Boronia woman wages war with neighbours and Knox Council over garage power tools

A FURIOUS Boronia grandmother wants the plug pulled on her neighbours, arguing constant use of power tools has forced her to seek medical help for stress.

77-year-old Lyn Cook is not happy with the noise from neighbours. Picture: James Ross.

A FURIOUS Boronia grandmother wants Knox Council to pull the plug on her neighbours, arguing their constant use of power tools have forced her to get medical help for stress.

Lyn Cook, 77, says she’s spent 18 months fighting with her next-door neighbours and Knox Council over “unbearably loud” power tools used in the garage.

While her neighbour’s house is vacant, the garage is used by the owner’s son to build sound equipment for his band.

Ms Cook said the noise sometimes lasted up to eight hours a day and was “unbearably loud.”

But council investigators disagree, saying a “sound level meter” installed by them found the power tool noise was infrequent and brief.

However Ms Cook said the racket was so bad she had sought medical help for stress.

“I’m completely miserable. I can’t sit in my kitchen, I can’t use my meditation and relaxation garden,” she said.

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“It’s getting worse and worse. I’m over it. I just want to live like a normal person,” Ms Cook said.

She said while the house was empty, the adjoining garage and shed were used by the owner’s son to construct speakers for his band.

She has lodged multiple complaints with Knox Council, and says a residential property’s garage shouldn’t be used for that purpose.

But the council’s city safety and health manager, Steve Dickson, said via email the activities did not constitute “industrial use”, and the noise was “no different from mechanical works conducted on a car within a residential property”.

The council’s acting city development director Paul Dickie said in a statement the council had determined the activity “is not of a commercial or industrial nature under both planning and building regulation”.

“The current noise logs provided by Ms Cook and noise logs collection by the installation of a sound level meter by the council have also indicated that the noise of concern to Ms Cook is both very infrequent and not of long durations,” he said.

She said the past 18 months had taken a big toll and she feared her health would worsen if the noise continued.

The neighbour, who declined to be named, said she felt “harassed and harangued” by Ms Cook’s constant complaints.

She said because Knox Council had found no issue with the level of noise, the dispute was a “storm in a teacup”.

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