Noise Complaint

While every individual handles things differently, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about dealing with noisy neighbors. For the sake of anyone who has not done anything yet, I will go through the steps that you should (typically) go through.

1. Knock on their door and ask them to lower their music: For some reason neighbors are no longer neighborly. In some situations, the neighbor might not even know that their music/TV/etc is too loud and they may apologize and lower the volume.

2. If #1 does NOT work, then from here on out everything should be communicated by letter which they need to sign for. IE: Send the neighbor a FedEx that that individual (by name) has to sign for. The letter should state that you wish to buy them a set of wireless headphones, etc. And that they should reply to you by letter or email to respond (if you already email your neighbor, that is acceptable as well). Verbal communication is meaningless. The point here is that you are building a case to deal with your neighbor.

3. Eventually, write in a letter that you will call the police should this continue. And then, actually call the police. (Don't dial 911 though, call your local precinct.) Again, the idea is that you will continue to call the police to build a larger case against this person.

4. If at this point the person continues to do whatever you were complaining about you have a mountain of material stating that you were trying to remedy the situation and that at no point were they willing to do anything about it. From there you can go to the managing agent and see what you can do.

You should NOT approach the tenant to have a verbal communication. Do that first, and see if it works, if not, you need to realize that you may end up battling your neighbor in court and should begin building evidence as soon as possible. And while the angry kid inside us all wants to also play loud music or do something malicious, realize that doing something like that once can screw you in the end. Be professional and on top of things and hopefully you will prevail.

Lastly, if the neighbor ever approaches you to speak, tell him to put it in a letter. And if, god forbid the neighbor ever threatens you, immediately call the police to (again) build a stronger case against this person.

We never want to bug the police, but you need to in these situations.

Start the paper trail NOW.

Have the market-rate start putting his complaints in writing to the shareholder, and the shareholder in turn doing the same to the managing agent, then to the board. Communicate the complaint to the sponsor.

Document, document, document.

Eventually, if the problem isn't remedied, the board can force the sponsor to evict the tenant. Rent-controlled or not, the law is on YOUR side when it comes to tenants breaking building rules and disturbing other tenants.

NYCMatt, we must have literally been writing at the same time. But yes, good info and great first name!

Just one question....Are these walls thin or is it literally that the volume of the TV is turned all the way up. It comes down to what constitutes noise. If they have the TV on at a normal level, albeit bothering people next door, then they are well within their right and trying to go after them to evict will get you no where. There is no law that states that if a neighbor is disturbed by something that is normal you can force them to get wireless headset. I personally would not want to be forced to wear one because walls are thin.

I lived in a coop for years, i heard the dog walking around upstairs and also heels. There is no differnce between hearing that all night long and a TV sound. As long as they covered the minimum amount of area required, there was nothign i could do.

Also i was in a rental and our downstairs neighbor was insane. he worked nights and was bothered in the day by our nanny and child walking around and playing. We are talking normal everyday stuff, not jumping up and down, etc. He would blast music into my ceiling day and night because that was his way. Well lets just say i called 311, the local precinct, the management office, etc, nothign was done and this went on for 4 years.

I disagree with NYCmatt that the law is on your side unless i am missing facts here.

I really believe OTNYC needs to give out more facts before eveyrone jumps on the rent controlled tenant is wrong and should be evicted theory continues.

While a paper trail is definitely the way to go, if the rent controlled tenant does not respond with your polite request to comply with the building rules, you might want to inquire about that person's status as a rent controlled tenant. There are many rent control cheats in the system. However, there are also LL's who also cheat the system and somehow it all seems to balance out -- everyone seems to look the other way. However, if someone is rude and unruly, all bets are off.

There are many, many rc apartments with illegal sublet tenants in place. Are you even sure that the problem person in question is the actual rights holder? Does their situation conform with the rc rules? You might want to find out.

@ Mikev: You have a very good point, but most of the time, the situation just gets flipped. So instead of complaining about a neighbor, you have a neighbor that is complaining about you for no reason. You still need to create a paper trail.

That happened to me actually. My neighbor would complain that I was waking up their newborn child at... 7pm when I returned home from work. How was I waking them up? By walking in my own apartment, literally just walking in the apartment. We offered to pay to make the wall between us more soundproof, but he (the one complaining about the noise) didn't want to do that. I learned the hard way that without a paper trail, all the conversations you had between each other were meaningless. He had no right to complain, yet he did, as much as he could.

And then again, sometimes you need to just deal with the noise. This is Manhattan where your neighbors are inches, not miles away. Be realistic.

MRussell that is funny. We actually for years were documenting and sending the docs to management company. Then one day the moron below me complained to the lease administrator, who has nothing to do with anything. She actually took it upon herself to leave a message for us to tell us we were not carpeted and should not be having a party. Meanwhile there was no party, and she was way outside her job description. I transcribed the message and sent it to the building manager and told him that we want to knwo why for 2 years we were complaining and then he can lie to someone and we get a phone call. Well lets just say no replies and things just continued until the day we moved one week ago.

