“But phobics can hear this noise and we can’t – our equipment registers nothing. Despite irrefutable scientific evidence, they will go to their MP or the council. Keith Lester, head of Westminster’s Noise Team, estimates that five per cent of cases he deals with come from NNs – typically female and elderly – complaining about low frequency “humming” or ordinary, low- level noise “Most people will compromise,” says Mr Lester. “The bass beat in modern music makes me feel quite ill,” she says. “Other people go, `What noise?’” Meanwhile, sleep remains difficult.

“It’s chaos in the morning from about 4am: the milkman, dogs barking, cars starting. We can’t go anywhere unless I’m able to travel first class and I know that the hotel is going to be quiet Most of the time I retreat indoors And it’s getting worse every year.”Val is not alone. Val Gibson, founder of the RPQC, talks about “people who are sensitised to and phobic about noise”. In the interests of sound- bite journalism, I prefer to call the syndrome Noise Neurosis.Val Gibson is a classic sufferer of NN. Traumatised several years ago by a severe neighbour noise problem, she now lives in a detached house in southeast London But everyday noise still dominates her life. Dr Ross Coles, chairman of the British Society of Audiology, thinks the most accurate term may be “excessive sensitivity to annoyance by noise”. For a new, noise-related syndrome is emerging, against which laws cannot be drafted and for which there is no known remedy As yet, it does not even have an agreed name.

And the problem is not confined to the inner city: the Mail on Sunday, campaigning on the issue, found that rural and semi-rural areas, including Kent, Essex, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, had the highest number of complainants.Happily, such lobbying is beginning to have an impact. In March, the Department of the Environment issued a working party report on neighbour noise control; recommendations included the power to confiscate noise- producing equipment, either permanently or charging for its return. The RPQC’s “community code” – Don’t slam any doors at any time. Don’t leave dogs alone for long periods – may one day be law.But this is not the end of the story. It is a major preoccupation (one of the few left) of local government: this June, Westminster Council’s Noise Team received 1,600 complaints, a figure set to rise with the heat wave.

It has caused murders, suicides, heart attacks, allergies, tension, sludgy blood. It has kept the courts busy, notably attending to the young woman addicted to Whitney Houston’s “I will always love yoooo…”. The true number of victims or the sum total in human misery will probably never be known…one of the most complex and difficult technical and legal issues of our time…up to 18 million UK citizens, whose lives are wrecked

These sombre words refer not to the horrors of passive smoking, or the feelings of fans mourning the departure of Robbie from Nineties supergroup Take That! but to the effect of noise – or, to quote again from the Right to Peace and Quiet Campaign (RPQC), “unwanted sound”.
Noise pollution, commonly associated with inconsiderate or malicious neighbours, has become the public health issue of the decade. “The two rs are to distinguish between us and other companies called Panther,” says Ritter, before admitting, somewhat sheepishly, that “we had the numerology done and it was a better name, numerically, for communications purposes.”. “Joe Bugner Jnr and Big John”, says Nagel, “who handled security at the Kray funeral – they both work for us, and they don’t come much tougher than that.”And the mis-spelling. Far better to have a quiet word, tell him it’s time to leave while he’s still in front Let him keep his drugs.

That way everybody’s happy.”So what happens when diplomacy and New Age niceties fail? Ritter and Nagel insist that when it gets nasty, Pantherr can flex its muscles, too. Of course, he’ll be back for trouble, and that usually means customers getting hurt. But if you’ve robbed the guy, beat him and humiliated him, he hasn’t got anything left to lose. It would also mean more work for us.”Pantherr also has a novel approach to that perennial nightlife problem, the dealer. “Others give them a slap, tax their drugs and money, then throw them out.