@JimmyT said:
@Dragandeewhy said:
If the kids are small up to 12-13 years old of course there is going to be shouting and yelling. What would you expect? What for you is loud daily noise for somebody else is just daily activity.
So, does this mean we have to put up with any level of noise created by children? If not, where do we draw the line?
Is it unreasonable to expect parents who have chosen to enjoy the benefits of strata living to consider their neighbours and moderate the behaviour of their children?
Or don’t normal standards apply to kids and their parents?
I’m not taking sides on this – I’m just curious to know what others think.
Jimmy
Hi All,
I have read this thread with much reflection, as I and my 2 other neighbours in our wing of an 8 unit strata block have been living with daily disturbing noise from the other neighbour in our wing for 3 years now.
You all raise extremely good points in your posts.
Whilst some occasional noise from neighbours is to be expected, and tolerated, in any strata scheme. There is a difference between occasional neighbour noise and disturbing and intrusive noise.
The noise doesn’t necessary always need to be loud, as the dull thuds of people walking about/ running or slamming doors can be clearly audible and if frequent (say every few minutes) can become a nuisance. It is the “nature” of the disturbance that is often the issue.
I agree that the best initial approach is to discuss the noise with the offending party early and directly. Don’t be confronting or accusing, but do describe what you are hearing and the impact it is having on you. Fair Trading NSW recommends this as the initial approach. Hopefully your neighbour(s) are reasonable people and understand that the noise is having a big impact on you.
Sadly sometimes this approach doesn’t work, your neighbours ignore your requests and the next step is to either issue a notice to comply or attempt mediation via a community justice centre or Fair Trading.
Again sometimes this fails and your neighbour tells you to get stuffed at mediation or ignores the notice to comply and carries on their merry way disturbing you day and night.
Step 3 in our case was to go for adjudication. This as Jimmy mentioned can take months. If you get a successful outcome the other party is almost guaranteed to appeal and if they get legal representation (sometimes pro-bono) you then have massive legal costs to bear. During this process the neighbour will often continue to behave as they always have.
What I have learnt is that sometimes you cannot prevail when your neighbour is determined to live however they please and what could have been a happy relationship between neighbours deteriorates badly. We are now at the stage if we politely knock on their door and ask that they stop slamming doors and bashing furniture, they call the police and complain that we are harassing them.
Sometimes the only solution as I have see too many times in this forum is to simply sell up and hope that you don’t encounter another neighbour who thinks that they have the god given right to behave however they please
As they say it only takes one bad apple to spoil the barrel