Since 2006 I've been col­lect­ing let­ters and ar­ti­cles com­plain­ing about noise and its ef­fects. I have not writ­ten be­fore since the top­ic has con­tin­u­ous­ly been kept alive by oth­ers. But now the lev­el of noise has reached un­prece­dent­ed and un­bear­able lev­els with the tooth­less, use­less au­thor­i­ties (po­lice, EMA, courts, politi­cians) mak­ing on­ly to­ken noise in re­sponse so I feel com­pelled to write.

Here are sam­ples from my col­lec­tion. Each in­cludes the head­line and a snip­pet from the ar­ti­cle/let­ter: Sleep­less in South Oropouche: Which gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial can we call at 3 am when a car blar­ing In­di­an mu­sic or dance­hall mu­sic dri­ves down the main road and wakes you up?

Sleep­less in St James: There is no re­spect for peo­ple in this coun­try any­more...I want to know who in au­thor­i­ty be­lieves in giv­ing an­oth­er bar li­cense in St James? Please es­tab­lish an­ti-noise hot­line: Ad­ver­tise and im­ple­ment a noise-dis­tress hot­line which will cause an an­ti-noise crew to be im­me­di­ate­ly mo­bilised, thus bring­ing swift re­lief to suf­fer­ers.

Noise pol­lu­tion in Pasea: For years now we have been sub­ject­ed to ridicu­lous lev­els of noise in the form of loud mu­sic played at any time of the day and night by a DJ who lives in the vil­lage. Vic­to­ry jam dis­rupts class: Our class­es were com­plete­ly shut down by the noisy play­ing of spon­sored, am­pli­fied, DJ mu­sic on a "big" truck which parked close to a near­by bar...The po­lice said the spon­sor had paid $10,000 to stage the "ses­sion."

Loud mu­sic in max­is, cars shak­ing up neigh­bour­hood: Could the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­clude, in his new crime plan, erad­i­ca­tion of the loud mu­sic which is be­ing played in maxi-taxis and pri­vate cars which is shak­ing our neigh­bour­hood?

Help us to get rid of this men­ace:...You can't watch your tele­vi­sion, read a book, study or even eat. You can­not speak to your spouse in the same room of your own house with­out yelling...Then, there are the bars, with huge speak­ers fac­ing poor, de­mor­alised peo­ple, peo­ple with­out a choice but to take it.

Hodge: noise pol­lu­tion breeds en­vi­ron­ment of law­less­ness: Se­ri­ous ac­tion needs to be tak­en to ad­dress noise pol­lu­tion in this coun­try as it con­tributed to traf­fic ac­ci­dents, hear­ing im­pair­ment, sleep­less­ness there­fore af­fect­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at the work­place, ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, con­flict be­tween neigh­bours, even mur­der.

Keep a lid on the loud noise: Noise pol­lu­tion can cause ag­gres­sion, hy­per­ten­sion, stress, hear­ing loss, car­dio­vas­cu­lar prob­lems, men­tal health is­sues, im­paired task per­for­mance, learn­ing prob­lems, and neg­a­tive so­cial be­hav­iour...Per­sis­tent, un­reg­u­lat­ed noise is a ma­jor health haz­ard, not just a mi­nor nui­sance.

Politi­cians talk about T&T be­com­ing a de­vel­oped coun­try. But what kind of un­civilised, sick so­ci­ety are we liv­ing in that cit­i­zens and an­i­mals can be sub­ject­ed to such harsh, cru­el and un­usu­al pun­ish­ment with­out any hope of re­dress from the au­thor­i­ties? We would have reached de­vel­oped coun­try sta­tus when we call the po­lice for noise and they re­spond, and not just to tell us to call the EMA who will tell us to call the po­lice!

While I do not wish to de­ny some the du­bi­ous plea­sure of dam­ag­ing their eardrums, or­di­nary folks must be able to en­joy peace and qui­et in their homes. I ad­vo­cate an in­stant tick­et sys­tem for noise-mak­ers, with fines rang­ing from $10,000 to $1,000,000 (bar own­er, neigh­bour to mega event), af­ter a sin­gle warn­ing. This should de­ter those who turn down the noise when the au­thor­i­ties put in a rare ap­pear­ance, and turn it up af­ter they leave.

I call on the au­thor­i­ties to take de­ci­sive ac­tion now. We can­not con­tin­ue to al­low a small per­cent­age of our cit­i­zens to hold the ma­jor­i­ty to ran­som.