Rental Issues..help!

In October, I rented a ground floor apartment of a 2 family house. About a month later, the landlord rented out the top half to a single mother and her son, who is 7. Since she has moved in, she is up ALL night long. I said someting to her after the first week, and she said she was sorry and she was just unpacking, etc..I said fine, and gave her the benefit of the doubt. The next night, I wake at 230am to the sound of vacuuming!!! I couldnt believe it. I have 2 children who are sleeping, you would think she would have some respect. I see her the next day and she apologizes, and says she was getting ready for Thanksgiving. Keep in mind, she doesnt work all day, as she home schools her son. I said ok, just keep in mind that I have 2 young children sleeping and I get up at 6am for work everyday. I went away this past weekend, and last night she was up ALL night again, and it sounded like she was going to fall through the ceiling. I heard her and her 7 yr old son up till at 6am. I really cant take much more of this...I emailed the landlord and im waiting to hear back....What would you do in this situation?? The landlord doesnt live in the house, so i feel that contacting him wont make much of a difference. HELP!!

Re: Rental Issues..help!

Write a letter to her explaining what you hear and send it registered mail.

Take notes. Write EVERYTHING down. Every peep. Send a copy to your landlord.

Make sure your landlord is involved. Only he/she has the power to evict them.

Re: Rental Issues..help!

OMG that is so annoying!!!! I don't what I would do beside let the landlord know

Re: Rental Issues..help!

Keep track of all the problems. The landlord has to do something. You have rights under your lease terms and that includes quiet during normal quiet hours.

I had a problem similar to this when I first moved in my current apt. The landlord finally evicted the upstairs tenants.

Re: Rental Issues..help!

Is it loud during the day too? Do the floors creak and things like that? Do they have carpeting? Is it required?

They shouldn't be vacuuming or banging around in the middle of the night but if it's just a loud place to live I don't know what can be done.

Re: Rental Issues..help!

I am going through this so I will give you my experience. But keep in mind my situation is probably different than yours which I will explain down the way.

I am in a building and the woman that lives above me must have some sort of alarm clock that is connected to a stereo. Every other morning, it goes off at 6:45AM. The music is so loud it is waking me up. I don't have to get up that early so it has been really pissing me off and I have been a much crankier person the last few weeks due to lack of sleep.

You are entitled to "Quiet Enjoyment" of your rental. Tell your landlord this! If this noise is happening before 8am and after 10pm, they are probably violating the local noise ordinance laws as well which you can check based on where you live.

Basically you want to document EVERY single time this happens. Start a diary. Then send a letter to the landlord, certified mail with return receipt explaining the problem. Your landlord would then have to contact the other party to try to get them to stop.

I have read that you can sue a neighbor (or a landlord) for routinely disturbing you after hours. You can sue for damages of $25 a day, possibly up to $100 a day if it's severe like waking you up and preventing sleep. I have audio and video recordings of the wacko's music in my bedroom so I have plenty of evidence. You do have to give the landlord time to rectify the problem though, which is why the certified letter is important to start a paper trail. In my case, the landlord will be sending the lady above me a letter telling her to stop the noise or be in violation of her lease.

If it were me, i'd personally rather sue and go after the landlord since your lease is with them and it is their responsibility to uphold the lease. I wouldn't want to sue the other party for risk of a frivolous harassment countersuit. I also think that even if you were to win your case, you would be better off sueing a landlord that has assets you can sieze as opposed to a tenant that may have nothing.

Now as I said above, it also depends on your situation. I only plan on being in this rental for 45 more days and am locked in to a lease so they can't boot me out. I will be going after them with full force the day I get out of here.

But in your situation, if you don't plan on moving anytime soon you may want to be careful with how you rock the landlord's boat. If you are on a month to month lease, it's even trickier. The landlord could actually see you as the "problem tenant" and the minute you start complaining, they could give you 30 days notice to vacate and you are screwed. Remember the landlord's most important priority is tenants that pay on time. If the landlord is absentee, they probably don't even care if the two tenants are ready to strangle each other.

Anyways good luck with it. I personally know how annoying that must be. Counting the days till I get into my new house and away from this dump.

Re: Rental Issues..help!

My mother owns the house I live in. It's a 2 family and DH & I Live on the ground floor. The tenants(A couple in their 40s) upstairs are VERY nice. Except that he is in more than one band. They were practicing in the apartment. I told my mother what was going on and she actually came over one night and as we were sitting at the DR table-my chandlier and the wineglasses on the wine rack started shaking. They were having band practice with a documentary crew up there.

She sent them a letter via certified mail the next day and we outlined the portions of the lease which refer to making noises and being corteous to other tenants. They tried to fight it adn said they'd been doing it for years (at that point, Dh & I had just moved in). She said either stop or get out. It worked. THey stopped.

Your landlord needs to be on your side. You need to make him/her on your side. Do you guys have leases? Make sure all communication with the landlord or tenant is documented.

Re: Rental Issues..help!