Equipment used to play overly loud music day and night has been seized following complaints, repeated warnings and formal notices to the owners.

Complaints about two separate households in two blocks of apartments in the Westfield Ward included the volume and frequency of music. People found their sleep was being affected by the noise, and working from home was made more difficult.

Following advice, warnings and formal notices being issued to the people playing the music, City of York Council applied for warrants from York Magistrates Court. Visiting the flats last week, officers from City of York Council and North Yorkshire Police seized stereos, speakers, TVs and other items ahead of ASB Awareness Week (19-23July).

Working with the victims, council officers gathered evidence of the nuisance they suffered. Officers were told that the noise was so loud they were disturbed night and day unable to work from home during the pandemic, or watch TV in the evening or even sleep in their beds at night.

Noise recording equipment installed over five days provided evidence of nine incidents of serious noise nuisance going on for hours at a time, with the perpetrator listening to TV music channels at full blast.