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Police in Osaka said Sunday they have arrested a 69-year-old man on suspicion of killing his upstairs neighbor after a dispute over noise.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 3:25 a.m. on Saturday at an apartment building in Nishinari Ward, Kyodo News reported. Police said Katsumi Uemura is accused of stabbing a man in his 50s who lived in the apartment above him, after they had an argument in the corridor.
The apartment building manager found the victim lying in the corridor outside his apartment and called 110. The victim was taken to hospital where he died about two hours later due to loss of blood from a knife wounds to his chest and stomach.
Police said Uemura has admitted to the charge and quoted him as saying the victim was always making noise in his apartment and that he had complained in the past to the apartment building manager.
Uemura lives on the sixth floor and the victim on the seventh floor.
© Japan Today
17 Comments
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Three goals
Fortunately I've never really had a bad neigbour. The one above is a bit noisy. He's seems to be dropping something heavy on the floor every morning. I have not ideas what it is. You can hear a big thud! He's a good guy, I've met him, so I won't hassle him about it.
602miko
In my old apartment, I can't use my home theater movie because my neighbor banged my wall. I watched movies in the daytime. I get scared and told hubby. Hubby decided to move out than of having argued with my psycho neighbor. Tell you it's really scary I got trauma.
Nuno Teixeira da Cunha
My neighbours are tenants and i am owner, i have had several of them living upstair in a empty apartment, having sex loud, dogs running, barking and pissing in the stairs, and kids shouting early in the morning at weekends. I only told him i had 3 couples like them living here previously and that they will go too, rents here are too much expensive for this kind of people to support, they are helped by their parents but with inflation rising they will move to poor neighbours soon.
Stephen Chin
A few years ago my neighbour above me had a teenage daughter who had a hifi player on the floor above my bedroom playing rock music in the morning and at my bedtime. I complained each time and the mother said she will get her daughter to turnn the music down. But even turned down it prevented my sleep and woke me early morning. Once when the volume increased, I phoned and told the mother, "Do you know crimes have been commited... !?" In the early morning my door bell rang and I opened my door to two policemen who warned me to stop threatening my neighbour.
Ichigo
Definitely. Sometimes the door slamming or music is so loud that the vibrations wake you up even with good earplugs in. Not condoning violence in any way, but it can literally drive you crazy when you can't get the sleep that you need because your neighbors are being inconsiderate. Japanese landlords are pretty powerless to help you, typically, so you may have no other choice but to move.
kaimycahl
Can’t pick your neighbors
Joe Blow
I hope you played your music even louder.
Mr Kipling
He will get plenty of quiet from now on. Is it 9:00 pm or 10:00pm prison lights out?
garypen
The crime only just happened early Saturday morning. The article was published early Monday morning. Chances are he was arrested shortly after the crime, and it only made the news here at JT on the next business day.
But, if there was a delay in arresting the suspect, it was most likely due to the police investigation that takes a little time to question residents and possible witnesses, which led to identifying him pretty quickly.
Ichigo
Some upstairs neighbors make noise every night, all night by stomping around, playing loud music, or slamming doors. You can't expect people to mess up their health by taking sleeping pills every night, or go to bed with headphones on every night.
Eastman
normallly this guy was danger for a public so wondering why he was arrested now and not directly same day?
Sven Asai
With all respect, but obviously the monster neighbor in this case is the killer, not the noisy one. And btw aren’t their enough tools nowadays to make or have it more quiet, like let’s say, sleeping pills, ear plugs, noise-canceling headphones or earbuds etc? Everyone without exception makes some or much noise one way or another, so that’s surely no reason to complain or even to kill each other, otherwise that planet would be emptied at once. Try to stand it anyhow or leave the place, but don’t kill people for that reason.
Moskollo
The law needs to be more strict on monster neighbours. Having a noise team who can respond to complaints and take actual noise readings would help to mediate these situations that have gone beyond a phone call to the local koban. Restrictions on noisy car engines would also be welcome, we all live in very narrow roads with paper thin walls, living near a noisy sports car effects the quality of life for whole communities..
Sanjinosebleed
Really are some serious whackos in Japan when it comes to this issue!
Better to live in the country than in a beehive mansion!
Lindsay
Monster neighbors are real in Japan. I had one that lived underneath me. She called the real estate several times and the police a few times. I flushed the toilet at 3am and she called the real estate the next day telling them I was having a huge party. The best one was, she called the police and told them I was using a chainsaw on my balcony, which was actually a vacuum cleaner. Be careful if your neighbors people. You don’t know what kind of whackos live near you.