Quiet streets, loud buildings: Noise complaints to NYC's 311 rise during pandemic

By Brick Underground | April 7, 2020 - 3:30PM

There are early signs that New York’s stay-at-home order to fight the spread of coronavirus may be paying off. But it’s not easy to stay inside all of the time in our dense city, especially when your neighbors—above, below, and on either side of you—are staying home too. As a result, noise complaints are on the rise.

RentHop’s annual survey of NYC 311 noise complaints survey found a spike in complaints after the state’s order went into effect last month.

This year, RentHop focused on the period of March 20-28 to see what impact the pandemic is having on noise complaints. It found that NYC 311 received 11,687 noise complaints from March 20th to 28th this year, an increase of 23.2 percent over the same period last year.

Complaints were up in all five boroughs, and show a significant daytime increase, indicating that New Yorkers are home during work hours. (Need advice for how to deal with loud neighbors? Read Brick Underground's "How to tackle asking a noisy neighbor—or landlord—to keep it down.")

Kingsbridge Heights in the Bronx led the list of top 10 neighborhoods with the most complaints, with a 73 percent increase, followed by mostly Manhattan neighborhoods above 96th Street, with the exception of the Lower East Side.

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