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Dirty laundry and noise: Switzerland’s nuisance neighbour problem

Laundry hanging in Switzerland
Airing dirty laundry: Swiss neighbours can be rowdier than expected. Keystone

According to a survey, almost one in three people in Switzerland has been in a dispute with neighbours, mostly over noise pollution, laundry problems, non-compliance with parking regulations and property disputes.

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Some 43% of those surveyed tried to resolve the conflict by speaking with their neighbours, 24% were quietly annoyed and 22% contacted the property management company. Only 7% called the police, according to the survey published on Tuesday by the Zurich-based Marketagent Institute.

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More than a third of those surveyed found arguments with neighbours stressful. The majority of respondents (80%) blamed their neighbours for the dispute.

In addition to disturbances of the peace, non-compliance with the laundry schedule or a dirty laundry room were the most often cited offences. However, parking behaviour and disputes regarding property boundaries, for example over fencing or planting, also often led to conflicts.

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Many disputes also started because communal areas such as the stairwell were used to store personal belongings.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

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