Upstairs Neighbor in Condo Causing Private Nuisance

[ctinaw]

This is probably more complicated than it needs to be given the circumstances. I'll try to give as many details as possible.

First of all My husband, daughter and I are living in a condo with my mother at present time because my husband just got back from Iraq and we are trying to save money so we can move out and get a place of our own. My mother's landlord is aware that we are staying with her though we are not on the lease. We are quiet people, no parties, we keep to ourselves and we do not cause problems of any sort for our neighbors, landlord or anyone else in the area. We even respect their rules about not using their condo pool unless my mother is accompanying us since we are considered "guests." This is the problem though - I'm not sure what rights we have since we are not leased residents (though my mom should have some recourse).

Important information: We are on the "garden level" (nice way of saying basement) of the condos, so our patio is somewhat sunken into the ground with a brick surround and concrete flooring.

We moved in sometime in early March of this year. (My mom is in a two bedroom condo so we are not exceeding the per person max for bedrooms either.) This particular condominium complex is a little bit odd because some people own their condos while others rent. My mother happens to rent from the condo home association's president while the neighbor above us is an owner. From what I've witnessed, renters are treated like second class citizens here as well.

My husband and I smoke. We only smoke out on the porch, never indoors. We also dispose of our cigarette butts in a closed container on the patio so there is never any littering of cigarette butts.

One day when my husband was hopping up onto the land from our patio to take out the garbage, this woman was either already out on her porch or came out when she saw him - she confronted my husband. She asked him point blank if we were smoking pot down there because she could smell it. I was still staning down below inside our patio while he was on the lawn facing her. We were both pretty shocked and insulted at this kind of accusation. I let my husband handle it and I stayed quiet because I didn't want anything to get out of hand. He informed her that we both smoked cigarettes and that maybe she was mistaken. She replied with a "no" - that she wasn't mistaken because she has "smoked" before (we don't know what kind of smoking she meant, cigarettes or marajuana) and it wasn't cigarettes. My husband replied and told her he was sorry but she must have been mistaken. (NOTE that she is saying all of this down at him from her second story balcony out in public so anyone can hear these crazy accusations).

Then she changes the subject totally and starts asking who we are, why we are there, if we are living there, asking if my mother's landlord knows etc etc etc. He answered her questions and informed us that she *owns* her apartment and she can have whoever she wants over but we don't own it and that she would be informing ourlandlord of this. He replied - "ok" and went about his business. I was just standing there in complete shock of how someone could unprovoked be so completely rude and uncivil. Of course then I am scared that somehow she is going to get my mother in trouble over us being there.

I let my mother know what happened and she said she would talk to her landlord about it when she went to drop off her rent check. Apparently the woman above us had already talked to him because he asked her point blank if there were parties or people smoking pot in our apartment. She told her that she had already heard the story of the accusations and told him he had been misinformed. That we (my husband and I) are responsible married parents who are just trying to get our feet back on the ground after my husband's 18 month long deployment to Iraq and that her accusations are baseless, unreasonable and insulting. We've never had anything even resembling a party held there - we didn't even have my daughter's birthday party there. There have never been more than 4 people TOTAL in that apartment at one time since my mom has moved in. He seemed satisifed with this and let it go at that.

This woman is always pouring water down onto our patio. Large amounts of it. Who knows what this water is or if it is water at all. She litters her dead plant leaves by just throwing them off of her balcony and down onto the ground right in front of our patio so we have to look at her garbage.

One day she actually came down and apologized to my husband for making those accusations. It came out of nowhere so we don't know what exactly prompted it. Maybe she is just mentally unstable - we don't know. But she still continues to litter and pour water down from her balcony over the edge and even right down onto our balcony.

Last night this came to the last straw when my husband, my two-year-old duagher and I were sitting out on the balcony chatting. It was about 6pm so not late at all. Unless she is completely deaf there is no way she did not hear anyone out there (especially since she claims she could hear us "partying" down there on other occasions). Well I am sitting in the chair and SPLASH - a bunch - probably at least a gallon of water comes right through her balcony and RIGHT onto my head. I was drenched. I said "oh my god" - I certainly wasn't expecting that and was pretty speechless after that not knowing what I could or even should do. Some of it also splashed onto my two-year-old daughter which really made me upset. Well either she didn't hear me yell "oh my god" after pouring her "water" down - or she didn't care and another bucketful comes pouring down right beside me. All my husband and I could do was just stare at each other in complete horror and disbelief!! THen - a splash of water just nearly misses my husband who was by the way - sitting at least four feet away from me. I hate to think the worst of people but it sure seemed like she was actually AIMING for us. I was just and still am shocked and have NO idea what I can do about it if I can do anything at all. I am afraid to say anything to her because I don't want my mom to somehow get in trouble. My mom is pretty upset about it but doesn't want to get in trouble with her landlord - but we haven't done anything wrong!! What legal rights do we have? So far this woman has publically slandered us to our landlord, and assaulted me and my daugher while nearly missing my husband (does it count as assault)?

Is there anything we or my mother can do about this? She *does* own her condo. Can I at least file some sort of complaint so that if it ever happens again we can show that it has happened before? Any advice would be really helpful.

p.s. we do plan on moving out when the lease is up in november - as does my mother. this woman is too much to take and we cannot stand living in such unprovoked hostile conditions. It's insanity.

[ctinaw]

I also forgot to mention a few other things. Among the substances that have leaked down onto our patio I believe one may have been CLR - some chemical used to clean mineral deposits from things. Somehow she had some type of hose contraption set up there and was spraying it all over her porch (it was dripping down onto ours). I was getting out of my car in the parking lot so I could see and hear what was going on. She was shouting to her upstairs neighbor (who she seems pretty chummy with) about how she was cleaning off her porch after winter. This is obviously disturbing on many levels. Not to mention now we have plants growing on our patio and they are all herbs or tomatos that we would put into our *food*.

Another incident - the third floor neighbor man who she is friends with comes down and rings our apartment door bell at about 11:30 at night. My husband and I were not at home so I am recounting what my mother told me. She was babysitting for us that night. She decided to ignore it the first time and then it went again and again. She of course - was asleep. So she gets up and looks through the peep hole and recognizes the man as the guy who lives on third floor. He is standing in an aggressive stance with his hands on his hips trying to look authoritative - possibly overcompensating for his short stature - and asks her if she hears anything. Of course my mom is still half asleep and annoyed - and says... "noooo... should I be hearing something??" then he says he has been hearing a saxaphone (again, he lives on the third floor) and it was coming fromdown here. So she listens (even if somewhat mockingly because he is being such an idiot) and says - well, let's see - do *you* hear anythign coming from in here? I was sleeping until you came over and now I'm going back to sleep" and she shut the door. A few days later she ran into this man again and he informs her with a jolly tone that he figure out that the saxaphone noise was coming from over a BLOCK (and across a major street) away at Hooters!!! Great! thanks for the update!....

So all we can assume is that she has been quite the busy body running around and spreading lies so our character is being ruined by the other tenants inthe apartment just because she runs around telling all these people things about us that are untrue. It just makes no sense!

[ctinaw]

advide anyone?

[Guilty Or Not Guilty]

Make a police report at the police department. If another incident happens, call the police to the scene to give them a warning or try to press criminal charges. If the police will not let you press charges, take the damages to small claims court.