Tenant noise over landlord

[Travis Oakes]

I have a situation, I am house hacking a 3 family house and I am living on the 2nd floor. My 3rd floor tenant keeps to himself and is a older gentlemen. However, most mornings I am woken up by him walking and the floor is really creaky! And most mornings he will start moving/walking at 2:30am-6am and it’s so loud it wakes me up and I continue to toss and turn and not get much sleep.

What can I do? What should I do?

P.s. his rent is low for the market, only paying $625 a month. His unit is outdated b/c he’s been there for 15 years!

[Scott Passman]

Seems to me you pretty much have 3 choices:

1. Get ear plugs to use at night to dampen the noise and help you sleep

2. Deal with the noise as is

3. Update the floor/subfloor upstairs to get rid of the creaking 

You own the property so if the creaking is impacting your quality of life that much it's up to you to fix it.  The tenant isn't doing anything wrong so there is nothing to change in regards to their habits. You could even ask him if the creaking bothers him and perhaps if it does, maybe discuss updating the flooring and a subsequent rent increase for the new updated flooring in the unit?  I would just be careful how you approach it because having a good (presumably) tenant for 15 years is a blessing so don't chase them off over some creaks in the floor.