It is inevitable, noise complaints happen. Do your Property Manager and Landlord clients have a good plan in place in the event one of their tenants actually files a complaint? What is the Property Manager or Landlord’s responsibility when issues like this come up?

Obviously you cannot control every situation or ensure that no one will ever make a noise complaint, but there are steps your Property Manager clients can take if their tenants complain about their noisy neighbors.

• Research the complaint. Try to determine if it is a one-time offense or if there is actual merit to the complaint. Don’t be shy, check with other neighbors in the vicinity to see if they’ve heard any excessive or loud noises from the unit in question.
• Address both parties. If this is the first offense, make the tenant aware that there has been a complaint made against them and let them off with just a warning. Make sure the tenant who has made the complaint knows you are looking into the situation.
• Do your Property Manager clients and Landlords have a clause in their lease for noise control and ‘quiet hours’? If the issue has been addressed, yet continues to occur, the Property Manager should refer to the signed lease agreement and make the tenant aware of the penalties as cited in the agreement.
• Eviction of the noisy tenant may be your Property Manager client’s last resort. It may be better to evict one noisy tenant than lose several good tenants due to the noise.

Obviously, when you live in an apartment, coop or condo you are bound to encounter noise pollution. How the Property Manager/Landlord deals with this noise pollution is the key to keeping all parties involved happy.

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