› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Neighbour noise › Screaming kids driving me mad › Current Page
This is a classic case of of competing individual rights bashing up against each other. However, while owners corporations can’t ban children, you do have a right to the peaceful enjoyment of your home.
It’s up to the parents to moderate the behaviour of their kids. If they can’t or won’t do that, then they have to face the consequences.
Perhaps a sympathetic letter asking them to tell the kids not to run around at home, to keep their vocalising to a reasonable level and to be quiet when they are on the balcony might get better results than shouting off yours.
There’s a 50-50 chance that you will get a negative reaction on the basis of “you can’t tell me how to raise my kids regardless of how badly I’m doing it”.
But at least you will have an answer to the first question you will be asked when you ask the strata manager or committee to step in: “Have you approached your neighbours with your issues?”
There are no such creatures as StrataCops, so you are going to have to take this on yourself, at least initially. If the strata manager and committee refuse to get involved (they quite possibly will) you can make a complaint yourself to Fair Trading, where you will be invited to take part in mediation, and then to NCAT.
But you have a legal right to a reasonable level of peace and quiet; no one has the right to allow their kids to make excessive noise.
Right now in NSW, parents can still take their kids to the park (not so much in Melbourne). That’s the appropriate place for running around and screaming.
One word of caution – don’t get drawn into a war of attrition with these neighbours. Tit-for-tat “informal” actions – like playing loud music at a time when they want peace and quite – can only lead down a very dark road.