Dear Ktluu
First of all because I think this is what you want to know – we were successful at adjudication. Our noise events did include much thudding, thumping, scraping of furniture, running, dropping of toys – I think the noise was louder in our unit than theirs. They have a 2yr old (almost) who throws bottles out of the cot, pulls things over etc etc.
We went down both roads – ie NTC from OC which they thought was unreasonable – they requested ?professional mediation, so we obliged and personally went down that path too. The OC seem to get cold feet as do most other owners who don’t want to get involved (quite amazing really).
Mediation was not successful so we put in a submission for adjudication – 35 pages including a lengthy noise log which we started almost 2 years ago but early on we were not diligent in keeping this as we were naively hoping that they would understand how noisy it was for us and replace the carpet. We have lived in our unit for 9 years, 7 of which were peaceful with no noise – then came the timber floors. Even though they only walk in bare feet we hear the doof-doof of their footfall all the time – it is relentless. We put in our submission that the noise was invasive, pervasive and loud throughout our unit.
We received the result last week after a wait of over 3 months. We had stat decs from visitors and even a friend who heard the noises through the phone. Originally they wanted us to pay for an acoustic test which we would not as the husband had heard his wife walking in bare feet, so any other noise would be louder than than. However, in the end they did get an acoustic test done and although it met the BCA it did not meet the minimum level of the acoustic engineers requirements – this was a factor in the decision. We went for an order against the by-law for treatment of floors (14 in the SSMA Act). As my earlier post, you must describe how it disturbs you – be emphatic about this. That is what relates to the by-law – the noise through the floorspace must disturb you. Of course, it does but you must describe it – don’t get emotional just stick to the facts. They had asked for an order that we put insulation in our ceiling but the adjudicator denied this order saying that ‘we had not contributed to their noise’. They also wanted an order that we do not harass them but the adjudicator does not have jurisdiction on this – we had visited them twice to complain so I don’t think harassment would stack up.
Hope all this helps. They have been given 2 months to rectify the situation – unfortunately the adjudicator cannot say how they do it, except that ALL the floor must be treated – fingers crossed they replace with carpet.
Could you contact the occupier before you to get a stat dec about the noise – this might be helpful as will the other letters you have – this all supports your side enormously.
Let us know how you are going