Neighbor complaning about loud noise from tenant's autistic son

[Mauricio Lopez]

Hello everyone. I am currently presenting a situation I had not come across before and I can use some help from your wisdom and experience.

My family owns a rental property in a B class neighborhood in San Diego (Which used to be our primary residence a few years ago) and this is being rented to a family (single mother and three children) for a year or so already, under section 8. The tenant has not been a problem at all to us, she has been very communicative with us, rent is on time, she takes care of the property quite well. Her youngest son is autistic, 5-6 yrs old. The neighbor next door, 70 year old caucasian lady, is complaining that my tenant's autistic child has been making a lot of noises (tapping on the patio wood floor and screaming) for many days now (She has shown me a daily log with dates and time) and this is altering her peace. The neighbor indicates this can go for all day, sometimes from 8 am till 5pm, and she has tried to communicate this to my tenant but my tenant responded that this is a personal matter and the neighbor should not be inquirying about it, and if she continues she will take her to court. I believe my tenant's autistic son is already under a program where he receives help.

I have spoken to the neighbor already and intend to talk to my tenant about the situation, mainly as a mediator. I dont really know about any legal matters and not sure how this would go. I am just being brought into this by my former neighbor as she wanted to let me know about the situation before she takes a next step such as filing a complaint.

I used to live in this house and I know that my former neighbor certainly has a history of complaining about certain things (dog getting to her backyard, front yard hedges between our house and her house getting messy) but I always tried to keep thing respectful and would help where reasonable.

I really would appreciate if you can share with me any tips on how I could deal or not deal with this situation.

Thanks so much in advance,

Mauricio