Noisy neighbour complaints in Palma have increased

The reasons for these complaints vary: music being played at full volume; noisy children; people shouting at each other, and so on. While the confinement has been marked by a great deal of tolerance, people's patience has been tested.

In the week before the state of alarm was declared, the police responded to 132 calls. These were mainly to do with neighbours' noise, and the figure was normal for a week in March. During the first week of the confinement, however, there were 286 complaints, the highest number so far. Over subsequent weeks, the numbers of complaints have been 191, 226, 261 and - for the week up to last Sunday - 188.

If the police have been attending to more incidents involving neighbours, the need for their services on the streets has declined significantly. There isn't anything like the level of disorder, e.g. fights, that the police would typically be required to deal with.