Noise issues and ordinary listening have long been addressed separately in the social sciences. This paper argues in favor of the usefulness of an integrated approach to both, from the standpoint of an ethnographic investigation on the perception and management of the sonic environment which was carried out in French-speaking Belgium. This heuristic approach–?combining listening and noise–?makes it possible to describe precisely the process of when the feeling of annoyance comes about and the ability of people to express it.