Janesville, WI Short-Term Rentals: Noise Rules (2026)

Janesville does not maintain a stand-alone short-term rental noise ordinance with numerical decibel limits. STR operators are instead bound by Chapter 24 (Offenses) of the Janesville Code of General Ordinances, which addresses disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace by fighting, noise or other means. Janesville also operates a Chronic Nuisance Premises ordinance (originally adopted as File Ordinance No. 2006-352 and codified in Chapter 24) that lets the Police Department designate a property as a chronic nuisance after repeated qualifying violations - including disturbing the peace by noise - and recover police-response costs from the property owner. Wisconsin's right-to-rent statute, Wis. Stat. 66.1014, prevents Janesville from banning rentals of seven consecutive days or more and constrains how the city can regulate rentals of 7 to 29 days, but it expressly preserves municipal authority to enforce generally applicable health, safety and nuisance ordinances, which is the legal basis for applying Chapter 24 to a tourist rooming house. The state lodging code, ATCP 72, adopted under Wis. Stat. 66.0615 and 97.605, additionally requires every tourist rooming house to be operated so as not to create a public nuisance, and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) - not the City of Janesville - licenses tourist rooming houses statewide. Janesville's underlying zoning enabling authority comes from Wis. Stat. 62.23, which authorizes cities to regulate land use but is constrained by 66.1014 for STR-specific rules. Noise complaints in Janesville are routed through the Janesville Police Department non-emergency line at (608) 755-3100.