Inconsiderate Neighbors

17 years ago

If it's too good to be true, it usually is.

I just moved to my own apartment, because I wanted to live alone. I'm 36 and I'm done with the roommate thing. I found a beautiful apartment to rent in NJ, right along the river, so I have a beautiful skyline view of the city. It's in a really nice condo building. This apartment is my beginner's dream apartment. The price was not that expensive to rent, which was a surprise for the area.

Now for the problem. My neighbors upstairs are owners of their condo. They're loud, rude and inconsiderate. They walk really loudly and party to the last possible legal minute. The apartments aren't even huge...what's with all the walking? Back and forth, back and forth constantly.

They are a young married couple. They have absolutely no rugs on their floor either. This is a pre-WW2 building, so the ceilings aren't thick or anything. All day long, the wife walks across the floor in her high heels, and I can hear the TV blasting all day and night. WHO WEARS HIGH HEELS TO WALK AROUND AT HOME???? THe husband walks so heavy, I think he's going to fall thru the floor.

Last night, they had 10 of their friends over, and they were blasting music and salsa dancing until exactly 10:00 on the button. I can't even relax or enjoy my new home and it's starting to depress me...and I've only been here a week.

I finally said something to them yesterday...twice. They were rude and nasty, and refused to compromise. I was so nice to them about it, and very reasonable the whole time. They said they've been there 3 years, they owned, and they weren't changing, that I was just going to have to deal with it. Another problem, they're on the condo board...and they're best friends with the President on the condo board.

I also found out from a couple of the other renters, that there were lots of complaints about them...and people in my apartment don't last long, because they can't take it. What am I going to do? I just moved...took time off from work and spent so much money. I'm broke at this point, and can't afford to move again. The landlord who owns the apartment lives in Greece...and the go between lady who rented to me, was well aware of this, and never warned me.

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!! What can I do? I'm just a renter and they own the condo.

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Comments (2)

talley_sue_nyc
17 years ago
well, probably the thing you can do is to not last long. And to try to go through all the hoops necessary to break your lease legally.

Bcs if you can document that your landlord is not keeping up w/ his obligation to provide you "quiet enjoyment" (this is often the phrase in use), then you can often break the lease without penalty.

You'll also need to check into your state or town's laws on this matter to see if they provide protection in the case that this clause is not in the lease, or a methodology for how this process must work (you can't just withhold rent usu.; you have to notify sometimes in a certain manner; etc.)

Check to see if there's a "quiet enjoyment" clause, and then write registered letters, etc., to your landlord and his agent, and maybe a copy to the condo board. The heck w/ whether you tick them off, etc. You'll be out of there soon anyway.

And start looking around--the timing is going to the hardest part, probably.

Best of luck, and my sympathies. I'm tolerant of a party now and then, but every night gets really old, really fast.

(you could also ask some other non-renter if there's a condo clause requiring apartments to have rugs; then your landlord can at least demand that they have them)

The only way to pressure the condo board, really, is for your landlord to do it. He has no motivation to do so.
housenewbie
17 years ago
First off, you won't be able to do anything 'about' the bad neighbors, per se. They own their unit, and they're on the board, so that's that. Maybe they resent the fact that your landlord is renting--lots of condo people feel it lowers their property value--so they're trying to take it out on the tenants and cause a lot of turnover.

What I'd do is send a registerred letter to the go-between, and another to the landlord (if you don't know his address, send it addressed to him 'c/o' the go-between's address. I'm pretty sure this means that she can't open the letter, but must forward it (unless she's got a power of attorney, but in that case the owner is deemed to have received notice thru her)). In this letter, describe the noise problem and demand that the landlord install acoustic tiles on your ceiling to muffle the noise. Be sure to refer to the 'quiet enjoyment' laws of your locality and any similar language in your lease. State that if you haven't heard back from them w/ a date that they will do this, and they haven't done it, w/in 30 days, that you'll consider them to have given permission to install the tiles yourself and deduct the cost from your rent.

Having everything documented this way will cover your butt in case they decide to try to act against you because of witholding the money for the job. I don't really see why anyone would bother going to court or anything over a measly 300 bucks or whatever it would cost to staple-gun a bunch of tiles to the ceiling. They might try to withhold some or all of your security deposit, but this letter also would give you ammo to fight that.

When I say 'acoustic tiles' I have in mind 12inch-square tiles made of a sort of carboardy stuff. Not the big tiles they use w/ drop ceilings, but it's a similar idea. They don't need the framework that the drop ceilings use. We had them on our bedroom ceiling in our old apt; more for heat retention than noise, I think, but they do act as insulation against both.

