Noisy Apartment

hurricane26

I live in an apartment in Dublin which I moved into last August. When I moved in I was told by the landlord that there would be one lady in her 50's living over me and that she very quiet. I have been living there now for almost 8 months and I am having an ongoing noise problem. It turns out the womans daughter also lives there and does shift work so she gets up 5-6 mornings a week at 4am and walks around over me for about an hour and then the mother gets up at about half 5 and is still walking around when I leave for work at 8am. Its very annoying as its an old house and the floor boards are very creaky, its keeping me up every night and I work long hours.

Further to this they have knocked on my door numerous times on a Fri/Sat at about 6/7pm and asked me to keep it down from 9pm as they have to be up for work! I think this is a bit unfair. I am very respectful noise wise as it is a house so I never have parties etc... and in general I am very quiet. I am also only there aboout 1 weekend a month! They have complained me to the landlord numerous times and I have no idea why? I have also complained them to the landlord but he ignored my email.

Can anyone give me any advice on what to do? I love my apartment and its good value so I've being putting up with it all along but I'm sick of it now!

Menas

If you want to stay there then the only answer is to meet with your neighbors and have a conversation with them where you both share your grievances and try to find a compromise.
The other solution is that you get the landlord to do some soundproofing in your ceiling or to re-nail their floorboards. I am guessing that this is unlikely, but if the floorboards are accessible and you and your neighbors both suggest this to the landlord then he may be spurred in to action.

The alternative is that you move out and find another place as you and the house and your neighbors are incompatible. If you are breaking a lease then you will need to negotiate with your landlord.

cgarvey

hurricane26 wrote: »

Can anyone give me any advice on what to do? I love my apartment and its good value so I've being putting up with it all along but I'm sick of it now!

Move! It's the least-stressful option, and there's not much worse than living with the stress of that constant interruption.

You could try:
1) An informal approach to the neighbours to see if you can both agree what's acceptable and what's not. Are they aware that they wake you at 4am, for example? If you both are interrupting each other, you might be able to reach a compromise. Probably not, though.

2) Formally complain to the landlord. If email isn't doing the trick, try registered letter. If he still doesn't act on it (and I'm not sure he can do a whole lot), then let that be the opener of a conversation about you breaking your lease (especially as he told you about the "quiet" neighbour. That might drag out longer than the coming August anyway, but it might also let you get out a month or 2 earlier.

3) You can register a complaint with your local authority (usually the environment section) about excessive noise. I'm not sure (and IANAL) that you'll get anywhere, though, given that it's not quite anit-social noise, it's regular living noise. That process usually involves having to convince them there is actually a regular noise problem, after which they will send out someone to measure the noise, or (in some cases) leave some monitoring equipment with you. I doubt this will be successful for you, however.

4) If you can't resolve informally with the neighbours (and the landlord), and you can't get out of the lease early, then it's worth considering abandoning the lease (and losing your deposit). Technically you could be chased for the remaining months rent (depends on the lease), but that rarely happens (and the landlord's case will be weakened by not acting on your complaint). There's a value of not having that stress in your life, it's up to you to decide what that value is.

So there are a couple of routes to resolution (which probably won't work!), and there's the option to just move. You decide what's worth it (in terms of stress, and financially) after that.

dudara

Moved to Accomodation & Property

dudara

why dont you record the sounds on your phone next time they wake you up. Maybe the landlord could get some thick mats to help a little