noisy tenants other unit owners complaining

Hi All

A first for me:eek::confused:

One unit I own in a strata block has the tenants from hell. They pay the rent and are not damaging the unit but are up late at night making lots of noise and also breaking other strata rules such as swimming in pool 'after hours'.

We are in the process of evicting them with grounds so that we only need to give them 2 weeks. This is now in progress and with the help of the PM we were trying to place them in other accommodation to minimize my rental loss should they stop paying rent.

The question for discussion is what really can be done by the strata/council/police about people who continue to make noise after the 11pm curfew. The soft target in this scenario has been me (the landlord) but in reality these are adults and should be held accountable.

Cheers
 
Yeah, people love going for the soft targets or attacking someone that's visible and easy to blame. For some reason, it seems that being deemed a "low-life" absolves that person of the responsibility for their actions and people criticise the reasonable person as it feels safer. After all, if you criticise the low-life then they might start a vendetta.

I don't have any expertise, but I would probably guess that you should quietly encourage disgruntled neighbours to call the police. If a police report were issued, even if it didn't recommend further action but simply a complaint, then that can give you leverage and you're covering your bases if the tenants kick up a stink and take you to the tribunal.

As a renter myself, I absolutely loathe noisy neighbours. It disturbs the peace and tranquility of my refuge, my cave, my territory. So I can understand the neighbours attitudes. You could see this as an opportunity. Go and have a cup of tea with some of the neighbours and have a chat (if you're so inclined). Apologise on behalf of your tenant and accept responsibility and go overboard with the self-criticism.

It's not because you are actually responsible, but it quickly turns righteously indignant people into allies. They'll place the blame on the tenant to keep the harmony and good feeling of the situation and then you'll have a chance to create a second, informal property manager.

You might try saying: "You know what, I sincerely apologise for the disturbance, I hired a property manager (if this is true) and they chose the tenant, and as such, the buck stops with me and I take total responsibility for this injustice (perhaps not fair, but it's the classy thing to do). I understand that you have a right to enjoy your home in peace and that you're a busy person who needs to know they won't be disturbed at home (make them feel important). I'm going to do my best to make it up to you and I was even hoping you might have some advice for me."

Then listen, hang on their every word and keep making them feel important. At the moment they feel their ego has been hurt and that no one is recognising how important they are. Bring them in and they'll repay you by doing everything they can to help. An irony of human interactions is that the more you help someone, the more indebted you feel to them! Messed up, isn't it, but true nonetheless.

Then you give them your number and tell them to let you know whenever there's any issue they're having witht the tenant. Give them your landlord's number and tell them that if they can't get hold of you they can call the landlord. And suddenly, you have another person on your side, and they'll win the others over too. You're the good guy and they'll go out of their way to make sure that your tenants are well behaved. If they're trashing your place, they'll let you know. If they've got lots of extra people staying over, they'll let you know.

Give someone what they want and you'll get everything you want from them. But it's important that you're sincere and that you lead with the giving hand. Failure to do so will create the opposite of what you desire, it'll create contempt and disgust.

It should go without saying that you are equally as savvy in your treatment of your tenants.

That's my 2 cents, but you may want the opinions of someone with some direct experience in these matters.
 
Hi Andy, yup agree with GGB. It is firstly a police matter.
Get the neighbours to call the police each and every time the tenant disturbs the peace. The tenant will probably act defiantly, until the third time the police are called......when they'll summarily rip it up him.

In my experience it is absolutely imperative neighbours don't get into acts of vigilantism. Just get them to call the police every time.

As for eviction, you can only follow the legal process.....which may cost you 4-8 weeks of rent if the tenant doesn't want to cooperate.
 
The question for discussion is what really can be done by the strata/council/police about people who continue to make noise after the 11pm curfew. The soft target in this scenario has been me (the landlord) but in reality these are adults and should be held accountable.

Cheers

How are you the target?
 
Hi Andy, yup agree with GGB. It is firstly a police matter.
Get the neighbours to call the police each and every time the tenant disturbs the peace. The tenant will probably act defiantly, until the third time the police are called......when they'll summarily rip it up him.

