The best stories from the ‘The Noise Pages’: Where a Bristol resident complains about uni house parties

Bristol resident Andrew Waller, seemingly a passionate advocate of a good night’s sleep, has taken it upon himself to document the locations of Bristol’s loudest parties.

Once a house has been found, he will sometimes go himself to see what all the fuss is about, before writing reports of the shenanigans on his online forum – which claims that “loud parties are akin to an act of violence.”

These photos do not relate to the parties mentioned in the article

Waverley Road

One blog written by Waller details a party on Waverley Road “where a student could be seen operating a sound deck.”

Waller writes: “I arrived at the property at about 00:20am after an alert from a website subscriber. The event had already been in progress for some time. I tried to take pictures of the sound operation in the front basement, but the windows were steamed up so I didn't get much.”

These photos do not relates to the parties mentioned in the article

“A student who had obviously spotted me came to talk to me, and was very polite and solicitous. Were they making too much noise? I confess I initially thought this was a joke, until I saw that he was clearly sincere. I gave him the usual speech and said the music needed to be turned down or, better, off. He went away to try to quieten things down.”

After the failed attempts to quieten the party down, Waller distributed a flier in Waverley Road and surrounding streets to see if any other residents were disgruntled after the noisy night.

Ravenswood Road

Waller wrote: “I went to the house shortly before 1am and asked the students to turn the music off, which they did, and control the people outside. As we were talking, quite a few people left. Organiser said they had notified neighbours beforehand, given them contact details, kept windows shut etc.”

“They had also had contact beforehand from both the university and the police, and (I was told) the respective discussions had concluded with remarks to the effect of "Have a great party". (?!!) I replied that I had appreciated they had made efforts to be responsible, but that, at 1am*, they should be reducing the impact on neighbours. I thanked them for taking steps to do so.”
 

These photos do not relate to the parties mentioned in the article

“I was in the area to observe the very noisy party at [X] Waverley Road (see separate report), so I didn't stay at Ravenswood to monitor the situation. On Saturday afternoon I distributed leaflets to properties in Ravenswood Road and Cotham Vale (at the rear).”
 

One Ravenswood resident replied: “The students … sent us a very nice note and gave us a number to call if there were any problems. They said it was a 21st birthday party and a private party.”

These photos do not relate to the parties mentioned in the article

“We took them over a bottle of wine before the party and had a chat with them. We asked them to be careful about keeping the windows and doors shut and keeping people inside."

"They said they had thought about this already and would do so. Our bedroom is at the front of our house and we were not disturbed at all. In fact when we went to bed at 10.30 we couldn’t even hear any music. (This resident also references the party on Waverley, more than 100m away.)”

Statistics

A proud statistician, Mr Waller has also provided a graph recording the growth of the Bristol party scene. In the academic year 2017/18, the number of recorded parties had gone up by 24% since the year previous.

The graph found on Noise Pages

Whilst this growth is impressive, it might be unsustainable and therefore as we head into the new year of the sesh, we may expect a slight downturn.

Before you turn your music louder to drown out the reports of middle-aged grumbling, it’s time for students and local residents to start finding a happy medium. A compromise where both parties (excuse the pun) can enjoy a night of fun as well as a good night’s sleep.