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Q: My roommate and I stay on the third flooring of a three-story walk-up in Brooklyn. Our landlord and his household stay 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 beneath 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 these days our landlord has change into more and more irate at any time when we now have visitors. Do we now have choices when he calls for that no associates go to? What are our rights?
A: The excellent news is your landlord doubtless doesn’t have grounds to evict you based mostly on the minor noises you describe — that means try to be free to proceed internet hosting visitors.
“The usual for noise is unreasonable or extreme with the intention to violate the noise code, and it’s a reasonably excessive bar, particularly in New York Metropolis,” mentioned Ingrid Manevitz, an actual property lawyer and a companion on the regulation agency Seyfarth Shaw, the place she can also be a co-chair of the Condominiums and Cooperatives observe.
Establishing whether or not noise is, in actual fact, 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 mentioned.
Because the landlord owns the constructing, it’s additionally his accountability to make sure that the residences 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 unsuitable to have to enter their pockets and pay for a fabric simply due to the way in which the constructing is constructed,” Ms. Manevitz mentioned.
After all, nobody needs to be in a dispute with their landlord, particularly once they’re neighbors. Ms. Manevitz prompt asking yours to put in a foam-material padding that may take in sound beneath the carpet. It’d take some negotiation, however “the tenant may supply and say, ‘We’re doing every thing we will. I hear that there’s this materials. If you wish to pay for it, we’ll put it underneath our carpets,’” she mentioned.
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