ApartmentLiving: There are ways to deal with noisy neighbours, writes Edel Morgan
Late night noise can be part of the deal when you move into a new development. You tolerate nearby apartment-warming parties raging until the early hours because it means others can't rightfully complain about the one you've got in the pipeline.
But what if a nearby party turns into a rampage by around 15 drunk revellers around a complex? This happened to a reader who contacted Apartment Living after she was awoken by two late night explosions followed by a car screeching around the courtyard of her development at high speed. The next day she discovered the explosions were caused when rubbish bins containing aerosol cans were set on fire. Two weeks later a party at the same apartment ended with a couple conducting a blazing row by the water feature.
Domestic disputes aired al fresco in surround-sound can be a nuisance especially when they are fuelled by alcohol. A friend living in a new estate was recently awoken at 3 a.m. by a rumpus outside. She pulled back the blind to witness a middle-aged woman forcing the door of a duplex apartment across the road open with a crowbar. The woman proceeded to inform the entire neighbourhood that her daughter and grandchild had moved into the apartment with a man - or "cradle snatcher" as she preferred to call him - who had left his wife and six children.
Eventually she addressed the shadows cowering behind the upper floor window: " You've got your wish, I'm going now," she said after an hour-long terror reign. Ten minutes later she returned. "I can't find my way out of this poxy dump," she proclaimed , "you'll have to get me a taxi, and you'll bleedin' pay for it."
The Gardai arrived and all went quiet. My friend confessed to being "both riveted and appalled at the same time" by the goings-on. The following weekend she was less entertained when there was another dispute at the same apartment at 4 a.m.
In a new development it is impossible to check out the neighbours before you move in, so what do you do if they turn out to be habitual noise mongers or involved in anti-social behaviour? Usually the first course of action would be to approach the offender - maybe with the back up of other neighbours - and ask them to stop. If relations are strained it could be easier to ask the management company to deal with the situation on your behalf.
Loud music and all night parties can be among the more straighforward noise problems to deal with. Most leases have covenants which forbid residents to play music, musical instruments or the tv so loud it affects other residents between midnight and 9 a.m.
If the management company is slow to deal with a complaint or if the noise comes from outside the complex - like a dog barking at night in a nearby house - and is "so loud, so continuous, so repeated and of such duration or pitch/occuring, at such times as to give reasonable cause for annoyance", you can take a noise nuisance complaint to the district court under section 108(3) of the EPA Act 1992. Getting a specialist sound engineer to record the level of noise could be a good idea. According to Rob Cussen of Robert Cussen & Son solicitors, domestic disputes can be deemed a nuisance "but they'd want to be continual and probably happening during unsociable hours".
