Neighbor Problem....Harassment?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>So, many of you know that I’m in college right now. I live off-campus in a 6 bedroom apartment with 4 other guys. Our apartment is basically a duplex; we have 6 bedrooms on the 2nd floor, while other people have 6 bedrooms on the bottom floor.</p>

<p>My complaint is this:</p>

<p>I believe that one of our neighbors who lives below us is crazy. She has called the police on us not once, not twice, but eleven (11!) times. We’ve had noise complaints at all hours of the night, most often when all of us were asleep. The police have woken us up at 3 am, 8 am, 11 am, and etc. due to “noise complaints”. We’ve explained to the officers that we were asleep and were not making any noise at the time, and they’ve typically given us the benefit of the doubt.</p>

<p>My question is-can we charge our neighbor with harassment? The police are tired of coming here for no reason, and I genuinely believe that our neighbor is crazy. She’s called 911 multiple times when we were all asleep, and it is getting annoying being waken up by police at random hours of the night.</p>

<p>Does anyone have any advice?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>Have you gone to your landlord yet? My husband had similar problems with a downstairs neighbor who kept complaining about my husband’s loud stereo system and TV. The complex’s manager dropped by to confront him, and he opened his door wide and stepped aside so the manager could see the contents of his spartan apartment: a futon, two bookshelves, and his laptop. No TV. Definitely no stereo. The manager told the lady to stop issuing complaints or they’d file a noise complaint against <em>her</em>. (In that complex, three valid noise complaints against you, and you got evicted.)</p>

<p>If the landlord’s no help, I’d talk to the cops next time they show up and ask if they have any suggestions… Good luck… Good neighbors are fantastic, but lousy neighbors can be unbearable.</p>

3

<p>Yes, we’ve emailed our landlord every single time that our neighbor has called the police. He has threatened to evict our neighbor, but that was over a month ago, and the police have been to our place four times since then. We’ve emailed the landlord every time since then, but have had no response.</p>

<p>The police have said that they are tired of coming for no reason, but that’s all they’ve said so far. Would it be worthwhile to hire an attorney and sue our neighbor for harassment?</p>

4

<p>Call your landlord and demand that they follow up on the issue. As someone in project management, I can tell you that if you e-mail someone and they don’t respond, then you need to be more persistent about getting them to answer you… A lot of people just flat-out don’t respond to e-mails if it means they have to get off their rears and do something.</p>

<p>A lawyer isn’t going to do anything that your landlord hasn’t already agreed to do… A lawyer would just charge you a retainer and then would repeatedly call your landlord until they followed up on taking care of this. Do the footwork, call the landlord yourself, go down to the landlord’s office if they won’t respond to e-mails or answer phone calls, and save yourself some money and a lot of trouble.</p>

<p>Lawsuits are a pain in the rear for all involved, and all they really serve to do in a case like this is make people mad. You don’t want to make a crazy lady mad.</p>

5

<p>Is anyone else in the building making noise–and she thinks it is coming from your apartment?</p>

<p>The police probably have the idea that the woman is mentally ill. I wouldn’t want to sue over this, but you’ve got to meet with your landlord. Have you ever talked to the neighbor about it and asked her to stop accusing you? If the landlord won’t do anything, you might have to find a new apartment–that would be easier than a lawsuit. If the neighbor is indeed mentally ill, she may never stop imagining that you are making noise.</p>

6

<p>Definitely send a registered letter (return receipt requested) to the landlord about this issue, with dates and times. You can also hand deliver a copy. Basically, it would be good to have the landlord deal with this rather than have the crazy neighbor further upset with YOU (crazy people are not good to have mad at it). Getting an attorney involved will likely really not help the situation. It is past time to formally bring this matter to LL’s attention.</p>

<p>Hopefully, your lease is ending & you can move soon? Going forward, you may wish to find a place that has fewer bedrooms so perhaps you’ll have fewer neighbor issues. Two six bedroom places (one on top of the other) makes it more common that you might have problems with other tenants–closer proximity leads to more possible points of conflict.</p>

7

<p>Try to imagine yourself as a landlord. To evict a tenant,you have to be sure that the tenant is violating the lease. If your neighbor is indeed calling the police for no reason,then she is not allowing ‘quiet enjoyment’ of the premises The quiet enjoyment clause is written into most leases. An experienced landlord will want absolute proof that what you say is true. Otherwise,the landlord is taking one tenant’s word against the other’s. The landlord does not want to evict falsely and cause legal problems for himself.Even if he does evict,you are going to be living with the problem while the eviction works its way through the courts.
What I tell tenants is that they need to get the police involved with disturbing the peace. Once the police have determined that the level of noise or harassment has caused enough of a problem to issue a warning citation,then I can issue a warning letter to the tenant that is backed up by the police report. It would not hurt to get the police reports of all the times that the cops were called and see just what they wrote about the conflict. If the police reports all state that some crazy lady kept calling them, then good for you. If the reports did not assign blame,then Oh,well…
I think that you may need to have a meeting with the police department captain at the station house. Do not expect the police officers to go into a long involved meeting with you at the time of ‘crisis’. When the cops are called,they need to clear the call and move on to the next one. Meetings are the time to find out what your options are. Invite your landlord to attend if you like.</p>

