I’ve owned my downstairs condo for almost 2 years and the current upstairs tenant has rented for almost a year. We cannot stand each other, I want her out. We are around the same age but she’s inconsiderate beyond so many levels. When I had police officers visit on 2 previous occasions, both sided with her. My issue is she’s blasting music and has guests over in the late hours sometimes. There is such a thing as noise ordinance, quiet hours are from 10PM- 7 AM. When I first approached her face to face she seemed apologetic but after a while I got the cops involved because she clearly wasn’t genuine.
I called the HOA office and they said I can provide the police reports & from there they will send her a warning letter, too many letters can result in eviction. I spoke with my city commissioner and he provided advice on how to continue gathering evidence to build my case. He said he wants me to speak with the assistant city manager, she’s dealt with similar cases and may provide a solution. I doubt it, they’re busy people and I haven’t heard from her yet. The city commissioner had one of the leads at the police dept reach out to me, the officer apologized on the negligence from the 2 previous officers that visited and said to keep him informed if I experience that bad customer service again.
The owner lives in another country so there’s a property mgr. I didn’t mention this tenant with the mgr but he’s aware of my issue with the previous tenant. Because he wasn’t helpful, I went to the HOA instead
Have you had similar issues with more than one tenant? Maybe your expectations are unrealistic.
If the building isn’t well constructed, sounds coming from an upstairs apartment can sound very loud even when the residents aren’t doing anything other than normal activities. It’s possible the police sided with the tenant because after checking out the situation they found she wasn’t doing anything wrong.
And then you’ll get a new upstairs neighbor and have a whole new set of problems. The problem isn’t the neighbor, it’s that the condos don’t have good insulation.
I spoke with the HOA and there’s a process. Bring reports or recordings, they send 3 warnings. First one is a warning, second is considered violation with fee and the third is final. With the 3rd, the HOA board can meet and have her evicted. She’s being loud with quiet hours in place
Do you have the police reports? Do you know what they say? If the police reports simply say that they checked out a noise complaint and found no problem then those won’t help you.
I’m not talking walking etc, she has guests and is loud/plays music in the late hours. There’s such a thing as quiet hours and the HOA confirmed that can be considered a violation
I called the police dept and spoke with the head officer who let me update my notes. The other officers notes were very brief and made me come across as a nuisance. But I have recordings to back me up?
I can’t imagine there’s a rule against having guests in your apartment after a certain hour. It sounds like you expect this to be run like a college dorm with rules about visitors and quiet hours. That’s not how apartments/condos work. Usually noise restrictions specify a certain maximum decibels outside the unit. Have you measured the decibels in your unit to see if the noise coming from her unit exceeds whatever rules your hoa has in place?
A recording won’t matter, because you can’t judge how loud a noise is from a recording.
I’ve never heard of “quiet hours” in a condo either. The city/town may have noise ordinance laws though but having a small gathering of friends or watching TV/listening to music at a reasonable volume isn’t going to be a violation.
We’ve lived in apartments and condos many times over the years. We’ve always been able to hear our neighbors and it’s never been as quiet as we’d like. Sometimes the neighbors have felt the same about us (I still remember in horror having to be in temp housing when our D was a baby and having a downstairs neighbor that called management every time she uttered a single cry). IMO, that’s just the “cost” of living in a multi-unit dwelling.
If this is largely an issue of poor construction/insulation, you’re just going to have the same problem with the next tenant. And then you will be considered just a chronic complainer and they will never take you seriously again.
For this reason, I would never buy a lower level condo. Poor construction can turn even the smallest, quietest person into a huge elephant.
Good luck-I’m not really very optimistic you are going to end up satisfied. But you never know.