KYOTO — A 61-year-old unemployed resident of Kyoto’s Nishikyo Ward was arrested Thursday on suspicion of inflicting injury after allegedly subjecting his neighbors to more than seven years of round-the-clock radio and electric guitar noise, causing several nearby residents to develop insomnia, depression and tinnitus.
Years of noise, despite repeated warnings
According to Kyoto Prefectural Police, the suspect, identified as Kazunori Yokoi, is accused of playing radio broadcasts and amplified electric guitar music at his home between June 2019 and July 2026, causing four nearby residents to develop health problems, including sleep deprivation and psychological distress. Police said complaints and emergency calls from neighbors date back to around 2017, with the disturbance growing steadily worse in the years that followed. Nishikyo Police Station officers had issued Yokoi guidance and formal warnings over the noise on multiple occasions, but police said the situation never improved.
Investigators said Yokoi placed a radio near a window of his home, left the window open, and kept the radio playing continuously, 24 hours a day. He also allegedly played electric guitar through an amplifier for extended stretches, from early morning until late afternoon or evening, according to police.
Measured noise levels rivaled a subway train
When officers measured the noise coming from Yokoi’s residence, they recorded levels reaching as high as 80 to 90 decibels, a volume police and city officials compared to standing inside a moving subway train car. Sustained exposure to noise at that level is widely recognized by health experts as capable of contributing to sleep disruption and elevated stress over time, particularly when it occurs continuously over months or years rather than in isolated incidents.
Among those affected, three residents in their 60s to 80s were exposed to the noise between June 2019 and this past July and reportedly developed sleep deprivation and depression as a result, according to police. A fourth resident, a woman exposed to similar noise between April 2025 and July of this year, is suspected of having developed tinnitus, a persistent ringing or buzzing sensation in the ears, as a result of the prolonged exposure.
Recorded evidence and a large seizure
Frustrated neighbors reportedly began recording the disturbances themselves, with audio captured in May of last year documenting what appeared to be an electric guitar echoing from Yokoi’s residence, according to reporting citing Japanese broadcaster TBS News. That kind of resident-gathered evidence, alongside the noise measurements taken by police, formed part of the basis for Thursday’s arrest.
Officers from Nishikyo Police Station searched Yokoi’s home and other associated locations as part of the investigation, seizing dozens of items connected to the alleged noise disturbances. Reports on the seizure have varied slightly, with some accounts citing more than 40 electric guitars removed from the property, while others cite a broader total of 76 items, including guitars and amplifiers, taken during the search.
Suspect denies intent to cause harm
Following his arrest, Yokoi offered a partial denial of the allegations against him. According to Mainichi, when confronted by police, he said, “That is not true.” Separately, according to reporting from Tokyo Reporter citing TBS News, Yokoi did not dispute that the noise itself had occurred, but pushed back specifically against the characterization that he had intended to harm his neighbors, telling investigators that any suggestion of deliberate intent to inflict injury was “wrong.”
A case built on Japan’s inflicting-injury statute
Japanese police pursued the case under a legal provision covering the infliction of injury, an approach sometimes used in cases where prolonged environmental disturbances, such as sustained noise, are found to have caused documented physical or psychological harm to victims, rather than treating the matter solely as a civil nuisance or lesser noise-ordinance violation. The years-long pattern of documented complaints, official warnings, and eventual medical symptoms reported by multiple neighbors appear to have supported prosecutors’ and police’s decision to escalate the case to a criminal injury investigation rather than continuing to rely on administrative guidance alone.
Not an isolated pattern in Japan
Cases involving prolonged noise disturbances rising to the level of criminal prosecution have occurred in Japan before, though they remain relatively uncommon. In one earlier case that drew international attention, a woman in western Japan was sentenced to prison after deliberately directing loud stereo music toward a neighbor’s home for almost three years, a dispute that similarly resulted in the neighbor developing insomnia and other health complaints before authorities intervened. While the specific circumstances differ, such cases illustrate how sustained, targeted or persistently unaddressed noise complaints can, in some instances, escalate from neighborhood disputes into formal criminal matters under Japanese law.
As of Thursday, Yokoi remained in police custody following his arrest, with the investigation continuing under Nishikyo Police Station’s jurisdiction. Police have not indicated whether additional charges may follow, nor have prosecutors announced a timeline for formally charging or arraigning Yokoi in connection with the case. The four residents identified as affected by the yearslong noise exposure have not been publicly named, consistent with standard practice in cases involving alleged victims of ongoing harassment or health-related harm.
For now, the case stands as a striking example of how a years-long neighborhood noise dispute, despite repeated police warnings that failed to resolve the underlying behavior, ultimately escalated into a criminal investigation once documented health effects among multiple residents became part of the evidentiary record.