In my experience it is absolutely imperative neighbours don't get into acts of vigilantism. Just get them to call the police every time.

As for eviction, you can only follow the legal process.....which may cost you 4-8 weeks of rent if the tenant doesn't want to cooperate.

The main occupiers in the block are Asian's who seem reluctant to call the police. From day one (first brought to my attention) I have mentioned to the other residents (Chairman of BC) that the police should be called and the job number recorded. So far I have not received one of these reference numbers but they did then turn around and complain to the strata who wrote a letter to both myself(PM) and the tenant.

In the Strata letter there was a threat of a $500-$700 fine, not sure as never actually saw the letter. Also not sure whether the BC can actually level a fee or whether it actually referes to a police fine.

As mentioned we ( PM and myself) were trying to shortcut any delays by placing them immediately elsewhere but unfortunately that hasn't eventuated.

Following is an extract from the latest email from one of the residents (not the chairman)after I made the mistake of asking the Chairman to email me details of my tenants offenses.

"I send you this message at 2.50 in the night to complain again about your tenants at unit 20 as it is impossible to sleep because of them and my sleeping night is gone. It is every night they do the same thing with the noise laughihg and shouting they do on the balcony. It is not only them who live here, there are others who come here too, is kind of coming and going like at the disco.
I don't know who these people are who have not the least of considration for other people's comfort.
As the owner of the unit I live in am I to be controlled by tenants and I have no rights at all and only they have rights to do whatever they like without being responsible to anybody ?.
That is when you have monsters, neighbours from hell you have not the right whatsoever to silence and quiet in the night so you can sleep like other people ?.
For me personally this has become a serious issue and I don't know what I am going to do about it but I am forced to start to investigate about it because I need to sleep in the night, I can't sleep in the day like them.
From what I have talked with other people here they are affected just like me, but nobody complains, only me".


As I have mentioned these people have been advised to lodge complaints with the police including the gentleman who sent the email. As far as I know the police have only turned up one time.

The vigilante thing has already happened where the chairman (lives next door) has had his door kick after warning them out of the pool so no doubt there is a bit of a seige mentality happening. My tenants are of ilander extraction who do tend to have the one talks around, so I don't doubt the complaints which is why we are eveicting them.

I have been the soft target in as far that they prefer to complain to me rather than calling the police and actually getting involved.

Cheers
 
I am active on the strata otherwise the strata manager just overlords it with the other owners.

Cheers

Andy, I'd go around and meet the other owners en masse, and spell out in person what you are doing. That will ease their stress about the noise continuing indefinitely. I really feel for them not being able to sleep. It is an intolerable situation for any decent person to put up with.

I'd then use that meeting to encourage the residents to complain to the police every time they are disturbed. Yes your tenants might get their backs up after the first call, but they'll quickly become "known to police" if they harass their neighbours.

Often in some neighbourhoods, police deprioritize stuff like this.....but if calls are persistent from multiple residents, then the police have no option but to respond. If they don't, the tenants should then complain to their State Govt member of parliament about lack of police response.
 
Hi handyandy,

I had the same problem about a year ago. Police were called by the other tenants and so on but these guys (in fact, two women), were immune to any level of reason.

I went straight to the root cause of the problem and began eviction proceedings via my PM. When they were confronted with that they left on their own accord as to not blemish their tenancy records..

You will only get real peace with this thing by legally removing them IMHO.

cheers,
 
Well it seems they are going 'quietly' :rolleyes::D

Their eviction notice is up today and have already moved the large things out of the unit. Even better they are signed up to rent a house (engineered through the PM) which starts next Friday.

As the new property is still through my PM they are up to date with the rent so we have to bond to use for any damage.

Still a pain that I now need to do a change over but these things happen.

Cheers
 
As the new property is still through my PM they are up to date with the rent so we have to bond to use for any damage.

