› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Neighbour noise › Tricky situation with “legal noise” › Current Page
I really feel for you Oasis69 and thanks for sharing.
Here, for interests sake, is how my partner and I solved a particular noise problem in our strata, one of three in close proximity to each other. The following was sent as a leaflet but in stamped, mailed envelopes, addressed to Residents and Occupants. It has worked, at least for now. This was after getting NO help from the Strata Management Company who manage all three stratas.
Heading: Down With Doof-Doof! You don’t have to put up with it!
Hello Apartment Dwelling Neighbours in 23, 25 and 27.
Under the NSW Strata Titles Act someone else’s heavy bass you can hear in your apartment is ‘Offensive Noise’, a legal term, because it ‘interferes unreasonably with (or is likely to interfere unreasonably with) the comfort or repose of a person who is outside the premises from which it is emitted’. That’s a legal definition.
If the noise can also be heard in other apartments in separate blocks, as happens round here, there can obviously be no argument. It is Offensive Noise.
Check and you’ll find Strata Laws clearly state you shouldn’t make so much noise that it annoys your neighbours at any time. Even at 6pm the doof-doof you hear somebody else playing is almost certainly in breach of NSW Strata By-Laws because they operate 24/7 – there are no ‘curfew’ times.
Anyone who lives in an apartment in a strata building (especially in close proximity to other apartment buildings) and makes Offensive Noise such as this is inconsiderate and selfish.
State Laws add a further layer of controls, in addition to the Strata Laws mentioned above. State Laws set times when you have to turn it down, whether you live in an apartment or a house. Again, in an apartment, you are subject to Strata Laws over-and-above State Laws.
If you know who the inconsiderate apartment dweller is and can provide an identity and address, or just an apartment number, or if you want to share an opinion, send an email to xxxxxx.xxxxx@gmail.com. Use an anonymous email address if you have one but if you use your own email you will not be contacted and your privacy is guaranteed.
Also, don’t be afraid to let the miscreant know next time their noise is upsetting you if you know who they are, now that you’re aware you are ‘in the right’ and they’re breaking NSW Strata Laws.
If you’re the self-obsessed doof-doof person yourself, you need to stop.
And then there was the party which took place last Saturday night. Same apartment? We’d guess ‘Yes’. Too big a party! Too late! Too noisy! Why not just go to a pub or a club? When you live in an apartment with families, babies, kids and old people all living nearby in an otherwise quiet community, you just shouldn’t subject your neighbours to that sort of thing. It is very, very unfair.