This article discusses what counts as excessive noise in a strata scheme, explaining how dog barking is assessed under body corporate, council, and state rules.
Question: What is the definition of excessive noise? How can my dog, who might have barked for less than 1 minute, be classed as excessive noise?
What is the definition of excessive noise?
We’ve received a breach for our dog barking. I’m trying to understand how my dog, who might have barked for less than 1 minute, could have breached this bylaw.
Answer: The problem with this type of noise is in determining what constitutes “nuisance,” “interference,” or “unreasonable.”
Dog noise in high rise buildings has three levels of control;
Queensland Government –
Dog Barking
The law says that if a domestic animal (usually a dog) barks excessively, an abatement notice (i.e. a notice requesting that they cease the noise) can be given to the dog’s owner if the problem can’t be resolved directly.
Local Government (Brisbane City Council, for example)
Animal Noise
It is perfectly normal and reasonable for animals to make noise from time to time, just as children make noise when they play outside. In Brisbane, animal noise such as a barking dog, a squawking parrot, or the trilling call of a guinea hen is considered a nuisance when it unreasonably disrupts or inhibits activities at adjoining premises or nearby residential land.
Under Council’s Animals Local Law 2017 (the local law), a person must not keep an animal if it causes a noise nuisance. In determining whether a nuisance has occurred, an authorised person can consider a number of factors. These include:
- whether complaints have been received from multiple persons, occupying separate dwellings in the same or adjoining streets as the noise
- the frequency and intensity of the noise
- the time and duration of the noise, specifically
- where the noise is made for more than a total of six minutes in any hour from 7am to 10pm on any day
Body Corporate By-Laws (these often over-ride both State and Local Authority controls)
By-Laws do not normally address dog noise specifically; however, they often require that an “occupier of a lot must not create noise likely to interfere with the peaceful enjoyment of a person lawfully on another lot or the common property”.
The problem with this type of noise is in determining what constitutes “nuisance,” “interference,” or “unreasonable.” The result is the same as the human response to noise; there is no one black or white answer. These are all subjective terms that require an “expert” or “authorised” person to make a judgement. These are not easy matters to argue in court.
This post appears in the May 2021 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Ross Palmer Palmer Acoustics E: ross@palmeracoustics.com P: 07 3193 0500