NSW: Q&A Dealing With the Noisy Residents In The Apartment Above

Question: The owners removed the carpet in the apartment above mine without permission. The noise is terrible. Is there anything I can do or do I have to put up with it?

The owners removed the carpet in the apartment above mine without permission.

Our strata plan has the basic standard Floor Coverings by-law.
I have raised my concerns with the upstairs neighbours, and they got quite angry and are still quite resentful. They have laid some rugs in the high traffic areas, and this has helped cut down the noise of footfall.

However, the situation is still nowhere near as effective as when carpet with acoustic underlay existed in that apartment. I still hear them walking around and the creaking of floorboards, which I did not hear before.

Is there anything further I can do or do I just have to put up with it?

Answer: The short answer is no, you don’t have to tolerate it.

You definitely don’t have to put up with it, because section 153 of the strata act talks about creating a nuisance. Another resident can create a nuisance that interferes with the peaceful enjoyment of another lot.

I would suggest first raising that with your Strata Manager, but it’s not only the noise bylaw and section 153: Owners, occupiers and other persons not to create nuisance that you can rely on. That is a noise bylaw, putting aside the floor breach, if there is a breach, you’ve got the noise bylaw that states that you can’t create a noise disturbance, and you’ve also got section 153, which means you can’t create a nuisance to another resident.

I would probably first be raising this with the Strata Manager having them pursue it and force both section 153, the noise bylaw and the flooring bylaw. If you were to pursue it further through NCAT, I’d probably be looking at engaging an acoustic consultant just to make sure that the tolerance of noise isn’t acceptable and within the BCA compliance, because there is a certain tolerance of noise. Some people can just be more sensitive to noise. Before taking it further, I would definitely look at getting an acoustic consultant to see whether or not the noise level coming from that unit is acceptable or not.

The short answer is no, you don’t have to tolerate it. You’ve got the noise bylaw to rely on, as well as the flooring of bylaw, but you’ve also got section 153 of the Strata Schemes Management Act, which talks about not creating a nuisance to another resident.

Sometimes it is a good course of action to approach the offending resident because some people react to getting the formal approach through a Strata Managing agent, but sometimes it can work the other way where they can still get offended because you’ve approached them. I think you’ve approached them firsthand, you’ve tried that nice approach. I think you now need to run it through the formal channel and that’s generally through your Strata Managing agent and your strata committee because they do have an obligation to enforce compliance with the bylaws. If it can be proven that there is a breach of bylaw, then I would definitely be running it through the Strata Managing agent.

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