If you live in a condo, chances are you’ve dealt with noisy neighbours.
Blaring televisions, shouting musical instruments, barking dogs – noise issues are among the most common complaints to property managers. And they can be complex.
“When it comes to noise, what’s acceptable or tolerable to one person may be intolerable to another,” says Sandro Zuliani, senior vice-president of Brookfield property management.
Condo Chic(k) knew that noise issues were a reality of condo life. But I didn’t realize how exhausting, how draining and how invasive they could become.
My own ordeal began in November, when a neighbour began blaring his music at four o’clock in the morning. After three incidents in a single week, I was rattled, frazzled and very, very angry.
There are prescribed steps a condo owner or tenant can take to alleviate noise problems. First, get it on the record. Call security, then inform property management that you have done so. This allows your property manager to take the next steps to shut the situation down.
“All complaints are documented. So we encourage owners that, if this is an ongoing problem, establish a pattern: call security so that they can witness it and confirm it,” says Zuliani.
Under the Condo Act, property management and the complainant are required to go through a process of mediation and arbitration before an offender can be brought before the courts and compelled to comply.
First, a formal letter will be sent to the offending party, advising them of the problem and ordering them to rectify the situation. Usually, this first letter does the trick, says Zuliani.
“Sometimes people just don’t know they were even causing a problem,” he says.
But it does happen that the first warning falls on deaf ears. A second, sterner warning letter from the condo corporation’s lawyer usually follows. Often, property management will recover the cost of drafting the letter from the offending resident. So being a noisy resident can cost you more than the friendship of your neighbours – it can hit you in the pocketbook.
If the noisy neighbour is a renter, property management also has the right to inform the unit’s owner. Mediation is the next step.
“During the mediation process, we would simply ask, ‘Why can’t we all act as good neighbours?’ This, of course, involves a certain amount of give and take from everyone and the realization that this isn’t just your building, it’s a community.”
Sometimes the person complaining is the unreasonable one.
“If it’s just one person complaining, it may be that that person has a greater sensitivity to noise than others,” says Zuliani.
But a condo board and property manager are obligated to investigate every complaint and, if an offense has been committed, rectify it.
Ironically, many people are hesitant to call security or involve property management because they fear retribution.
“Security will never knock on a person’s door and say, ‘Hey, your neighbour upstairs is complaining about the noise.’ It is always a confidential process,” says Zuliani.
That’s where Condo Chic(k) erred: if you’re having noise issues, never confront the offender.
Thinking that a reasonable person would recognize that blasting music in the wee hours would be a nuisance, I first visited my noisy neighbour and asked politely for quiet. Big mistake. All it did was let the jerk know who was calling security on him.
“As property managers, we never advocate that any homeowner take this issue into their own hands,” Zuliani stresses, “because you never know who’s going to open that door.”
Indeed, my own noisy neighbour confronted me on my doorstep after one security call.
“If you feel threatened by a neighbour, you just need to call the police,” says Zuliani.
That will be Condo Chic(k)’s next step.
“There can be a lot of grey area,” says Zuliani. “But I think part of condo living is understanding what you’ve bought into. If you want to crank your stereo at two in the morning, a condo isn’t where you should be. Move to a farm and blast your stereo there.”
Amen.
