Landlord/Noisy Neighbors Issue

[trackercowe]

Good morning everyone, was just hoping for a bit of advice. I have a friend that lives in a duplex with another set of tenants. She rented a place back (Leduc) in February and put down a security deposit of $1,000 on a year lease.

Everything was going fine until a noisy family moved into the top floor. They have a toddler and are up at all times. Both the child and parents make tremendous amounts of noise throughout the day and at night. Last night for example they were making banging noises in the middle of the night. They also smoke outside her window and litter throughout the property. Of course they also don't appear to be keeping up with their bills either, as the landlord has mentioned the utilities are not being kept up.

My friend also has been documenting the issue and has recorded the noise on numerous occasions. She did advise the landlord of the issue, but nothing was done. The landlord cannot be bothered to talk with the upstairs tenant and won't seek out any kind of mediation. This has now been going on for a few months and she has reached her breaking point. She is looking for a new place to rent, but is worried she'll lose the deposit. It's hurting her mentally and emotionally, and it doesn't appear like the landlord is willing to do anything.

What recourse does she have here? The lease doesn't expire until Feb of 2022 and the upstairs tenants will be there the entire time. I have read some expertise from similar situations on here, and was wondering if anyone had any advice I could offer her?

[photon]

She won't just lose her deposit if she just moves out, she's responsible for rent until the property is re-rented or the year lease expires. The landlord would have to sue her to get that money which if they rented it out in a month after she left they probably wouldn't do (or at least it wouldn't be worth the money and effort), but some landlords might do it anyway.

[calumniate]

i'd ask the landlord to put it up for rent asap. or offer to collaborate on finding another tenant for the purpose of lease transfer.

I had to break my lease taking another job in another city, and tried my best to find another tenant. I ended up being on the hook for a couple of months, but if she's willing to suck it up for a month or two, I'd get the ball rolling seeking another tenant. (This may also put pressure on the landlord to actually do something about the current situation)

[Calgary14]

Geez being a landlord is fun

[rohara66]

Reason 5,632 why being a landlord is literally the worst.

[fulham]

At least in BC there is a clause for "Conduct" which is grounds to break your lease. This would be any unreasonable noise, or conduct of a neighbour that unreasonably disrupts your ability to enjoy your place of residence.

This would give you grounds for breaking your lease early, if everything has been documented like you say; then you shouldn't have a problem.

Contact the The Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service (RTDRS) They will be able to give you good free advice over what her legal options are. It will put her in a good position when it comes to talking to her landlord. Her landlord even just knowing that she's been given advice by the RTDRS will make them more likely to let her walk as the hassle isn't worth it for most landlords.

I'd be prepared to lose the deposit, in order to convince your landlord to let you walk away, as I'm sure she doesn't want to go thru a multi month long dispute resolution process either.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by rohara66

Reason 5,632 why being a landlord is literally the worst.

Agreed. Your REIT shares don't call in the middle of the night.

[Torture]

I'm assuming she's on a fixed term 1 year lease? She has the right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises (ie. some noise is expected if you live in a basement suite but banging away 24/7 is not). The landlord has an obligation to provide peaceful enjoyment.

Unfortunately, even with that aside from documenting and making sure the landlord is notified, there's not a lot she can do to get out easily.
Noise could lead to frustration of the contract, but that's a whole process to go through with the RTDRS to prove it and she'd probably have to leave and continue paying, then fight for the money back.

Best bet is probably that she talks with the landlord, says she's not happy. Offer up the security deposit and get it in writing when the lease is terminated if he accepts. If he says she has to stay, she has the option to find someone and assign the lease to them and a landlord cannot refuse a reasonable assignment. (And if he does, you go to the RTDRS)

She could also skip town in the middle of the night and while legally she'd be in the wrong and on the hook for the duration of the lease (although he has a responsibility to try to mitigate his costs and find someone), it probably wouldn't be worth it for the landlord to go after her.

I had a psycho landlord and left ~4 months into a 1 yr lease right before covid. I found someone to replace me and he moved back that person's move in date so that I would still have to pay while he did renos, said I owed him a bunch of money including for the letters he was having a lawyer send me (lol I'm not responsible for your legal fees). I won and he had to pay me back, but it was a huge fight.

As a tenant it puts you in a pretty ####ty situation because it's really hard to rip up a lease and time consuming to do so (all while you're living in a place that you don't want to). Assigning it to someone is pretty ####ty as well, because you know that they're probably going to go through the same crap.

