Noise Complaints: Blasting Music Is One Thing, Playing the Piano Another
March 26, 2015 — Neighbor-to-neighbor noise complaints are almost always tricky for co-op and condo boards. Ideally, boards have to find a way to resolve the problem without resorting to time-consuming and expensive litigation. Not all noise complaints, however, are created equal.
When the neighbor making noise is clomping up and down the apartment in heavy shoes at midnight, the solution can be as simple as enforcing existing rules. Most co-ops have a rule that a certain percentage of floor space outside of kitchens, closets, and bathrooms — typically 80 percent — must be covered with rugs, carpets, or other materials that reduce noise. When the neighbor making noise has made it a habit of playing loud music at 3 A.M., the board can also point to house rules and encourage compromise.
But what happens when the neighbor who's made the complaint works from home, and the neighbor making noise is simply practicing the piano (or other musical instrument)?
When neither side is behaving in a seemingly unreasonable manner, reaching a compromise can be even trickier. With an increasing number of people working from home, boards should sit with their attorneys and consider hypothetical scenarios and respective solutions — doing so will allow them to be ready if and when an actual problem comes up.
Negotiation
One option a board might consider in a noise-complaint situation where the offending neighbor is not being discourteous and behaving disruptively at all hours is to have a meeting — with the managing agent and building attorney present — with the two neighbors. Creating a neutral environment where both parties can talk to each other may result in a compromise that works for both.
Perhaps the piano-playing neighbor can agree to practice on certain days, at certain times, and for no longer than an hour or two. Perhaps the neighbor making the complaint can agree to wear headphones or use a white-noise machine.
Mediation
If that doesn't work, then mediation is the next step. The landlord-tenant court has a mediation division staffed by housing court personnel that can help both parties try to resolve their dispute before they go to trial. But since the aim is to avoid the courts altogether, boards can recommend going through the Co-op and Condo Mediation Project. The project is designed to settle residential disagreements amicably at a lower cost than standard courthouse litigation.
Sponsored by the Committees on Cooperative and Condominium Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution, the program offers an impartial third-party selected from a pre-approved group of mediators to help resolve the dispute. For more information about the project, click here.
Perhaps the two parties agree to install noise-abating materials (for example, between the floor of the upstairs apartment and the ceiling of the downstairs apartment), and agree to split the cost.
In a case like this one where someone playing piano during reasonable hours is neither breaking the building's house rules nor in violation of the proprietary lease, and therefore, not doing anything that might get him or her evicted, there may be no solution at all. It's part of community living, as is (sometimes reasonable) neighborly noise.
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