Mediation with teeth: When neighbours refuse to talk it out, it’s time to force the dialogue - Opinion

I used to live in a three-room resale flat in Ang Mo Kio. The block was always alive with activity – the Residents’ Committee corner was at the foot of the block and a bird-singing kiosk nearby added a unique charm. My Malay neighbour upstairs sold homemade nasi lemak from her flat. I enjoyed living there.

But every now and then, I would be kept awake by an incessant knock, knock, knock late into the night, as though someone was dropping balls or rolling marbles. I rang the Housing Board, the town council and even the police. I was asked to trace the source of the noise, so they could investigate.

The thing is, sound waves travel through the air, through wood and concrete. They vibrate through floors and walls, columns and pillars. It is very, very hard to figure out where a sound originates from. I never found the source. In any case, I moved.

As someone who finds noise hard to tolerate, I have sympathy for people who have to live with persistently noisy neighbours. 

A Yew Tee resident shared with The Straits Times that his upstairs neighbour woke him up early every morning, dragging chairs across the floor and dropping objects. Throughout the day, the noise continued with the neighbour’s exercise routines – jumping and running. Attempts to resolve the issue were futile, as the neighbour denied responsibility, insisting the sounds came from another unit. “It’s like I’m living in a drum, and they are beating the drum,” said the resident.

In a more extreme case, a Punggol resident dubbed the “neighbour from hell” caused six families to move out. According to a 2019 Straits Times report, neighbours accused her of splashing oil on their doors, blasting loud music, and stomping on the floor.

The aggrieved neighbours filed multiple complaints but were told the actions were not arrestable offences, leaving them with the option of private prosecution. Ultimately, six families sold their flats and moved out. The accused woman denied the claims, insisting her neighbours caused the noise, forcing her to use a radio to drown it out.

New law to tackle extreme noise nuisance

Despairing residents may find some cheer in a new Bill to be introduced later this year to deal with extreme cases of noise disputes between neighbours. The Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill will introduce a slew of changes to the current community dispute management framework.

One key change is the setting up of a new Community Relations Unit (CRU) to deal with severe cases of neighbour disputes.

The unit will be set up in Tampines as a pilot programme, staffed by officers with law enforcement and mediation training. The unit will have the authority to investigate cases, issue warnings or abatement orders, and direct residents to attend mediation, with non-compliance leading to fines or jail time.

Such a CRU mechanism will strengthen the existing framework to resolve community disputes. 

Currently, neighbours can go to the Community Mediation Centre (CMC) to settle their disagreement. But less than 30 per cent of cases registered at the CMC proceed to mediation, as one party may refuse to take part. Mediation, after all, is a voluntary process. The new rules would allow the CMC or the CRU to make mediation mandatory.

Right now, cases that can’t be resolved through mediation may be escalated to the Community Disputes Resolution Tribunal, which is a court with enforcement powers. Many people don’t want to escalate to this, as there are costs involved and it can cause a complete breakdown in ties. 

The new CRU will be able to step in for severe noise-related cases, before they go to a tribunal. 

The stronger powers given to the mediation process are a positive step. The measures strike a balance between encouraging people to take responsibility for themselves through voluntary mediation, and exerting some level of coercion to make sure all parties involved do the right thing.

Apart from having powers to direct disputants to attend mediation, the new laws will also allow neighbours who have reached a mediation settlement to register the agreement with the tribunal. Once registered, the settlement is given the legal weight of a tribunal order which must be complied with. This gives teeth to the mediation process. 

The Bill will also empower the tribunal to issue mandatory treatment orders, recognising that some extreme behaviours that cause nuisance to others may be the result of a mental health condition. This balances justice with compassion. The new rules also allow the CRU to order noise sensors to be placed in homes to get objective evidence of noise levels, with safeguards to protect privacy.

The pilot project in Tampines will have its work cut out for it. It will take at least a couple of years before the experiment yields enough results to see if a wider rollout of this CRU approach is possible.

