Advice for Loud Upstairs Neighbor Problem?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My upstairs neighbor is a single woman who, because of mental health issues, does not work and stays home all day. She stays up all night and sleeps all day. I try to go to bed at around 10:30 pm as I work during the day, and I have children that go to bed a lot earlier and go to school.

Throughout my year and a half of living here, she has continuously made our nighttime life hell. She moves furniture, stomps around, drops things on the floor, even to the point of knocking my pictures off the walls. I’ve complained at least 12-15 times to the manager. I’ve been told several times that she’s on her last warning, and will be evicted if it happens again. Yet, it keeps happening again.

This morning my 6 year-old told me that she woke him up in the middle of the night, and he banged on the wall. I don’t encourage him to do this, in fact, I’ve repeatedly told him to come and get me to handle it and NOT to bang on the wall. Still, he banged on the wall. I had finally, after her keeping ME up until 1:00 am, gotten to sleep, so I didn’t witness this. He told me that she cursed at him through the ceiling and screamed “f*** you” to him. Now, this makes me very unhappy. I don’t allow people to speak to my children this way, and it’s very much not okay with me.

I spoke with the manager again today, after having just made another complaint about her noise last Friday. She again promised to “speak with her”.

Now, my lease clearly states that I have the right to a peaceful enjoyment of my home, and I’d consider being able to sleep in your home to be a right. I’ve made complaints, I’ve documented my complaints, I’ve offered to call the manager while this is going on and have her come over to hear it. She declined.

What options, if any, do I really have? I know that I could claim “constructive eviction” and break my lease and move, and I do have sufficient documentation that I don’t believe I’d be held responsible. I don’t, however, have the means to move at this time, nor do I believe I should have to. Someone suggested that I call the police when she’s disturbing us, but I have had enough experience with TPD to know that I’d risk raising their ire towards ME if I were to call them out here late at night for such a petty thing. Not petty to ME, certainly, but to them I’m sure it would be considered very foolish.

Does anybody have any suggestions? I tried talking to her personally when I first moved in, but she screamed in my face, and knowing that she has mental health issues, I don’t feel very safe doing that again. Right now, I believe in retaliation for me calling the manager this last time, she’s in her bedroom (right above my bedroom), slamming her closet door shut every two minutes or so and stomping. She seems to be of the mind that she can do whatever she wants, because obviously nothing bad will ever come of it.

Does anybody ever get evicted for noise? Does anyone have any suggestions at all as to what my next step would be?

2

Well, you could ask the manager to move you to another unit. Free of charge of course. Make sure she knows all your complaints have been documented too. That should put the fear of God into her.

Aside from that. I’ve been working the night shift for 12 years now. This means I have to sleep durring the day when everbody and their mother is out mowing their yard or making some other kind of spine shivering noise right outside my window.

MY solution? EAR PLUGS! they take a little getting used to but well worth it in my opinion.

3

In my experience, a call to the cops can do wonders. It’s a lousy way to stay good friends with your neighbors, but what are the odds of you becoming good friends with this neighbor anyway?

4

I have a NOLO book on NY Tenants’ Rights, so take this with a grain of salt, Tuscon may be different. Their suggestion on noise abatement has 5 steps:

1 - Approach the noisy neighbor (you already did or dismissed this idea)
2 - Send written complaint to landlord (done)
3 - Gather evidence. This is critically important for steps 4/5. Tape her noises, keep a detailed log book. I mean detailed, dates, times, descrptions, as much tape as you can manage. This is evidence you’ll use in court.
4 - Withhold rent. This is the big step. It’s pretty much the only thing you can hold over the landlord, but really should be the last resort. I think you’re near that point now. You need to write a tough follow up letter (no telephone for this, registered mail, return receipt, or hand deliver, keep a copy for your records) clearly stating your intention to withhold rent as of the next payment, unless action is taken. You have to also be prepared to go to court, and maybe get evicted yourself, because the landlord can bring a nonpayment suit against you. If you go to court, you’ll need that evidence in 3 above, and keep taking notes and recording after you withhold rent to keep the complaint fresh.
5 - Sue the landlord. This would be instead of #4. It is safer, you can’t lose your home for suing someone, well not directly at least. However, you will need a lawyer to draw all the papers up, and may need more evidence on your side to be successful. You do not technically need a lawyer to do #4. All that “need a lawyer” talk is only good for NY, YMMV.

