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Topic
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What can you do about noisy kids in an apartment block? It’s not just that a family has moved in upstairs from a Flatchatter, who wrote for advice.
On top of constant door slams and running feet, their floor has previously had carpet removed and replaced with something that doesn’t come close to dampening the thuds and yells of the children as they go about the business of being young.
What can they do about it? And while we’re on the subject, should young children be allowed in apartments at all?
Let’s knock that one over, for a start. Except for retirement homes, strata law does not allow schemes to pass by-laws forbidding children from living in a block.
In fact, there seems to be a growing trend for young families to live in apartments, especially near parks, schools and other amenities.
Ironically, these parents often chose a unit with hard floors because timber and tiles are a lot easier to clean than carpet.
But that doesn’t mean the downstairs neighbours have to put up with noise even if it would be perfectly acceptable in a free-standing home.
The vast majority of strata schemes have a by-law that enshrines the notion that we are entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of our homes. Children are not exempt, nor should they be. So parents have to make a choice, if they want to live in an apartment, they have to accept that community living requires a few compromises.
One of those is consideration for your neighbours and the parents (or their landlords) could put down flooring that absorbs noise or for tell the kids to restrict their rough and tumble to the park.
For our Flatchatter, the options are to approach the parents and ask them to get the kids to quieten down. If that fails they can take it to Fair Trading for mediation, and if that doesn’t work, they can seek orders at the Tribunal (NCAT). All of this can be done with or without the co-operation of the executive committee.
But even if they do get orders granted by NCAT, it will not be to carpet the floor, let alone evict the noisy family. It will be to cut down the noise – and that will start with the parents teaching their kids the value of consideration for others.
You can read the original post and other responses on flatchat.com.au/forum.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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It’s not just children overhead in specific apartments. I live in a scheme of two small buildings with a shared courtyard, with back stairs leading up to the upper level apartments. The way the buildings are configured, any noise in the courtyard is amplified and carries.
We have had ongoing issues with owners who seem to think that the common property is free for their children to roam day and night. In a single day I had two children at my back door 8 times.
Coupled with that is the noise. The courtyard is used as a playground, the children scream, at times the noise is unbearable. Even if the children scream inside their apartment, the noise is considerable.
I understand that children will scream and cry and make a noise, but there is a limit. I also know that the standard by-law provides that children should not be allowed on common property unaccompanied. Aside from anything else, there are liability issues. It baffles me why parents think it is ok to let children aged 3 and 5 run up and down external stairs. And try asking parents to keep their children under control, they don’t want to know about it.
I can’t comment on the specific matters in regard to kids – but
two/ nay three points1) Cities are crowded places these types of matters are surely inevitable – maybe some stratas should have restrictions built in for kids etc – I don’t know – obviously a long-term fix that.
2) I used to live on an acreage our nearest neighbours were 300-400m away from the nearest other property – we still got kiddy noise when they were real excited – just after school finished for a couple of hours in summer. It ended eventually – the renters moved on – the other kids grew up – took a few years though – complaining never worked – always exacerbated the situation and generally resulted in worse behaviour than ever. Sometimes a joint approach with others affected helped a little – not always.
3) Currently live in a terrace – nearby smokers (we are non-smokers and are very sensitive to smoke within a 50m radius I reckon) and excitable dogs who bark a lot is the present bugbear……we just put up with it – it is the price of living in suburbia I think….oh btw the smoker just sold up and moved on – hurray..
Isn’t this all part of living in cities/places/the world – problems generally aren’t solved on the outside anyway…..but moving into philosophy now…
Just a lot of my opinions remember,
I totally know what you mean. I want signs put up in my building saying children are prohibited from playing in common property, it would reduce the noise and save an accident one day.
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