I was not arguing against documentation, my point was that the focus seems to be that the building cares more for a market rate tenant then a rent controlled tenant because maybe they think if they push him out, sponsor sells and it becomes owner occupied. It seems more that maybe this tenant is listening maybe slightly higher volume because maybe he is hard of hearing, but no where near the habitable clause for noise. Seems more a board trying to get rid of someone they do not want, then really caring about the market rate tenant. If this is the case i hope the rent controlled tenant contineus to ignore as it seems ths is unjust. However if we get better facts i will back off that.

Was talkign to someone in my building that i just moved from, older guy with no real money in a stablized apartment. landlord tried to raise rent by taking away preferential rent which legally based on when his lease was signed and the law could not. they thought they could bully him into signing a new lease agreeing to this, brought a case in housing court figuring he would yield, then the day before they offered him his lease the way it should be. Still went to court next day, judge said dismissed, he said not so fast there are some other issues i want dealt with, this cost the landlord more because it got on record all the things that needed to be fixed in the aprtment. proving greed is not good when someone is actually following the rules.

Before listening to apt23, keep in mind that this woman wrote on streeteasy (and the post is still available to see) that she committed a criminal act by calling the police and therein filing a false police report when she wanted to change the behavior of a neighbor. And she did it in a way that not only put herself in a position of potential arrest and prosecution, she actually fingered her husband as the "criminal", reporting to the police that her husband committed a felony gun purchase and impplying that he had the further intention of using it in some manner against the neighbor she disliked.

Also, MRussell and NYCMatt's approach represents wishful thinking and no actual experience or understanding of the status, rights and special treatment in court of rent controlled tenants in NYC. The board can sue the sponsor to attempt to seek a court eviction of the tenant. The tenant, in court, represented by a law firm specializing in rent control tenants (as opposed to general residential real estate) will have the rent controlled tenant (read - been there for about 40 years and reasonably old at this point) say (whether true or not), "oh sorry judge, I've lived here for 40 years and don't make much money on my social security, so I can't afford another place. My hearing is also getting bad so I have the TV up, and some of my medicines make me sleepy and sometimes I fall asleep with the TV on and I can't hear people knocking at the door. One of my relatives already bought me a wireless headset, but it doesn't work well with my hearing aid which I need because my hearing was damaged in [pick: World War II, Korean War]. Unfortunately I can't use a timer because the electrical might have a short and the landlord hasn't fixed it. Oh did I also tell you about the unfixed ...
That's why rent control apartment owners don't go through with the time and expense of going to court to seek evictions except in the most dire cases, which, as you can tell from MRussell's absolutely silly FedEx letter requiring signature, this is not.

Mikev, one of the risks to the landlord besides the time and expense of the case, is the treble damages clause that additionally protects rent controlled tenants from harassment. Find me a rent controlled landlord who is in full compliance currently and over the length of the rent controlled tenancy (again, 40 years +), and I'll find you a landlord that would take the risk and potentially win in court on something other than extreme cases of abuse by a rent controlled tenant, which this is not.

This is so funny: "Send the neighbor a FedEx that that individual (by name) has to sign for. The letter should state that you wish to buy them a set of wireless headphones, etc. "

At no point did I mention a rent controlled tenant. I clearly stated that this is the way to do things... in general. I do not have experience with rent controlled tenants, and in those cases, the best step may be to seek leagal council first.

In cases of "my neighbor is driving me nuts" then yes I absolutely do have experience. Call it silly all you want until you find yourself in a real situation with a neighbor that goes substantially beyond a simple noise complaint.

The problem here is that my guess is that the walls are thin, that the tenant is well within the reasonable noise volume and market rate renter is a whiner, but since that unit is owned by an individual they are trying to make him happy.

I agree with mmartin1, the question is what tradeoffs is the rent control tenant living with in terms of what has been fixed in his apartment. These situations are normally a tradeoff, deal with a little lower level of attention for paying no real rent.

And apt23s point makes no sense. This apartment is owned by a sponsor, i am sure they know who their tenant is and that they are there. Also if you assume that there is a doorman, then you are damn sure everyone knows who is coming and going.

Let the guy be, someday he will move on to the great beyond.

I am sure if this guy had an issue with someone in an owner occupied apartment they would tell him to bad.

I really see why coop boards are wonderful things. They would probably sell out there own mother if they felt that they would benefit from it.

@ MRussell "At no point did I mention a rent controlled tenant."

Did you think about starting a new thread then? As you can see, this thread was started by someone inquiring about a rent controlled tenant.

Can't speak to coop rentals or rent control. But noise issues are a benefit of a well run rental building over most other types of buildings where there could be a noise problem. I think rental leases have noise and nuissance clauses, and then there's a much simpler path to get something done. If the landlord doesn't care, e.g. it is a rental building thats like a post-college dorm, then of course the thresholds for complaints and remedies go up.

Move

You have no chance of winning this in housing court. We once had a co-op OWNER playing a jazz band in his apartment - live - until the wee hours of the morning. Tried to evict him and LOST.

If the market-rate tenant wants to fix the problem, he should have the owner take down the wall, sound insulate between the walls, then install QuietRock or a similar product on a channel (so it doesn't directly touch the studs).

That will eliminate virtually all noise passing through the wall. It's far cheaper than litigation, which you will lose anyway.

columbiacounty?