Q: My roommate and I reside on the third flooring of a three-story walk-up in Brooklyn. Our landlord and his household reside on the second flooring. Each step we take reverberates by means of their condominium, so if we stroll to the kitchen at evening or use the hallway lavatory after 11 p.m., we get a broomstick knock from under or a belligerent textual content about stomping round. We’ve carpeted the place we will, don’t put on footwear within the condominium, and attempt to stroll as frivolously as doable. However recently our landlord has change into more and more irate each time we now have friends. Do we now have choices when he calls for that no mates go to? What are our rights?
A: The excellent news is your landlord seemingly doesn’t have grounds to evict you primarily based on the minor noises you describe — that means you ought to be free to proceed internet hosting friends.
“The usual for noise is unreasonable or extreme so as to violate the noise code, and it’s a reasonably excessive bar, particularly in New York Metropolis,” stated Ingrid Manevitz, an actual property lawyer and a accomplice on the regulation agency Seyfarth Shaw, the place she can also be a co-chair of the Condominiums and Cooperatives follow.
Establishing whether or not noise is, actually, legally extreme or unreasonable is on the owner. “That requires testing as a result of the courts wish to see measurements and information earlier than taking that type of motion. That’s an expense for the owner to incur,” Ms. Manevitz stated.
For the reason that landlord owns the constructing, it’s additionally his duty to make sure that the flats are liveable. If, say, the floorboards are creaky and loud, he wants to repair them, add some soundproofing or go on being irritated. “The tenant’s not doing something flawed to have to enter their pockets and pay for a cloth simply due to the way in which the constructing is constructed,” Ms. Manevitz stated.
After all, nobody needs to be in a dispute with their landlord, particularly after they’re neighbors. Ms. Manevitz advised asking yours to put in a foam-material padding that may take up sound under the carpet. It’d take some negotiation, however “the tenant may supply and say, ‘We’re doing the whole lot we will. I hear that there’s this materials. If you wish to pay for it, we’ll put it underneath our carpets,’” she stated.
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