All Forum Posts by: N.A N.A

IMO you'd be hard pressed to hold the LL responsible for the level of noise. Additionally, he doesn't have to commit to any certain number of tenants living above you. There could have been 3 moving in when you viewed the apt., now there are 5. He can put as many people in that unit as is lawfully allowed by local code. There is no way the LL can easily address the noise level you are speaking of. Carpeting with a good pad would only make a small difference. Your LL won't be spending the kind of money needed to add a better subfloor and sound insulation.
Be proactive. Tell the LL that the noise is untenable because you work at home and that you want to break the lease. Don't make it about promises he made. Make it about how you want his help to find a replacement tenant and break your lease.

What? So your saying hes not the one responsible for the insulation? He recently purchased this property (within the last 12 months)... completely gutted it and turned it into two 1800 square feet apartments. During the time of renovation you don't think insulation was ever discussed between him and whoever he paid to do the renovation?

In the many e-mails I have sent to him I made it crystal clear that if this were a normal living situation I wouldn't care if they had 10000 people living upstairs. The problem is when one of them moves I can hear it. Walking, moving things, dropping things, phone vibration, tv, music, etc I hear it all. So the more people that live up there means more sounds are produced.

Helping him find a replacement tenant now that the third floor is occupied will be impossible. Remember when I signed the lease no one was living upstairs. If they were during the walkthrough there's no way I would have ever signed it. That is one of my biggest problems with the whole situation. He lied about the insulation saying that we wouldn't be able to hear anything.... But we can hear everything.

Your opinion of how the renovation should have gone regarding sound insulation is not relevant. If your LL lied to you before you moved it, it's not like it's going to get better. At this point, there is no way the LL can address the situation in an effective or timely way. Is he going to vacate the upstairs unit while you live there for the remaining 9 months? Is he going to vacate it temporarily and spend the money to add sound insulation? Think man. Being angry and right (and righteous) will get you nothing but heartburn and that many more days in a living situation you say is untenable.

All you can do is try to get out of your lease and move. Make it clear to the LL that you believe you were mislead and that you won't take any legal action if you can move and get your deposit back. Either you get his cooperation to let you out of the lease. Or you sue to get out (with hear-say evidence). Regardless, you have to live there everyday until you move. So I'd start looking asap.

If he doesn't let me out, wont suing cost a lot of money with lawyer costs, etc? I have honestly been down this road before so I have no idea. If you have any experience in that area and have a ballpark number I would really appreciate any info.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Re read your lease and do the numbers. First, last and the deposit equals what? You have paid rent since Nov. Would March or April be your last month's rent were u to give notice? In any event, Landlord/owner should go over with you, or you should request to be shown the numbers you are still responsible for after breaking the lease.... I believe you would be contacted by a collector prior to it hitting your credit report.... You have a window, even before rent tracker gets involved.... You guys are willing to pay and can pay $1500 a month for decent living situations. That won't go un noticed by a future land lord. If there is no apparent fix for your current situation.

I had to give him $3750 up front and that covered December 2013 rent (First month) November 2014 rent (Last month) and $750 for a security deposit.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Then simply request to be transferred to another apartment. That way, the property doesn't loose a tenant, a vacant apt is filled, the one u move from can be checked for issues, while the current upstairs residents are still there..... Owner/landlord knows that your apt is $18,000 gross annually. They not going to take you to court when you have already presented evidence to them of the problem.... Could lead to a formal investigation, which at the very least will require ripping parts of your ceiling out, or the subfloor upstairs. All done while the apt is vacant, loosing revenue until repaired.

A simple fix and cost effective solution for the owner/ landlord is to install the appropriate carpeting and padding upstairs, while loosing no revenue.

There is no other apartment. In this building there are two apartments and that's it. Mine and the one above. I have plenty of evidence. Hours and hours of it and anywhere between 10-15 e-mails and another 10-15 texts complaining of the noise.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Be proactive. Tell the LL that the noise is untenable because you work at home and that you want to break the lease. Don't make it about promises he made. Make it about how you want his help to find a replacement tenant and break your lease.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

If this is going on in all rooms, there is no insulation between your ceiling and the flooring upstairs. Probably because there is a very thin layer of sub flooring upstairs or none at all. .

In apartments, the subflooring of upstairs apts is the insulation..... Sounds like the floor upstairs was just laid over the joists if u can hear vibrations thru your ceiling.

Is there an apartment below you? Have you asked them if what you do upstairs resonates downstairs? Yours is hardwood.

Its winter. How does your heater run? Does it stay on more than off? Shouldn't happen in an apartment with an apartment above you that has proper flooring. Are other residents having the same problem?

Is the apartment upstairs carpeted? It may not have had padding under the carpet.

Put in a work order about it and view the inspection yourself. Request that ceiling fixtures be removed for the inspection in your apartment, document, or record your questions to maintenance, namely what is seen, wood or concrete in the flooring above. There is no telling how many contractors and subcontractors, and laborers are used in build an apt building.

