A 41-year-old woman and her parents were forced to sleep in the living room of their Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat at Block 486 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 5 after they kept hearing knocking sounds supposedly coming from the unit upstairs.

However, when the woman, surnamed Su (transliteration), confronted two neighbours directly above her flat on the suspicion that they were the ones generating the noise, both of them denied any responsibility, reported Shin Min Daily News.

"We alerted the police about the noise and wanted to solve it by collecting evidence and going to court. However, we couldn't proceed further because we could not pinpoint who has been making the noise," Su lamented.

First heard knocking sounds in 2020

According to Su, who has lived with her parents at the HDB block for 20 years, their ordeal started four years ago when tenants living upstairs began moving in, reported Shin Min.

"I did not know how many times the tenants changed, but almost every one of them would generate noise, making it impossible for us to rest," Su said.

Su shared that the noise resembled the sound of knocking on floor tiles, and her family would hear it almost every day from 9am to 11am.

The sounds would also be heard suddenly at night between 10pm and 1am, she added.

Turned radio on all day

In 2023, Su decided to place a radio in her room, which has been left on for 24 hours a day to cancel out part of the noise, reported Shin Min.

"My family would rather listen to the radio all day long than be startled by the noise," shared Su.

As Su and her family could hear the noise in their rooms at night, they were forced to sleep on the sofa bed and mattress in the living room.

Su got graphic "warning letter" after complaining about noise

Over the years, Su raised the matter with several neighbours upstairs, including a tenant who is French, reported Shin Min.

According to her, she began to hear knocking sounds after the tenant moved in.

However, soon after the tenant moved out in 2020, Su said she received two letters warning her that if she ever "disturbed" her neighbours or the letter sender's friend again, the letter sender would "burn down" her house.

In one letter Su kept, photos of burning flats and corpses were attached.

Su said she suspected that the previous tenant sent her those letters to get back at her for complaining about the noise, according to Shin Min.

Current neighbour upstairs also heard knocking sounds

When a Shin Min reporter visited Su's neighbour upstairs, Rajesh (tansliteration), who moved in six months ago, he also denied that he was behind the knocking sounds.

He said he was aware of Su's numerous complaints, adding that she had also complained to him about the noise he made, which sounded like he was dragging his chair.

"We did not make those knocking sounds. In fact, I heard those sounds in my flat from time to time as well, but I do not know where they came from," said Rajesh.

New government unit to address noise disputes

According to the Ministry of National Development (MND), HDB received 2,150 noise complaints monthly in 2023, reported The Straits Times.

While this is fewer than the number of noise complaints HDB received monthly in 2021 and 2022, which was 3,200 and 2,300, respectively, it was still much higher than the monthly average of 400 the board received in 2019.

On Aug. 12, 2024, the Ministry of Culture, Community, and Youth (MCCY), Ministry of Law, and MND announced that the government is looking to pilot a new Community Relations Unit (CRU) to address a small minority of severe neighbour noise disputes after the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill is passed.

The CRU will be staffed by Community Relations Officers (CROs), who, amongst others, will be able to issue advisories, warnings, or abatement orders that require the individual to take reasonable steps to stop the noise nuisance.

Additionally, the CRU will be empowered to deploy noise sensors to collect objective evidence on the direction, timing, and intensity of the noise.

According to the ministries, the pilot will run for a year in the HDB estates of one to two towns, starting with Tampines.

More information on the pilot can be found here.

Other noise complaints

Top images via Shin Min Daily News