8

<p>One other thing that might mean the police are on your side: If she’s really calling 911, and not the station house number, the police would be very very annoyed with her. They don’t like it when someone calls 911 – repeatedly – when there is no real “emergency.”</p>

9

<p>Depending on where you are, the calls can be classified as a false report resulting in a citation to the caller, at the very least. If the police have responded, ask for the reports. You may be able to help them make their case.</p>

10

<p>Pull out your lease tonight and read the fine print regarding your rights and responsibilities before you go any further. Every state varies on rights. </p>

<p>If you see nothing about protection or noise, than if you used a realtor contact them. This is what they are paid for, we as realtors must keep all of our clients records, in VA we keep them for 3 yrs. If the realtor has no clue on if you can, ask them if they could talk the RE attorneys they use for settlements. In most states these lawyers are RE only, and can give a quick answer without ever charging a penny to you. I have called my settlement attorneys many times and it is basically a 2 minute process.</p>

<p>If that can’t happen because you didn’t use a realtor, than contact the police and ask for copies of the reports from all of the claims. Ask them what you can do to for them filing false complaints against you. If you can prove to the police, then turn about is fair play and have the police contact the neighbor.</p>

<p>Honestly, I think you have a crazy neighbor. I remember when Bullet was in college and he had a sim situation. She never called the police, but she would come up and ring their doorbell in the middle of the night while they were sleeping to tell them to be quiet. I was there one time when we were all sitting in the living room eating pizza, no tv or radio on and she came up demanding that they stopped bouncing a ball on the floor. All I could do was sit there in shock and say WOW she’s nuts!</p>

<p>The one person that maybe in trouble could be the landlord because if you can prove harassment and wrongful complaints, while you have also proven that the landlord allowed this to continue even after you requested their assistance, and the did nothing, then the landlord did not fulfill his duties as a landlord and the contract is void, which means you can sue for the entire leases rent that you paid to them. However and the is a BIG however, you need to read the fine print of your contract. Like I stated it varies state to state.</p>

<p>Slumlord is spot on, it is very difficult to evict and they must show cause and proof to void the lease. Their hands are tied until you do show it, but once you do and you continue to get harassed, but the neighbor is not in eviction process you can have more options.</p>

<p>Understand eviction can take months upon months, it is not an easy thing, so you need to bear with the landlord if you feel they are trying to work it out. Many times it might mean that they have to get the sheriff involved (not the police) because they are presenting the tenant with a court order to evict.</p>

11

<p>Until you’ve been through a lawsuit it’s hard to understand how aggravating and time-consuming they can be. (Have you considered that the downstairs neighbor might elect to counter-sue?) Don’t go that route, please. What you can do is motivate the two parties with the potential to exert some influence … the landlord and the police. Of these two the landlord would be my choice. If he doesn’t act, tell him you have no choice but to leave at the end of the lease … AND that you won’t lie to potential subsequent renters about your experience. Of course, that’s just me. By all means get copies of the police reports. You’ll want them when you next see the landlord.</p>

<p>BTW, when we were young DW and I were the targets of “excess noise” complaints from the renters above us. They claimed our loud stereo kept their baby up. That was odd, since they had no baby. We never did find out what their problem was.</p>

12

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<p>Actually, many years ago when we were living in an apartment in the Dallas area, our upstairs neighbors were quite the noise makers. I suspect there was some domestic abuse going on, but I never called the police (didn’t want to be the target of someone’s rage if they found out I called - I was four months pregnant and had a two year old). I did talk to the landlord several times and they were not able to address the problem to our satisfaction, so we were able to legally get out of our lease early… in fact, we only stayed three out of the twelve months. So you’re not always stuck in a difficult situation, but it may require your moving, as opposed to the other. Thankfully we found a small apartment building that was much more quiet and made the hassle of moving worth it.</p>

13

<p>Have the same police come every time? Do they know this is an ongoing issue? I once was in a similar situation. The policeman basically took the person who had called 911 aside and gave her a scorching lecture about calling 911 when it wasn’t an emergency. Told her if she did it again she would be charged with interferring with police work. If it is not the same policeman every time they may not be aware of the ongoing pattern. You need to let them know and ask them to tell her to knock it off.</p>