[darockwilder]

Leave Slayer blasting every time she is not on the premises. Then the neighbors can complain and get no results too.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Torture

As a tenant it puts you in a pretty ####ty situation because it's really hard to rip up a lease and time consuming to do so

It sucks for the landlord as well, it's not like they have a lot of control in the situation either. If the landlord did ask the new tenant to quiet down and they don't they'd have to get a judgment against them to evict them which isn't easy.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by photon

It sucks for the landlord as well, it's not like they have a lot of control in the situation either. If the landlord did ask the new tenant to quiet down and they don't they'd have to get a judgment against them to evict them which isn't easy.

That's true, but the landlord presumably still has a quiet place to live which the basement tenant does not.

[photon]

Haha true.

The one time I had a noise issue it was with a rental condo where I didn't own the offending unit, so I had even less control. Fortunately asking the offender to keep it reasonable worked.

I think I was also advised that for legal purposes if they didn't quiet down that I (or the tenant) should call the police to establish a record for any legal action, but that was a long time ago so I could be mis-remembering.

[TheIronMaiden]

Living in a basement suit will be noisy, full stop. That is not a license to kill if you live upstairs, but even reasonable activities at reasonable time can sound like someone is trying to bowl.

[Macman]

Some people are just more noisier than others and it can be a tough situation asking them to change. You could go talk to them and it may do you some good. It's really the downside of renting and being close to other tenants especially if you have a low noise tolerance.
I've seen a couple articles now about noise through the pandemic which has exasperated the situation with more people being home and working from home.
Some or most even just don't care though.

It may be best to cut your losses and move on.

[Regular_John]

We had this issue with the last place we rented, upstairs neighbours were constant partiers and had zero respect for shared areas. They basically acted like they owned the whole house and didn’t have to make compromises on anything unless it was in writing from the landlord.

The landlord in our case was pretty spineless and left most of it at “figure it out amongst yourselves” even though many of the situations were straight up “Hey, we asked them politely on 3 different dates to not be throwing drunken ragers at 2:00am on a Tuesday, and to clean up their dog crap in the backyard, they’re ignoring us.”

Eventually it got to the point that we called the landlord and said “You’re not doing anything to provide quiet enjoyment of our unit, we’re packing up our stuff if you don’t put your foot down on these items.”

He opted to list the property for sale and evict us all. Guess his easy “hands off” money maker project didn’t work out as he’d planned.

For your friend, I’d kiss the damage deposit good bye, and start looking for a new place asap. Cut your losses and move on.

[cam_wmh]

Ignore the previous posts, sacrificing the DD. The friend specifically said, she is concerned about losing it ($1,000).

Thus if she really wants to accelerate this, she should take the initiative. I recommend your friend put her own posting up on Rentfaster for the unit. Have her interview potential tenants, and then filter them to the Landlord. It's an unfortunate task for her to bear, to retain the DD when dealing with an unmotivated landlord.

[Johnny199r]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Agreed. Your REIT shares don't call in the middle of the night.

This is the greatest line ever for someone considering becoming a landlord.

[Ahuch]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Agreed. Your REIT shares don't call in the middle of the night.

Nobody does it for the fun, it's for the unique leverage you can achieve versus other investment vehicles.

[Johnny199r]

I've learned the hard way to always get a unit on the top floor in a building. Especially if it isn't concrete construction.

I lived in the basement unit of a small building before (4 suits per floor?) where my upstairs neighbour had a woman move in that liked to party. She would bring like 10 people over with cases of beer to drink at 2pm on a Wednesday (I recognized some of them as former clients of my criminal law practice). The music got so loud that my dishes would literally bounce off of my table. When I'd go bang on her door, she might turn the music down for 60 seconds, or just not responds to me at all, because she just didn't care.

She and the guy who rented the place were evicted after a few months because everyone complained to the landlord.

The day they moved out, the guy backed his pickup truck over the lawn to the front door so he wouldn't have to walk 10 feet in order to move his stuff. I have never seen anyone do that before, because no one else who lived there was a ######.

As a contrast to that, I moved into a place where the people above me were quiet and I never heard any noise. Great! However, it turned out the lady had an infant, who learned to walk/run a few months later and that's all it did. The building was wooden construction, so the sound was deafening. Tough situation, as she didnt know that would happen, but I was losing my sanity. I complained to the landlord a bunch of times. The lady got pregnant again and they moved out, shortly after. I moved to the top floor.

I fear the Original Poster's friend doesn't have any good options here.

There's a reason why 55+ buildings exist, and are popular with people eligible to live in them.

[Wormius]

We had a tenant living in our basement and their child made this their new favourite toy. I don’t know if there is a sound that becomes as rage inducing as that being plucked back and forth.