Neighbour noise in multi-storey housing with poor sound insulation - Facts and occupants’ viewpoints

Neighbour noise has a significant role in acoustic privacy, protection and indoor environmental quality in residential buildings. Estimation of annoyance due to neighbour noise and concluding dose-response relationships are challenging due to variety in noise characteristics, occupant perceptions and other individual factors such as attitudes against the noise sources. This study uses qualitative analysis to examine complaints, attitudes and viewpoints on neighbour noise. In February 2021, an article was published in a national newspaper (Jyllands-Posten) of Denmark on the topics of implementation of acoustic labelling and sound insulation improvement. The article was also shared as social media posts in newspaper’s official account and it received high public interest and several comments. People’s reactions were gathered from the Facebook pages and analysed qualitatively. More than 500 comments were received in total, and these were grouped according to agreement/disagreement with classification, noise complaints (noise sources/activities, building definition, exposure timeframe, measures taken) accountable parties, emotions, beliefs and suggested measures and/or actions.