PEOPLE complain about all kinds of noises that annoy them.
I was astonished while visiting a friend in London several years ago when I saw their dog obviously barking but I couldn’t hear its bark.

I quickly found out that they had to subject the dog to surgery to remove its bark because neighbours in the apartment complex they were living in had complained about the dog’s barking.

It would be quite an event if people here decide to lodge complaints with the police about their neighbours’ barking dogs, although that has been the subject of many disputes between neighbours!

A strange noise in my apartment gave me a scare as I was preparing for work yesterday morning.

I was just out of the bathroom and I heard some funny sounds in the kitchen, including glasses banging together. Peering around, I saw nothing and was wondering whether a snake or some dangerous creature had sneaked in while I was showering.

A closer check on the source of the funny sounds revealed a chicken scratching around in a corner between glasses and some other items on the kitchen cupboard. Unbelievably, it was a neighbour’s hen looking for a place to lay!

And you think you have got troubles!

Now churches, of all places, are being cited for making too much noise.

Churches have long been known as places of peace, quiet and serenity and were not usually associated with making so much noise that people living near them would have found cause to report to the police.

You remember that old saying: as quiet as a church mouse? Well, mice in churches are no longer quiet in Guyana and the Home Affairs Ministry has had to intervene because of persistent continuing complaints about some churches.

According to the ministry, it is continuing to receive numerous complaints about loud noises from senior citizens, the sick, working parents, students and several law-abiding citizens.

Churches reported in a published list as causing noise nuisance include the Gethsemane Assemblies of God Church in Beezie, Enmore, another in Enterprise and a Hindu temple at Mon Repos on the East Coast Demerara; and a church at Ocean Gardens Housing Scheme, Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara.

And residences are named as places also causing loud, repetitive and continuous noise. Some of those identified are in Kitty and Campbellville, Georgetown; Eccles, Grove, Meadow Bank and Bagotostown, East Bank Demerara; Hyde Park, Timehri; Success on the East Coast Demerara; Bartica; West Coast Demerara; East Bank Essequibo; Corentyne, Berbice and Linden.

Bars listed include one on Station Street, Kitty; one on Bent Street, Wortmanville; the Soca Paradise Bar at Eccles; and Lambada Liquor Parlour and Stadium View Bar at Providence on the East Bank Demerara; Barrow’s Bar in Linden; Jameel’s Bar at Vryheid’s Lust; Playboy Hideout Bar on Seventh Street, Success on the East Coast Demerara; and Caribbean Temptation Restaurant and Bar at Anna Catherina, West Coast Demerara.

A mechanical workshop at Armadale, West Coast Berbice and another at Blankenburg, West Coast Demerara; a furniture factory at Courbane Park, East Coast Demerara and a sawmill at Dryshore on the Essequibo Coast, are also on the list.

The ministry said it checked the places complained about and has verified the “validity and justification of the complaints”.

It said the relevant Divisional Commanders of the Police Force have been provided with the details pertaining to these complaints and they have been directed to take appropriate action to stop the violations of the law.

Under the law, no person shall operate any stereo set, juke box, radio, amplifier or similar instruments of music, or by any other means whatsoever “make or cause or suffer to be made any noise which shall be so loud and so continuous or repetitive as to cause a nuisance to occupants of any premises in the neighbourhood”.

I am sure a lot of people will be happy if this crackdown stops the noise nuisance.

I’ll not lodge a complaint with the police about the neighbour’s chicken making strange noises in my apartment, but what about those morons being allowed to drive around in vehicles blaring music that sometimes rocks window panes of houses?

They are free to try to break the sound barrier any time they please, blissful in their ignorance of what they are doing to other people’s peace of mind.

Maybe, the rest of us should start a campaign by making a note of the licence plate numbers of the offenders and get the police to paint ‘DUMB ASS’ in big, bright letters on their vehicles.
I wonder who will make any noise about that?