Question: My upstairs neighbour has a tiled floor and I can hear every noise he makes, however, he is constantly yelling at me for making too much noise. We are at a stand still. What can we do?
I have an annoying neighbour upstairs who is constantly banging on his floor and yelling at me if I make any noise.
His apartment has floorboards instead of the carpets. He is the one with noisy flooring, yet he constantly complains about me.
I can hear every noise from his unit, including his footsteps.
What can I do to solve this situation?
Answer: Your first step is to have a conversation with your neighbour.
You have my empathy on this one. Noise issues can be very disruptive in a strata scheme.
It’s not clear if you have had any kind of interaction or conversation with your neighbour. If not, then that is your first step (subject, of course, to that being safe and appropriate to do so). There may be a resolution which can be reached informally. I have heard of situations in which getting a neighbour to stand in another apartment to hear noise can be enough to help that neighbour understand the issue better and put into place some fixes.
After that, you need to decide how far you will take this matter and the amount of effort you want to put into it. The bottom line here is that nothing will change unless you take steps to change it. That means pursuing your neighbour for the apparently ‘wrong’ flooring they have installed, or pursuing your neighbour for the interruption and potential nuisance they are causing to you, or both. While I can’t comment on the processes for this in NSW, in Queensland this would mean enforcing a noise by-law and/or pursuing a breach under nuisance provisions. That process starts, typically, through your committee. You might want to think about keeping logs of noise, if you haven’t already.
Bear in mind that your neighbour may decide to do precisely the same thing against you for the noise they say is coming from your lot. Which leads me to ask you: do you think your neighbour has a valid concern about the noise they say is coming from your lot? You mention their flooring, but you don’t say if your lot is being used in a way which might cause disruptive noise. Remember also that even if your lot is used for everyday purposes (e.g., it’s not as though you are constantly holding loud reckless night time raves), that everyday usage might still be causing noise and nuisance.
There is, I think, a lot of benefit for you to try and resolve this amicably with your neighbour and it may take a bit of honest reflection from both of you to do that. Otherwise, things can get difficult – and ugly – very quickly, for a long time.
This post appears in the July 2022 edition of The NSW Strata Magazine.
Chris Irons
Strata Solve
E: chris@stratasolve.com.au
P: 0419 805 898
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