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We moved into an apartment in Darlinghurst just over three months ago. The apartment is only small (12 units, three floors) and in beautiful condition in a charming old building. With the location and condition comes a hefty monthly rent split between the three of us (a couple and single all late 20s). But we were happy to pay the extra to finally get an apartment in such great condition in a lively area of Sydney.
In the first week after we had moved in we received a handwritten letter in our mailbox from our downstairs neighbours. It welcomed us to the building and told us that they had been living there for five years.
It then went on to warn us that the building was prone to noise travelling, and listed many activities that we should avoid, which ranged from loudly shutting doors (fair enough), wearing hard shoes inside (we have wooden floorboards, so fair enough again) to ‘kitchen activities’ , ‘moving chairs’, etc. etc. It also suggested we carpet areas of the house such as the hallway, etc.
We thought the letter was a bit over the top, but took it on board because it is an old building and thought perhaps the previous tenants had been particularly noisy, or perhaps they were referencing the usual noise we would have made moving in – although we did move in on a weekend in the day.
As we all work hectic schedules, we never got around to replying to the letter. But as it was a ‘heads up’ we didnt think it was too important to reply.
Then about two weeks later we received a call from our agent who said that our downstairs neighbour had called our landlord (the landlord herself was living in the apt before us and we assume they know each other personally?) and asked them to personally tell us we need to be considerate of noise.
This was confusing to us, because we had been extra careful to avoid making noise where we could, such as not wearing shoes inside, we bought rugs for the lounge room and bedrooms, and we had not even had guests over yet.
We explained to the agent about the letter and that we had already taken steps to be considerate of noise, and they suggested we simply reply to the neighbours to let them know we understood.
So we did, we wrote them a letter saying thanks and noted.
Then this week, just over two months on, we got a call from the agent again saying that the building strata had received a formal complaint about noise which again listed ‘heavy footsteps, slamming doors, loud music throughout the day, meetings on the balcony and singing’.
Again we were caught off guard as following the last call we had been overly cautious, and I would even say paranoid about making unecessary noise.
While we’re really at odds on how we could possibly tred more softly around the apartment or close doors more gently, some of the complaints were not just exaggerated but also false.
For example, I work from home and so there is no way that I could possibly be playing loud music throughout the day, as I couldn’t myself work, which includes taking constant calls from clients. Both my housemates work fulltime externally.
I could only assume the ‘meetings on the balcony’ referred to the one and only evening two weeks ago where we had guests over and sat on the balcony. This is the one and only time we’ve had guests at all in our time at the property.
Clearly we are dealing with precious neighbours, who are intent on making this a formal issue… we have responded to our agents with our concerns, but they were really only interested in getting our acknowledgement that they had passed on the complaint, and not so interested in the specifics.
I should point out we live directly across a small laneway from a very popular bar, and right around the corner from a hospital emergency department. How they can be so precious with footsteps is beyond me as Darlinghurst is hardly the most peaceful neighbourhood in Sydney.
Our concern here is that the strata and landlord are not receiving our response, and should the neighbours make another complaint, this will be a third complaint against us and the landlord may simply take the number of complaints as an indication of our conduct, rather than the actual situation.
We do not want to move, nor do we want to have our lease terminated – finding good rentals in Sydney is hard enough without a bad lease against your name.
How do we as renters, without the ability to respond directly to strata, ensure that our landlord and the strata are aware of our responses to the situation? And how do we also let the neighbours know that we pay our fair share of rent and expect to be able to resonably live in our apartment without being hassled.
We are now paranoid about the smallest noises we make.
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