Good luck.
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you need to research your state's statues for how to break a lease due to violation of the "quiet enjoyment" concept. By not standing up for you, your landlord is violating the lease, and you have the right to move without penalty. You just have to set it up to be legally defensible. You'd have had better luck calling the cops at 3:45 am for the surround sound--that's hard to argue with; stomping is a little more subjective and harder to detect from outside the house. Moving won't be as rewarding as "making the other folks behave," but it'll get your family some normalcy sooner. And thanks for the reminder to all of us, never to end up w/ a boss and a landlord who are the same person. A dispute in one of those arenas can really poison the other, and they're both too important to jeopardize like that. I wish you well, and I hope you can get out of there fast.
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Thank you all for your suggestions. Believe me, being able to vent my frustrations here at 1:00am really helped. I've really been a mess over this. I try to keep perspective, but after months of sleep deprivation, it's hard. Maybe I was a little pissy in my last post, but it was my birthday yesterday, and just wanted to have a nice day instead of it being ruined my these issues. You are right - a large part of the problem is shoddy construction. I do understand that my noise is annoying to my downstairs neighbor. That is why I've been trying to be as quiet as possible. I know that he was probably startled by it. His complaints are valid. But I also feel that I should be able to make a bit of normal noise at 8:30 pm, when I am very quiet 99% of the time, and never late at night. By the way, my upstairs neighbor walks around in heels, vacuums, moves furniture, and blasts music (in weird one minute intervals) from 11:00pm to 3:00 am after I have repeatedly talked to her about this. I don't really care about the rest of the day in terms of cleaning, walking and guest noises -just the night. She openly admits to being loud late at night, and has told me 'I will do what I want, if you can't deal with my f*-in schedule, then move'. That is why I think she is slime. I left a long message for my landlords this morning. They immediately came over (while I was at work), and talked to my downstairs neighbor. They will be coming this weekend to fix the floorboards - I am so relieved about this! I agree that he was out of line last night. If he continues to complain and slam on my floor once the floorboards are fixed, then I will definitely say something to him. My landlords then went upstairs and talked to the female tenant about being quiet between 10 and 7am. She was completely rude and arrogant to them, and told them that she will do whatever she wants whenever she wants. So, they went to the police and gave them her name - the police said to call them if she does anything really loud again. They then went back and told her they did this, and I think it really freaked her out. (oddly enough, my landlords told me that she had a black eye. She also told them she stopped working, doesn't care about getting a job, and will live off the money she gets from her 'other people'. Don't ask me how she can afford a Lexus. Must be nice.) Sorry to speculate. It's just strange. Again, I don't really think that the police route is the way to go, but if it will scare her into being more considerate..... My landlords also told me that they have a potential 'rent with option to buy' house that I am going to see tomorrow. I think it's out of my price range, but they are actually willing to rent it to me at the price I'm renting right now, for the first few months. I have really great landlords, I have to say. I really appreciate them. They did not have to be so proactive about this, but they did. I really called them just to make a complaint, and to talk about getting out of my lease. Instead, they immediately tried to remedy the situation. I know that there are a lot of awful landlords out there, and I am lucky to have people that actually care about their tenants. thank you all so much! I wish you all peace, quiet, and relaxation in your apartments (or houses).
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Look, cottage industries do not fall under zoning codes. People are allowed to "work from home". Do you think that website designers and software deveopers need to work in a commercial area? What about phone answerers? Seamstresses? Tax preparers? An architecht who does drawings at home? What about all the prople who sell on eBay for a living? I have a friend whose job it is to shop for potatoe chips and cookies and then take them home and count the contents and weigh them and count broken pieces and type up a report and send it in to the company as a quality control report. Is she going to get kicked out of her home for doing this?!?!?! Geeesh. Of course not. Another friend writes for magazines from home. If everybody had to get an office or studio to do these things, cities would be ghost towns. Zoning is to regulate traffic and congestion into an area. You can't run a buniness out of your home that brings in either pedestrian traffic or vehicular traffic. Or causes a nuisance with noise or odors or anything else that residents may complain about. I have a neighbor who is running an illegal day care center out of her home. Cars are coming and going all day long with pick-ups and deliveries of children and babies. There are screamming children running around in the yard all the time and a row of strollers with babies lined up outside on days when the weather is nice. Now that is a business that is breaking zoning laws. My parents next-door neighbor is running some sort of business that involves a gigantic semi driving into the alley and unloading crates of who-knows-what a few times a week. That is breaking the zoning laws. Some neighbors finally complained and reported it, as the loooong semi would block access to everyone's garage and the driver would just tell people to "hold on" and wait while they unloaded the truck sometimes making people late for work or just making people idle their cars waiting or having to back up out of the alley to let the truck out. That is breaking zoning codes. What is the diiference between a hobby and a business? Huh? If someone paints watercolors as a hobby it is OK, but if they take them to a gallery and sell them then no? If you sew your DD a dress it is OK, but if you sew five of them and sell them on eBay, then all heck will break loose with the LL and the zoning codes? If a guy records himself and get paid for it......? Going after this guy by trying to use zoning laws won't go anywhere. This is a tenent/landlord issue. The guy is just a jerk expecting everyone to tiptoe around him. I like Talley's sample letter to sent to management. It could just be CC&P and printed out and mailed to them.
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Comments (37)
LOL we even shoot a cannon (blanks of course) everytime our varsity football team scores a touchdown. We save our leftover fireworks for new years. Course we are simple hearted, low end of the gene pool types here in California. I hear what everyone is saying, but there are un supervised kids, and inconderate people everywhere. Some right here on this board. I'm sorry some people are disturbed by firecrackers and other people having a fun time, but why do disagreements here turn insulting?? On a side note. We just ended our eighth year with youth football. My DH was president of the board for three of those seasons and VP for one. We fundraise for MONTHS but would not survive without the fireworks booth. We are a not for profit organization and get NO funding from the city. It costs about $20 thousand dollars a season to provide a place for boys and girls from 6-14 years old to play and cheer. We do everything; cookie dough, beef jerky, candles, candy bars, car washes, we sell Raider tickets, and so on. Unfortunately in a small, blue collar town, where most of the kids are selling at the same time, fundraising is very difficult. Fortunately we all happen to love our fireworks and we sell a brand that's different than most. We absolutely need that booth. The kids get help with costs too. I doubt our town is the only one like this.
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Comments (2)

talley_sue_nyc

housenewbie

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