Residents are being asked to keep it down as Christchurch City Council had a record number of noise complaints lodged at the end of last year.
UCSA president Pierce Crowley expects students will still start the year with a party Photo: Supplied
It's thought to be caused by event cancellations, which has left people nowhere to party but home.
With universities canning their Orientation or O Week events, will Canterbury students follow the noisy neighbour trend?
February is already one of the loudest months in Christchurch, but the council's Head of Regulatory Compliance, Tracey Weston, said Covid-19 restrictions are turning the volume up more than a notch.
"We have noticed an increase in the complaints after the lockdowns."
"Christchurch City Council received 645 more complaints between November and December 2021 than it did for the same period in 2020," she explained.
"The cancellation of public events such as the annual university student parties, the summer events, concerts...We believe they may have contributed to more people opting to socialise at home."
Canterbury University's O Week is normally in full swing by now - with events like Toga Party and festival Electric Avenue attracting up to 30,000 people.
This year's events are more subdued, but Student Association President, Pierce Crowley, expects students will still start the year with a party.
"I would say now there's quite a high likelihood we'll see a few private gatherings pop up," he said.
"A lot of students, just generally, are moving into their flats so I think the expectation is they'll be wanting to socialise."
Crowley said "I think from [a student association] perspective, it's just about educating students about how to socialise with Omicron in the community."
Molly is a first-year student at Canterbury who moved into her hall of residence this week and said the partying has already started.
"I know last night there was an incident with someone drinking off campus in a flat...he had to get carried back to the hall because he was quite intoxicated."
She thought people would be making the most of it before Covid-19 became widespread.
"I think people are still going to go hard while they can."
In the past 10 years, Canterbury tertiary education providers and police, among others, have set up the Good One initiative to reduce dangerous and disruptive partying.
Senior Sergeant Roy Appley said Good One is an online party register, which alerts local police to student parties.
Police then pass on safety information to the hosts before the party starts and can monitor it throughout the night.
"Often if we can, if we've got the resources available, we'll try and visit the larger parties a day or two beforehand."
"Really it's about taking away the myth of 'the police will just turn up when there's the first call of some sort of disorder,' and bust into the address and drag people out."
And Sergeant Appley believed the initiative was working.
"What we've experienced is that all of this work combined together under the umbrella of prevention - making people feel safer and getting them to understand some of the consequences [of excessive partying] - has actually curtailed some of the over-indulgence in alcohol," he said.
"We haven't seen the same levels of disorder and problems associated with excess drinking as in years gone by."
Molly was just grateful some orientation parties can go ahead.
She thought having hall of residence advisers (RAs) and other safety measures help keep things orderly.
"We have 100 people on our floor so management are saying that if we have our parties, it's only the people on the floor that are allowed to come."
"The hundred also includes RAs, so they're watching us the whole time obviously, and supervising..."
Molly explained the drinking rules were tough.
"There are quite strict rules around where you can drink - you can drink in your room, you can also drink in the common rooms - but not in the hallways or elevators."
"They keep it quite strict but I think it's good because otherwise it could get quite out of control."
For those planning a get together, Tracey Weston said complaints could be avoided if people talked to neighbours beforehand and set a curfew.