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[davebois]

Thanks Whale. 

Your suggestion is what we were already thinking was most appropriate, so it’s good to know we’re on the right track.

I forgot to include a response to the mention of ‘singing’ in the complaint…

Our housemate does like to sing whilst at home, and somedays will do an hour of practice, scales and the like, when he gets home from work – he studied music before moving on with his current career.

The fact the singing was mentioned means they must be able to hear him, but following their first complaint (which didnt mention singing) we already discussed with him that he needs to keep it to under an hour of practice and not go after 8pm. We also agreed he’d keep the volume down to a level that we can barely hear him in our own apartment, let alone adjoining ones. He’s been strict on this, and so have we.

When he does sing, we can hear him softly in the adjacent room, but not if we have the TV on, or if we’re talking. He’s no louder than a TV in another room.

While the other complaints such as audible footsteps are somewhat unavoidable, I feel the singing might be a bigger issue as they could very well say that the nature of the singing is annoying, not the volume.

We were told that the couple below us work from home, and assuming the layout in their apartment is the same as ours directly above, we can assume the room below my housemates would be their home office.

I think this is contributing to the complaints – I am sympathetic to some degree as I also work from home, but I don’t think they should have too much cause for complaint if the singing is only for an hour max, at a moderate level and after 5pm and before 8pm. Their ability to conduct their home business shouldn’t really play into this as it is a residential property not commercial.

It’s clear to us that they consider any noise to be offensive noise and seeing they complained and exaggerated about the only instance we have ever had guests over, I can see that they would do the same here.

The general guidelines about noise say music must be turned off or limited after 10pm, and we’ve been sure he keeps well within these, but it also says they have right to complain if the ‘nature’ is annoying, which is broad enough to include anyones biased opinion.

While we’d like them to know we’re self imposing these considerations on our ourselves to ensure we’re considerate of others, we dont actually want to get into details with them, as once we offer them a prescribed list of parameters, they’re sure to complain if it ever goes outside of them.

We want to make a case here, as we’ve done all we can think of to be considerate, but we still want to be able to enjoy our apartment.

Thanks db

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