A prankster pumped up the volume when he used a remote control from outside a hi-fi shop to turn on a stereo.

Noise-busters from Oxford City Council's environmental health department were called to turn it down, in one of the more unusual of the 1,970 complaints they received last year.

"The shopkeeper has since taken steps to cover all the remote control sensors," said environmental health officer Richard Atherton.

Other out-of-the-ordinary call-outs included a 6am call to stop a winter solstice rave on Port Meadow on December 2, and a man who mounted a stereo speaker on his shed roof - only to have the speaker wire snipped by an environmental health officer with a pair of scissors.

One officer went into a flat with a policeman to turn off a loud stereo when the owner refused to answer knocks on the door. The owner was found comatose from drink and the volume was turned down. The next night, the same thing happened at the same address - but this time the accompanying police officer recognised the occupier as the subject of an arrest warrant and immediately took him into custody.

The third night, peace and quiet ruled.

In all, 115 noise abatement notices, and 20 more relating to car alarms, were served.

Three people were prosecuted for trying to organise a rave on the eve of May Day, six people were cautioned and five had their equipment seized.

The 24-hour, 365-day-a-year out-of-hours service has been running since 1990.

Last year, the seven environmental health officers - who work out of hours in addition to their normal working day - dealt with an average of 38 calls a week.

The highest number of calls dealt with in a week was 91, between August 8 and 15.

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