Man kills upstairs neighbor for 'slamming the door loudly'

South Korean police on Monday are investigating a man in his 50s on suspicion of killing his upstairs neighbor for making what he claimed was excessive noise, marking the latest incident in which inter-floor noise has led to a violent crime.

The suspect is accused of attacking the woman in her 30s at around 4:40 p.m. Sunday in the staircase of their residential building in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, after an argument over noise the victim made. The suspect claimed to harbor resentment for the victim because of her tendency to slam her front door loudly.

Investigators found that the suspect struck the victim with a weapon then fled the scene. He was caught by police in Goseong-gun of the same province at around 6:40 p.m. that day.

Police are conducting further investigation into the case and are planning to request an arrest warrant for the suspect.

Inter-floor noise between the neighbors of multi-unit residential buildings has been a serious issue in South Korea, particularly in Seoul where nearly 90 percent of the homes are in multihousehold buildings such as apartments, according to the Seoul Research Data Service.

The civic group Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice reported that in 2021, 110 cases of the so-called five major violent crimes -- murder, robbery, rape, sexual molestation by threat or violence, and assault with a weapon -- occurred because of inter-floor noise. This marked a steep increase compared to 11 such cases in 2016.

Earlier this month, Chuncheon District Court handed down a suspended jail term to a 52-year-old man for stalking after he repeatedly harassed a 27-year-old victim living upstairs in protest of the noise she was making.

In another recent case that shocked the country last year, a 28-year-old man stabbed his girlfriend to death after an argument sparked by noise their neighbor made. The court acknowledged that the defendant had been under extreme stress and sentenced him to 17 years in prison, which both the defendant and the prosecution appealed.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)