Tenant Rental Situation

[honey987]

We have a really great tenant who has been living in our top floor unit with her 2 kids for a few months now. She just called tonight to tell me that the people downstairs have been knocking on her door telling her that she is being too loud for them. They yelled at her for her kids running all day and night and she calmly explained to them that she didn't have her kids this week and that her ex has them every other week. The woman has come up a few more times and telling our tenant to keep it down. My tenant is concerned she is going to be kicked out and she also feels like she has to walk on egg shells to not disturb the couple downstairs.

This couple is very odd and when we were having the unit painted they knocked on the door wanting to know what was going on and told the painters all these things they thought they should install (shelving etc). It was just really strange. We have personally been at the unit doing repairs and cleaning for a few days at a time and never met/saw/disturbed them.

I have spent a decent amount of time with our tenant and unless she has a totally different life that I don't see where she throws ragers with her kids everyday, I don't see how they could possibly be bothering them so much. The woman also went on to tell my tenant how they had issues with the tenants before her as well and were going to call the owners. (we just bought the unit and she is our first tenant in this unit)

What would you do in this situation?

[rosiedozie]

I assume you don't own the downstairs unit that the angry couple lives in?

[honey987]

Aug 5, 2012 20:12:24 GMT -5 rosiedozie said:

I assume you don't own the downstairs unit that the angry couple lives in?

No, they own it themselves It's a 3 story complex and we own a unit on the top floor. I'm not sure why they bought on the 2nd floor of a condo complex if they expect complete silence.

[polarbearfans]

Is the unit carpeted? That can cut down on the sound. Otherwise, it is expected to have so noise from neighbors, especially an upstairs unit. As long as your tenants aren't loud super early or late the downstairs people need to chill out. It is reasonable for your tenants to walk normally across their living room.

[LoveTrains]

Some condos are constructed really shoddily. For example, the condo that I own, if the woman who lives upstairs walks across the floor in high heels it is really, really loud. It sounds like a party up there.

My condo is in a small building so we agreed that to be considerate to the neighbors people would try to not walk around in shoes too much on the hardwood floors.

It might be possible that the op's tenant is making a lot of noise but not on purpose, due to how the units are constructed. In any case, the people that live on the second floor do need to deal with it, but the suggestion of a rug/carpet is a good one if the floors are currently hardwoods or tile or some sort of solid surface.

[honey987]

There is currently carpet everywhere except the bathrooms and kitchen of course. She complained that she heard them in the kitchen floor running. The kitchen is as big as a postage stamp. We need to replace the flooring soon and we were going to go with laminate or tile with the sound barrier, but now with this we might have to stick with carpet. Ugh.

[winecat]

I'm on the board for a condo complex and we just had this issue.

Is your unit hardwood floors? If so, could your tenant put down rugs with extra cushion to absorb as much sound as possible?

Is there any sort of HOA in place? We have 'quiet hours' that are consistent with those of the city. The board acted as a bit of a mediator in the situation. If you don't have a board, I would look into getting a mediator. Sometimes they can be provided at a low to no cost by the city. The neighbors sound BSC so getting their 'buy in' to a solution is key and a good mediator can get them to agree to something that isn't their way 1000%.

[honey987]

Aug 5, 2012 20:37:18 GMT -5 winecat said:

I'm on the board for a condo complex and we just had this issue.

Is your unit hardwood floors? If so, could your tenant put down rugs with extra cushion to absorb as much sound as possible?

Is there any sort of HOA in place? We have 'quiet hours' that are consistent with those of the city. The board acted as a bit of a mediator in the situation. If you don't have a board, I would look into getting a mediator. Sometimes they can be provided at a low to no cost by the city. The neighbors sound BSC so getting their 'buy in' to a solution is key and a good mediator can get them to agree to something that isn't their way 1000%.

We do have an HOA which I plan on calling tomorrow. I don't want to tick them off anymore, but if you are super sensitive to sound why would you buy in the middle level of a 3 story building? We wanted to go with a floor we weren't going to have to replace every few years. This is really annoying.

[winecat]

There are hardwood flooring systems that, if installed properly, should prevent sound from being heard in other units. The issue with my building is that it wasn't installed properly, so you should be able to find something.

I would have your tenant start compiling a log of every time they contact her (time, day, what they said happened, what her view was [kids weren't home when they said they were], etc.) so that if the issue continues she has a log to show patterns, etc..

[awick14]

[quote author=winecat board=mm thread=40742 post=637735 time=1344218108

I would have your tenant start compiling a log of every time they contact her (time, day, what they said happened, what her view was [kids weren't home when they said they were], etc.) so that if the issue continues she has a log to show patterns, etc.. [/quote]

This is a great idea.

I do not have any advice, but a cousin of mine was in this same situation a few years ago. (But she owned and the downstairs people were renters). They kept a log of all the times that the person came up to their place and complained. They told her to send all future complaints to the HOA and they stopped complaining all together, (I guess it wasnt worth their time to write out an official complaint.)

[anna7602]

No advice, but some people are just crazy. Our downstairs neighbors in a previous apartment objected to every single noise around them. At one point, I was working at home ALONE during the day and the wife started banging on the floor underneath me (her ceiling) with a broom to signal that I was being too loud. I went downstairs to ask what the problem was and explained I was working on a computer (not something that would generate a huge amount of noise). She claimed I had "flushed the toilet three times in the span of an hour." Also, I had dared to open a window in the same time period.

I documented all of her complaints to me to our Board president at the time and slowly built my case that her expectations were unreasonable. (At another point, she complained when we had workmen in doing a repair even though we had cleared the repairs and work time through our co-op board.) I don't know if you have a homeowner's association, but I would make sure you are complying with any of the rules set out by them- carpeting floors, keeping construction/repairs during workday hours, etc. Beyond that, definitely have a written record that they complained about the kids running when they weren't even at the home that week.

[honey987]

Thanks everyone. A log is a great idea, I have let my tenant know. We are talking to the HOA about the best type of flooring since we prefer to have laminate so hopefully they can give us some insite on what would be best. Great advice

[Deleted]

I hate people who expect complete silence when they live in an apartment/condo. My sister has been dealing with her downstairs neighbors for a few months. They complain multiple times daily about noise- her kids go to bed at 8 and they spend a large part of their day outside of the home, but if they hear one footstep they complain and bang on the ceiling.

Anyways, let assholes be assholes, I guess.

[casmgn]

Aug 6, 2012 13:09:58 GMT -5 honey987 said:

Thanks everyone. A log is a great idea, I have let my tenant know. We are talking to the HOA about the best type of flooring since we prefer to have laminate so hopefully they can give us some insite on what would be best. Great advice

They definitely sound crazy, but laminate can be really loud. I would install carpet or buy cheap area rugs that cover the majority of the floors.

[theintended]

I'm sorry. We had this problem at our condo. The soundproofing was great between units on the same floor, but noise transferred up and down, even with carpeting. We had crazy neighbors below us who complained when our 20lb toddler would walk across the floor in her bare feet in the middle of the day (one time they came up and kicked our door and swore at us). Some people are just nuts and have very unrealistic expectations for that living situation.

[bronxgirl]

ugh- I HATE people like this. If you don't want to deal with noise than get a top floor unit or a house. Why do people insist on living in apartments f they don't want to hear their neighbors