A pickleball court next to a Maine bayfront home is driving one family to the brink.
In Belfast — two hours north of Portland — a family says a public pickleball court built near their dream home has turned their lives into a waking nightmare, with the relentless noise driving them to the edge of a mental health crisis.
Alexander Giblin, 40, and his wife Lauren Valle, 39, live just 178 feet from four public pickleball courts at Belfast City Park, where the sound of paddles hitting balls rings through their Mayo Street home for up to 12 hours a day.
The couple, who share the property with their two young children, ages 5 and 7, say they have been left sleepless, anxious and increasingly desperate for relief.
“This is not a background tone,” Giblin told Belfast City Council on Tuesday. “It is a relentless, invasive barrage that penetrates our windows, our closed doors. We hear it in every room. There is no reprieve.”
The courts are officially open from 6 a.m. to 9:45 p.m., but Valle claims players routinely ignore those hours. Broken light timers have allowed people to break into the lighting control boxes and keep the courts illuminated well into the night.
“We get woken up by pickleball games started at 11:30 at night,” Valle wrote in a Facebook post. “We often call the police. It is horrific. We have lived here for 5 years, and have been tortured by it.”
What the family once dismissed as a manageable nuisance has snowballed into something far more serious. Valle says she now suffers severe anxiety, insomnia and despair.
Over Memorial Day weekend, things reached a breaking point.
“I became so severely distressed and agitated from the constant and continuous pickleball noise that by Sunday evening, I considered taking myself to the emergency room,” she told the council. “My brain and my nervous system are currently injured, and I am not OK.”
The toll on the children has been equally painful. Valle described her kids crying themselves to sleep and said the guilt has become unbearable.
“I feel like a failure of a mother for not protecting them,” she continued on Facebook. “I am weeping as I write this. This is such a profound issue. I find myself feeling jealous of people who do not have to listen to this. It is an absolutely crazy feeling, and so isolating. My mental state is precarious.”
The family purchased the bayfront property as a forever home; now they are weighing whether to leave.
Giblin has been careful to frame the dispute not as opposition to the sport itself, but as a failure of city planning that nobody anticipated as pickleball exploded in popularity across the country.
“This is not about opposing the sport or the players; in fact, no one is to blame,” he said. “This is about a zoning oversight, one that occurred because no one could have predicted the sport’s staggering rise in popularity, or more importantly, prolonged exposure to the noise it produced.”
The council showed sympathy. Mayor Eric Sanders acknowledged the park may not be the right venue for the activity.
“Maybe it’s too much for the tranquility of what Belfast City Park was designed for,” Sanders said.
City Manager Erin Herbig outlined a short-term plan that includes replacing the tampered lighting system with fixtures that will automatically shut off at 8 p.m. and cannot be overridden.
Court hours would also be restricted to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., though enforcement details remain vague.
The council is also exploring permanent relocation options, including Walsh Field and properties owned by the local YMCA and Regional School Unit 71.
Still, some councilors urged balance. Councilmember Daniel Miller acknowledged the complexity of pitting community recreation against residential peace.
“It can be a tremendous benefit and negative at the same time,” Miller said.
Giblin and Valle filed a formal complaint with the city last week. They say legal action is a last resort, but one they are fully prepared to pursue if the situation does not improve. A follow-up discussion is scheduled for the council’s next meeting on June 16.
Belfast’s situation is not unique.
In April, the neighboring town of Kittery shut down its own outdoor pickleball court after similar noise complaints from residents.
