Family shocked after police threaten $1600 fine for generator noise during power outage

A family affected by Victoria’s lengthy storm-induced power outages has been left shocked after police knocked on their door to tell them to turn their generator off or face a fine.

Beck Collings has been running a small generator through the night to heat their Avonsleigh home, because she has two small children.

“I’ve got a five-month-old and a … two-year-old so I need power for feeding bottles and formula and monitors so we can hear them at night,” she told Neil Mitchell.

But at 11.30pm last Wednesday, while Ms Collings was feeding her five-month-old, she heard a knock on the door.

It was the police.

“They said ‘We’ve had a couple of noise complaints about the generator’,” she said.

“They said you’ll need to either turn it off or move it or you’ll be getting a $1600 fine.

“One of the police officers was really nice and understanding but the other one was quite aggressive and sort of treated us as criminals.”

The couple received a call from police the next day, saying another complaint had been made at 4am.

Ms Collings and her partner knocked on their neighbours doors to explain the situation the next day, but no one owned up to making the complaints.

Thankfully, the family have now had power to their home restored.

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