Back to the Top News Newsfeed

Shattered Nerves, Sleepless Nights: Pickleball Noise Is Driving Everyone Nuts

The incessant pop-pop-pop of the fast-growing sport has brought on a nationwide scourge of unneighborly clashes, petitions, calls to the police and lawsuits, with no solution in sight.

A pickleball player dropping a ball to hit for an underhanded serve.
Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

It sounded like popcorn warming in a microwave: sporadic bursts that quickened, gradually, to an arrhythmic clatter.

“There it is,” Mary McKee said, staring out the front door of her home in Arlington, Va.