Quiet hours in Outagamie County, WI — also called the noise ordinance, nighttime noise rules, or residential quiet time — define the hours during which excessive noise is prohibited.
Outagamie County has not adopted a countywide decibel-based noise ordinance for unincorporated areas. Noise complaints are handled under Wis. Stat. §947.01 (disorderly conduct) by the Outagamie County Sheriff's Office, and under noise ordinances adopted by individual towns, villages, and cities. The City of Appleton (Outagamie's largest municipality) defines "day" as 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and prohibits loud, disturbing, or unnecessary sound at all hours, with the 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. window functioning as quiet hours. Most other municipalities within the county follow similar 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. quiet periods. Call non-emergency dispatch for the Sheriff at (920) 832-5605 for nuisance noise.
Wisconsin does not have a single statewide noise statute, and Outagamie County's countywide Code of Ordinances does not contain a decibel-based noise chapter for unincorporated areas. Instead, two layers of authority apply. First, Wis. Stat. §947.01 makes disorderly conduct (which includes "loud" or "otherwise disorderly conduct" tending to provoke a disturbance) a Class B misdemeanor enforceable by the Sheriff. Second, individual municipalities within the county adopt their own noise ordinances. The City of Appleton regulates noise under Chapter 12, Article IV of its Municipal Code, defining the daytime period as 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and prohibiting any loud, disturbing, fluctuating, or unnecessary sound that would annoy or disturb a reasonable person; noise variance requests are not granted before 7:00 a.m. or after 10:00 p.m. Towns under county zoning (which covers 13 of the 19 towns in Outagamie County) typically rely on the Sheriff's Office and the state disorderly conduct statute rather than a town-specific decibel ordinance. Construction, agricultural operations, and emergency work are commonly exempt from local quiet-hour rules during reasonable daytime hours.
A first-offense violation of Wis. Stat. §947.01 (disorderly conduct) is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. Most local noise ordinances are enforced as municipal forfeitures, with typical first-offense fines in the $50-$200 range plus court costs; repeat violations escalate. Persistent noise nuisances can also be abated as public nuisances under Wis. Stat. ch. 823.
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