Montgomery County, an affluent, suburban, and rural county neighboring Washington, DC, has received numerous noise complaints before and after the Noise Control Ordinance became effective (October 1976). A program was initiated to develop an approach to categorize and analyze citizen complaints so that a broad rational statement as to the effectiveness of the ordinance could be made. This paper presents only a part of the results of the program that was developed to analyze the effectiveness of the ordinance and deals only with noise problems that were serious enough to lead to “official” complaints by the citizens. All complaints were tabulated into categories that include the type and location of complaints, the action taken, and the long‐term effects of the action. Complaints are plotted as a function of various parameters to show the factors influencing complaints. The analysis will be updated and refined periodically.