I think, PM will listen to you then.

There is not an apartment below me so there is no one I can ask about the noise.

My heater is on more than it is off. I live in a suburb of Philadelphia so during the winter it is cold here.

The upstairs apartment has hardwood floors.

My previous residence was located in an apartment complex... This is not... This is privately owned... The landlord owns the property.... (That being said would it be illegal to have someone come check on the things you listed without his approval)?

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Let the landlord know you like to break the lease and tell the landlord; they can keep the deposit if they let you out of the lease.

Joe Gore

If I found a place to move to... Lets say in the next few months.. Could breaking a lease early have any impact on my credit. If he brought me to court could I then be responsible for paying the remaining amount due on the lease?

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Pam R.:

My suggestion: call your landlord and give him 30 day notice.

Honestly, there isn't anything he can do to solve your problem immediately. Even if he evicted the people today - who might move in tomorrow? Insulation/carpet for noise reduction? Still wouldn't happen right away.

Try to approach the situation diplomatically with him - you'll cooperate with showing the place, you'll leave it in perfect condition, but you cannot stay with that level of noise.

Hopefully, he'll work with you and release you from your lease, and not keep your security deposit. Will he sue you? Possibly. But if the place is that new and nice, it shouldn't be hard for him to find a new tenant. He's obligated to try to re-rent the place.

You can't live miserable for the next 9 months over a $1500 security deposit. Life is too short. Just try to reach a move-out compromise with the landlord.

How can I give him a 30 day notice when:

1) I signed a 12 month lease

2) I have nowhere else to move to.

We lived in our old place for 7 years and it took us about 4 months of looking around to land at this place. There's no way we would be able to find a place and move within 30 days. It's just not doable with our work schedules.

If he was going to sue us for leaving early (if it did get to that point)? With all of the video that we have of the noise, along with the e-mails and text messages to the landlord how could he possibly win? We have given him every opportunity to make the situation right.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Kevin Pfeiffer:

You can :

1-ask the landlord if he/she will break the lease

2-if not number 1, then maybe you can buy your way out of the lease for a small (hopefully) fee

3-pray they move

Depends on what sort of a person that they are in my opinion. I personally want my tenants to be happy so I would consider helping if I was the landlord.

Wouldn't it be in the landlords best interest to get rid of them? Who is he going to be able to show/lease this apartment to (if he does allow us to break the lease and find another place) with them living upstairs making loud noises at all hours of the day/night? If we would of heard the noises prior to moving in we wouldn't of signed up to pay $50 a month let alone $1500 a month.

They also signed a one year lease so they aren't going anywhere anytime soon... Unless the landlord has them removed.

Is there any legal action I can take to get my money back since the landlord lied about the noise/insulation, how many tenants were going to be living above us, etc. I feel like everything he told us was a crock a **** just to get us to sign the paperwork.

0 Votes

In the last week of November my girlfriend and I walked through a brand new apartment and instantly fell in love with it. Everything is brand new (appliances, hardwood floors, etc). We asked the landlord the normal questions while doing the walk through... How is the insulation, the neighborhood, are the neighbors noisy, etc. Keep in mind this is a second floor apartment... So he goes on to tell us that the third floor tenants were not moving in until the following weekend but noise will not be a problem. He tell us that the place is fully insulated and the upstairs will be occupied by three people... Two adults and a child.

We end up signing a one year lease (giving him first, last and a security deposit up front) The rent per month is $1500.... Fast forward to now... It has been an absolute disaster...Here are the problems...

-Anytime someone walks above us we can hear it... .Loud and clear

- The kid is constantly running back and forth all hours of the night and it sounds like a stampede of rhinos is living above us.. (I work from home so I hear it from 7AM - 11PM on avg every single night)

- The kid is constantly dropping toys, slamming his toy box, etc which creates loud noises.

- Whenever they leave a phone on the floor and its on vibrate our ceiling pretty much vibrates with the phone.

- The kid constantly screams and yells and it sounds like he is in our apartment

- The adults that live up there work all different hours... One of them comes home at 3AM every night and I assume he is taking off his shoes and drops them and wakes us up every single night.

- Since they all work different hours the kid does not live on normal kid hours. He is sometimes up until 3 or 4am playing.

On top of all of this there are five people living above us not three. A father, son daughter, cousin and the daughter's child who is 2 or 3 at the oldest. So the landlord lied to our face about the amount of tenants that would be living above us.

We have complained numerous times to the tenants and to the landlord. Providing the landlord with video of the noise, showing him text messages that we have sent to the above tenants asking them to calm the kid down, etc.

The landlord just keeps saying that he will talk to the tenants but nothing ever changes. We have only been here for three months and really can't live another 9 months like this. For $1500 a month I don't think we should be putting up with this sort of thing

Is there anything I can do? Any input would really help.

Thanks

0 Votes

All Forum Posts by: N.A N.A

N.A N.A has started 1 posts and replied 9 times.

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)

Post: Having trouble at new leased apartment (Any input will be much appreciated)