Don’t worry, I’m not going to start a nauseating post about noise and smell… although I do enjoy the smells that come from my neighbour’s house: usually the delicious smells of msamem or pastries, cooked early in the morning for breakfast, which she is kind enough to share with us.
No, I wanted to share a request that brought a visitor to this blog, and which made me smile with its wording: “in Morocco I’m doing some work on my house but my neighbour complains about the noise every day“. In fact, it reminded me of some very unpleasant days and weeks when one of my neighbours was making noise.
Do we have the right to make noise every day during building work?
Dear Sir, what advice can I give you if you’re having work done? Firstly, it’s obvious that you have the right to carry out work in your home during working hours, i.e. “during the day”, from Monday to Saturday. If you do the work yourself, you are obliged to do it outside working hours (since you are supposed to be at your office at that time). Since Moroccan labour law theoretically requires you to be present for 42 hours a week, you have little time left to do the work, on Saturday afternoons in fact. This is because the law prohibits you from making noise on Sundays.
You’ll note that I said weekly presence: in fact, depending on whether you’re employed in the private sector or a civil servant, working in a large company or on your own, the correlation between actual presence at your workstation and any production of wealth may be fairly weak, some would even say statistically non-existent.
However, this is not the subject of the post, but the problem you seem to have with your neighbours.
Does your neighbour complain about the noise every day? I conclude that you make noise every day, including Sundays. You are in the wrong.
Does your neighbour complain to you, or to the police?
This is an important point, because you need to know that there is a law on noise in Morocco, and that if it is applied, you can be convicted, and paradoxically, heavily convicted.
Law 11-03 on the protection and enhancement of the environment
Noise legislation is not new; it is included in a general law on environmental protection. It was promulgated more than ten years ago, by Dahir n° 1 – 03 – 59 of 10 rebii I 1424 (i.e. 12 May 2003). Do you realise that, as a builder? You should have known about this law more than ten years ago, and applied it.
It defines environmental pollution as any direct or indirect impact on or modification of the environment caused by a human act or activity or by a natural factor likely to harm public health, safety or well-being or to constitute a danger for the natural environment, property, values and lawful uses of the environment.
Yes, your neighbour’s well-being is protected from pollution.
You’re going to tell me, Sir, that you’re not a polluter when you use a drill in your own home, just a noisy one?
The law goes on to define pollutants as any solid, liquid or gaseous product, noise, radiation, heat or sound vibrations resulting from human activities and likely, directly or indirectly, to pollute the environment or encourage its degradation.
and the polluter as any natural or legal person causing or participating in a state of pollution.
Did you notice, Sir, that the noise your neighbour is complaining about is pollution?
Noise and smell pollution
The Moroccan legislator knows you so well, you who do the work, that he thought it would be useful to devote an entire post to you, post 47, which clearly states that noise and sound vibrations, whatever their origin and nature, likely to cause a nuisance to neighbours, harm human health or damage the environment in general, particularly during the exercise of production activities, services, the operation of machines and equipment and the use of alarms and loudspeakers, must be eliminated or reduced in accordance with the legislative and regulatory provisions adopted in application of this law.
These provisions lay down the permissible noise limits, the cases in which and the conditions under which any vibration or noise is prohibited, as well as the measurement systems and means of control.
If you want to know whether your work is likely to affect your neighbour’s health, look at where they are on a decibel noise scale.
You can see that the building site is well above the danger zone, and that your neighbour is therefore entitled to lodge a complaint!
I’ll leave you to delve into the details of the law here.
And what do you risk, sir? A fine of between 1,000 and 20,000 dirhams for any person responsible for pollution, and in the event of a repeat offence, a fine of between 1,000 and 40,000 dirhams, and imprisonment for between one and thirty days.
To avoid all this, obey the law, limit your work to working days (Monday to Saturday), stop making any annoying noise by 9pm at the latest… and make msamems, the fragrance of which will certainly not be an olfactory nuisance under the terms of post 48 of the law, to offer to your neighbour.
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