Noise nuisance on the rise

The proposal to add enforcement power to the dispute resolution process is timely.

In 2023, the Housing Board (HDB) received a monthly average of 2,150 complaints on noise activities. In 2022, it was 2,300 per month, more than five times the monthly average of 400 in 2019.

Apart from noise from neighbours, noise from common areas like playgrounds or games courts in HDB estates, especially during late hours, is a frequent complaint. When people live so close to one another, even normal daily activities, like karaoke singing, children running across the floor, and the dropping of weights and other objects on the floor, can become a noise nuisance.

I lived in a Bishan resale flat for a few years. It was only on the week I was moving out that I finally met the neighbour who lived one floor below mine. She stopped by when my front door was open and wished me well.

Then she asked, how old are your children? When I told her I was single and had no children, she looked puzzled. “But I hear running steps and chairs being dragged around all the time. I thought it was kids playing. So noisy,” she said. I realised that my habit of scraping my chair and occasional home aerobics had been the source of her disturbance. I felt horrified that I had been the noisy neighbour to this long-suffering woman and her family. 

This is why the approach to managing noise nuisance needs to be multi-faceted.

Neighbours are encouraged to talk to each other respectfully to resolve disputes. When stuck, community leaders can step in. When needed, the neighbours in dispute can attend mediation, which is a voluntary, consensual process. When one party refuses to attend, the new laws empower government agencies to issue a directive to get them to attend. As a last resort, they can go to the tribunal to get a court order. 

The new CRU can get involved in severe cases, which the Government says is what Singaporeans want.

The Ministry of Law, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Ministry of National Development issued a joint press release on Aug 12 on the proposed changes to the community dispute management framework.

Summing up the results of the months-long public consultation with over 200 stakeholders on handling noise nuisance, it said: “For a minority of cases which were particularly severe (for example, intentionally using noise as a way to disturb or cause distress to their neighbours and where attempts to facilitate dialogue and reach resolution have proven unsuccessful), most respondents expect the Government to exercise greater authority to intervene and provide relief to the neighbours.

“There was strong support for powers to allow the Government to intervene in severe cases of neighbour disputes involving noise.” 

Having stronger regulatory powers to intervene in noise nuisance issues is by no means unique to Singapore. Many countries, indeed many local communities, have their way of dealing with noisy neighbours.

Some countries, like New Zealand, have quiet hours when noise levels must be kept below a certain level and loud music or use of loud machinery isn’t allowed. Calling the police or local council to report noisy neighbours is common in many cities in Japan, Australia and Switzerland. Some communities use crowd-sourcing – in Japan, an interactive dorozoku map tells you which areas have more dorozoku, or noisy people, based on user-submitted complaints.

A friend who lived in Vienna told me her apartment building didn’t permit toilet flushing at night. I thought this was extreme, until I read about a 2022 case in Italy where late night toilet flushing was considered a violation of human rights. 

A couple sued their neighbour, complaining that frequent and loud toilet flushing kept them awake. The case went from the local court to the appeals court in Genoa, to the Supreme Court in Rome. Investigations showed the neighbours had built a bathroom with a water cistern embedded in the boundary wall, which was very close to the couple’s bed. The Supreme Court ruled in the couple’s favour, saying the sound of frequent night flushing reduced the couple’s quality of life and violated their right to respect for their private life under the European Convention on Human Rights. The court fined the neighbours and ordered the toilet moved.

Going to court isn’t always the best way to resolve a conflict, especially when it’s a case of neighbours who have to continue living next to each other. 

In Singapore, the current array of dispute resolution mechanisms is based on voluntary, consensual mediation, or on adversarial, confrontational court processes where one party sues the other in court.

There is a need for something in between, that promotes harmony by encouraging mediation, but also has the force of law that compels compliance and sees justice served. The changes under the amendment Bill aim to do that.

Call it mediation with more teeth.

Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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