NOLO also claims that it is risky to move out over noise. Noise complaints are subjective, even with good evidence you can lose. If the nonpayment judgement goes against you, you will be on the hook for both the old and new place until the landlord finds a new tenant. If you lose in #4, I believe that you can just write out a check that day for the back rent, and be OK. Even if you get evicted, you won’t be on the hook for more than 1 rent at a time. Again, this whole thing assumes NY laws, see if there is a similar book for Arizona.

5

Hack her to death with a kitchen knife?

6

This may not be a good idea if the OP has small children, especially incombination with a neighbor who is battling a mental illness and has difficulty respecting others. (What if the OP’s son bangs on the wall, and the neighbor decides to come down to take care of the banging–she’s already been confrontational–and the OP has her ear plugs firmly in place. Not a good scenario.)

I’d personally go with requesting another apartment. It’s obvious that manager doesn’t want to take care of this by evicting another tenant. (It is possible the manager may have her hands legally tied as well. Not sure of the regional laws, and I’m not an attorney.)

7

My experience with annoying upstairs neighbors was that nobody does anything until you threaten to call the cops and inform you landlord that you (their quiet, non-troublesome tennant) will be leaving because the neighbors are asshats. I left at the end of my lease. If I would have wanted to, I could have left earlier and my landlord would have let me out of my lease. If the woman really has uncontrolled mental problems, a call to the police might get her into counseling or an institution, at least for a while. If she is yelling obscenities at your child, she is definitely a threat to herself or others.

8

Thanks for the replies! I’m always so delighted and surprised when my threads don’t sink like a stone!

Ear plugs: considered and dismissed due to safety issues with young children.

Moving to another apartment: considered and mostly dismissed due to the fact that I’m moving regardless in March, and moving twice in 6 months is not appealing to me.

Hacking with a kitchen knife: Fantasized about and dismissed because this woman is a lot bigger and more crazy than myself.

I’ve decided to take the best of the advice, and a twist to it, and write up a letter detailing each and every complaint, the responses and outcomes, and request that SHE be moved to another building. If she’s going to behave like this, and stay up all night, SHE should be in a downstairs apartment so that she can disturb as few people as possible. We shall see what happens.

9

The simple answer is to move. Either to another unit or another complex/building. No, it’s not fair, but you will be happier in the long run.

(nitpick) You neither “allow” or “disallow” people to swear at your kids. The woman is nuts and is going to do what she does regardless of your wishes. If you don’t want her swearing at your kids, you need to remove your kids from the situation. (/nitpick)

10

here in nj they sure do.

it’s a detailed process which can take months and get expensive, but i have seen it done.

it sounds like you are dealing with this problem when in fact it should be your landlord. this other woman is his tenant, therefore his problem.

make an appointment to see a lawyer and find out what your options are in forcing your landlord to take action.

11

Another vote for get the cops involved!

My friend had similar problem problem. He followed …

[ul]
[li]Log offending noises[/li][li]politly confront upstair neighbor[/li][li]registered lettters to the manager[/li][li]call cops[/li][/ul]

He did not call the cops to the scene, just a next day call logging a complaint.
After he notified landlord and manager that compaints were now being
logged with te police, action was finally taken. Funny thing, it turned out
he wasn’t the only one complaining!

12

Your best bet is letting the LL know you will be calling the cops from now on.

Beware of claiming constructive eviction/withholding rent options without talking to a local lawyer. Constructive eviction in your state may only be relevant if your LL violates a city building code like failed plumbing etc, i.e. noise usually doesn’t meet constructive eviction. Also, your lease may explicitly state that it is not the landlord’s legal duty to keep neighbors from being too loud. (Whether this is true or not probably depends on state law and your local legal culture.)

But LLs will want to keep good tenants around and hate having the cops show up.
So up the ante with the cops, move when your lease runs out, and when you give notice, tell the LL you’re moving due to the noise–whether that’s the case or not. (may not help you but may make a better LL out of him)