Dealing with Violations of Quiet Hours

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Dealing with Violations of Quiet Hours

Oh My Apartment · Dec 8, 2009

When you’re living in an apartment, you have to rely on your neighbors to be quiet so that you can get some sleep. Many apartment complexes even make quiet hours a matter of policy, setting certain hours during which tenants are expected to keep noise to a minimum. Unfortunately, not all neighbors are considerate, and some don’t seem to care if they are violating complex policies.

In many cases, a noisy neighbor situation can be resolved by just taking a moment to knock on their door. A polite request to keep noise to a minimum may be all it takes to get your neighbors to keep it down. In many cases, they may not even realize the noise level is a problem. If a polite word isn’t enough to reduce quiet hour violations, your next step is to talk to the landlord or complex manager about the issue. Depending on how your lease is written and the resources available to enforce quiet hours, your landlord may be able to intervene to restore peace and quiet. If you feel it’s necessary to report a neighbor to the manager, it’s useful to make a record of when your apartment neighbors are violating quiet hours.

It’s not always possible to convince your fellow apartment tenants to keep the noise down, however. If it’s an ongoing problem, it may be time to request a switch to another apartment in the complex or even consider moving out entirely. Unfortunately, breaking a lease due to noise issues is not easy, but some landlords will be more understanding about it than others. Juliette Rautenberg was driven to break her lease by a collection of extremely noisy neighbors. “We had a young, professional couple downstairs who had loud dinner parties every weekend. Upstairs we had a couple of students. The first pair had endless parties and electric guitar jam sessions at all hours of the day and night. The second pair had endless parties and also never covered the wood floor in their main party room, which happened to be directly over our bedroom.”

After several attempts to convince her neighbors to limit the noise, as well as trying to get the landlord to address the problem, Rautenberg gave up on her apartment. “We saw that nothing was going to change. Things that had initially drawn us to the place were just not worth the sacrifice of peace and quiet. We both work from home and need quiet, which we weren’t getting there,” says Rautenberg. “It took us almost a year to find a new apartment, but I’m so glad we moved out!”

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