, sometimes even starting at 11 p.m. The problem is, she plays terribly, her playing is choppy and awful, it's unbearable. If she doesn't play well, her mother scolds her, and the sound of the little girl crying is awful.

Speaking of little boys, around seven or eight years old, they run around like dogs, day and night, jumping and bouncing about. I can tolerate it during the day, but they're still jumping around at 10:30 pm, it's unbearable.

Every night when the people upstairs come home, they slam their doors shut. Around 10 p.m., when they're probably going to sleep, they slam their bedroom doors shut too. Oh well, I guess I'll just go to sleep.

Around midnight, people upstairs would drag tables and chairs, making a creaking sound. Anyone who has experienced it knows how loud it is; many times I've been woken up just as I was about to fall asleep.

What's even stranger is that the old folks upstairs get up and move around between 2 and 4 a.m. They make a clattering sound with their slippers and a thumping sound with their footsteps. They wander around for an hour or two and then go back to sleep. I'm usually woken up when I'm not in a deep sleep. Every time I'm woken up, I want to go up and kill them right away, but reason tells me I can't!

I can't sleep well at night, can I sleep a little longer in the morning? No way! The old guy upstairs gets up at 5:30 and starts dragging tables and chairs, making a lot of noise. When he gets into the mood, he'll even fix the furniture, banging and knocking non-stop.

Do you think I'll just put up with this? Wrong. I went upstairs three times. The first time was at 5:30 in the morning. I'm a civilized person, okay? I politely asked if you could walk a little quieter because you were making too much noise dragging tables and chairs at midnight. The answer was that I wasn't dragging tables or chairs and that I wasn't making much noise.

The second time, at 3:30 in the morning, the old man got up and wandered around, waking me up. I went upstairs and knocked on the door to ask if the upstairs neighbors could be quieter. The old man replied that the noise level was already this high and told me to call the police.

The third time, at 10:30 pm, the child was jumping upstairs. When I knocked on the door, his daughter answered. This time it was a little more normal. She first said that she wasn't jumping, but I said I heard her very clearly and that it was her house. Then she changed her tune and said she was sorry and would be more careful next time.

The fourth time, I ran into his daughter and granddaughter downstairs. I asked if his daughter was learning piano, and if she had improved, saying she was much better than six months ago. When we talked about dragging tables and chairs around at night, I felt quite distressed, but considering they were elderly, I didn't dare say anything (the old folks are unreasonable, it's pointless to talk to them). His daughter said she didn't realize the house was so poorly soundproofed, and that she would tell her parents to be more careful. However, the effect was zero.

Case 2:

Last December, my boyfriend went on a business trip. Around December 16th, a guy in his early twenties was playing on a skateboard at home. This jerk usually started playing around 10 PM and stayed until 11:30 PM. For the first two days, I thought he'd get tired of it after a couple of days, but he kept playing for a whole week. Whenever I heard the sound of his skateboard, I became incredibly anxious, my heart would race, and I'd be acting strangely for as long as he played. Finally, on December 24th, I couldn't take it anymore and went to the hospital for a checkup, but they didn't have the equipment that day, so I had to go back the next day. The night he came home, he started playing again. Around 10 PM, I contacted the property management and asked them to subtly remind him in the group chat. He calmed down for a while after the reminder, but around 11:30 PM, he started retaliating by throwing things upstairs. I couldn't take it anymore, so I immediately packed my things and went to a hotel. I stayed in a hotel for two days.

The next day, I went to the hospital and had a heart rate monitor installed. The results showed frequent premature atrial contractions (PACs), with over 8,700 abnormal heartbeats in 24 hours. During that time, I couldn't stand any noise; just hearing it made me extremely anxious, and sometimes I would uncontrollably tremble. Eventually, I had no choice but to move out and rent a place. It's really pathetic; I couldn't even live in the house I bought, and I was forced to rent.

Case 3:

My upstairs neighbors have been disturbing me every single day since the Lunar New Year this year. They are an elderly couple. Because of the pandemic, everyone is unable to work normally. I am a third-year university student and I am also unable to go to school. I can only study at home and prepare for the postgraduate entrance examination. However, even listening to music with headphones on cannot reduce the noise they are making.

Every day at 3 AM, they have to get up and walk around my apartment building doing something. They often suddenly throw something that looks like a glass marble on the ground, making a very clear and loud sound. Or they push a wheeled cart or something similar, running it over things. The first time we knocked on their door, their grandson, a college student, told my dad to get out and wouldn't open the door. Another time, around 1:30 AM, something like a lead ball suddenly hit our ceiling. My mother, who has a serious heart condition, had a seizure from the shock. We called the police, but when they arrived, they just asked a few questions and didn't actually solve the problem.

Case source: Zhihu

So how many people are actually suffering from noise pollution? Without data, it's hard to believe. Let's look at some real data:

According to the "2017 China Environmental Noise Pollution Prevention and Control Report" released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, in 2016, relevant departments received a total of 1.19 million environmental complaints, of which 522,000 were noise complaints, accounting for 43.9% of the total number of environmental complaints. The sound environment quality monitoring carried out in cities showed that the compliance rate at night in 31 municipalities and provincial capitals was only 59.7%.

In 2018, cities at the prefecture level and above across the country conducted three monitoring programs: functional area acoustic environment quality, regional acoustic environment quality (daytime and nighttime), and road traffic acoustic environment quality (daytime and nighttime), monitoring a total of 79,736 locations. The compliance rate for daytime monitoring of urban functional area acoustic environment was 92.6%, and the compliance rate for nighttime monitoring was 73.5%. The average equivalent sound level of regional acoustic environment quality during the day was 54.4 dB(A), and at night it was 46.0 dB(A). The average equivalent sound level of road traffic noise during the day was 67.0 dB(A), and at night it was 58.1 dB(A). According to statistics from the national "12369 Environmental Protection Complaint Network Management Platform," noise-related complaints accounted for 35.3% of all complaints in 2018, second only to air pollution. Among noise-related complaints nationwide, construction noise disturbance ranked first with a proportion of 43.0%.

Neighborly disturbances tend to increase with urbanization rates. It's hoped that everyone can be more noise-conscious, proactively avoiding noise during home renovations and indoor activities.