So these bad tenants have been shifted from you to another property managed by the same PM and you're still happy to have the PM look after your property:confused:
 
Apparently I have a similar issue. Here's me thinking noone would want to rent my old house because the neighbour grows/sells drugs and can be a bit on the loud side. So what happens? The tenants who are there are (allegedly) supplying drugs to the kids of the neighbours, and being noisy too. I've heard all this hearsay, noone has contacted me directly about it. Obviously they fit right into that corner of the neighbourhood.

I figure its not actually my problem, the only things that are my problem is making sure they are paying the rent and making sure the house is still loosely in one piece when they leave. Last time I checked, if your tenants break common law it is a police matter and landlords aren't some kind of moral parent substitutes telling their tenants to live a 'good' life. If they were, noone would become a landlord without giving their tenants a full police check, character check and psychological profile. All the riffraffy petty criminal sorts would have to own their own houses and all the good, clean living law abiding citizens would rent.
 
They don't sound so much like 'bad tenants' as 'noisy annoying neighbours'. Which I have vexperience living next to in a set of units myself.

These types of neighbours are horrible to live next to if you are in a neighbouring unit, because of the close proximity. The same may or may not be the case in a house - which has more room, space and privacy.

Just a word of warning, don't be surprised if the neighbours now continue to carry on about every little indiscretion of every tenant (good or bad) from now on, because now they have their hackles up - things which may not have been an issue before may cause the tenants to worry that the next tenant may get worse like the others did, so they try to 'pre-empt'.
 
Bloody hell people are soft these days. Making too much noise? Go and confront them. I lived in a unit once, where the guy downstairs used to get drunk all the time and play music really loud. He was in his 50's, before any of you automatically assume it was a young fella. It didn't bother me too much, I could still get to sleep no worries and I'm not a sook.

But one time he was playing music so loudly, the people upstairs from me started banging on their floor. What they thought they would achieve by banging on my ceiling, I have no idea. So I went down there, thumped on his door and told him in no uncertain terms to turn the music down and if I ever had to come back down again, he was gonna be sorry. His gf kicked him out about a week later.

What's all this about calling the cops? Do y'all think they have nothing better to do than deal with minor issues because some people don't have the cobblers to stand up for themselves?

Andy, if I was you, I'd tell the collective neighbours to grow a pair. Speaks volumes that you are willing to get rid of tenants that pay their rent and keep the place decent because other unit owners can't handle their own problems.
 
What's all this about calling the cops? Do y'all think they have nothing better to do than deal with minor issues because some people don't have the cobblers to stand up for themselves?
Hate to break it to you, but the answer to that question is "yes". I was endlessly amused by the frequency of the cops showing up to my ex-neighbour's house, called by various other people in the town. I tended to just ignore them or listen in to the dreadful bogan drug deals going down. Or if it was noise, just turn my own music up.
 
The question for discussion is what really can be done by the strata/council/police about people who continue to make noise after the 11pm curfew. The soft target in this scenario has been me (the landlord) but in reality these are adults and should be held accountable.
Cheers

Well first of all the LL is not responsible for what the tenant does, nor their guardian or babysitter.
Which means you can't "make" the tenant do anything.

As for the noise, there is no such thing as a curfew.
If you can hear noise in your own home coming from outside (with doors & windows shut), than you have grounds for a report or call the police.
And yep that includes the sunday morning noisy lawn mower next door.
So what can be done?
Obviously you can call the police and make a noise complaint.
If they fail to turn down the noise, you can then apply for a "noise abatement order" which makes it a much harsher offence if they keep doing it, at any time of day.
 
So these bad tenants have been shifted from you to another property managed by the same PM and you're still happy to have the PM look after your property:confused:

Absolutely. He did exactly what I wanted, which was to manage these tenants out of the property, have the rent up to date and have a full bond I can claim. Where is my problem?

Further they are not really bad tenants just boisterous and somewhat inconsiderate of their fellow residents. The property they are being moved to is a house in the middle of housing commission area so plenty of room for them to move.

Also to put the PM in perspective I have quite a few properties with this PM (just about my employee;)) so he pretty well does what I want.

Cheers
 
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