Woman fined over repeated ceiling banging in apartment noise dispute
Key Takeaways
- •The Chuncheon District Court fined the 55-year-old defendant 2 million won for violating South Korea's anti-stalking law.
- •She was also ordered to complete 40 hours of treatment for stalking offenders.
- •Investigators said she stalked her upstairs neighbor on nine occasions between March 17 and May 11 last year.
- •Her actions included repeatedly hitting the ceiling with a backscratcher and contacting the neighbor through the apartment intercom.
- •The court rejected her claim that she was only trying to resolve a noise complaint and found her conduct objectively capable of causing fear.
A woman in her 50s has been fined after repeatedly banging on her ceiling with a backscratcher and contacting her upstairs neighbor over noise, with a court ruling that her conduct amounted to stalking.
The Chuncheon District Court fined the 55-year-old woman, identified only as A, 2 million won ($1,400) for violating the Act on Punishment of Crimes of Stalking, according to legal sources Saturday.
The court also ordered her to complete 40 hours of a treatment program for stalking offenders.
A was accused of stalking her upstairs neighbor on nine occasions between March 17 and May 11 last year at an apartment complex in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province. Her actions included repeatedly striking the ceiling with a backscratcher and calling the upstairs apartment through the building's intercom system.
According to the investigation, A had been asking the neighbor, a woman in her 40s identified as B, to keep the noise down since January last year. When the problem remained unresolved, A repeatedly contacted B directly through the intercom to complain.
B asked A not to contact her directly over the noise and instead raise any complaints through the apartment management office.
The case highlights how repeated neighbor disputes can move beyond a noise complaint when contact continues after a request to stop, especially in apartment buildings where residents are expected to use management channels to resolve disagreements. In this case, the court focused on the frequency and manner of A's conduct, rather than the underlying complaint itself.
During the trial, A denied that her actions constituted stalking, arguing that they were within a socially acceptable range of conduct aimed at finding a solution to the noise problem and that she had no intention of stalking B.
The court rejected her argument.
“Considering the circumstances that led the defendant to complain, as well as the methods and frequency of her actions, they were objectively sufficient to cause anxiety or fear in the other person,” the judge said.
The court said A's conduct could not be regarded as having a legitimate reason or falling within the bounds of socially acceptable behavior.
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, was translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.
