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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    7

    Default What to Do if an Upstairs Neighbor is Very Noisy, Landlord Aware Yet Nothing Changes

    My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: MO


    Hello, first I apologize for the long winded post but I want to give as much information.

    I moved to Saint Louis, MO two years ago, in March of 2016 I signed a 1 year lease for an apartment on the first floor of a multifamily house(pic attached)(I’m from the south east so not sure what this is called, it looks like a big square house that has been chopped on 4 to make 4 different apartments in a shotgun floor plan). The highlighted part in yellow shows the place I rented and currently live in. The square in blue shows the apartment that my neighbor Ali (let’s call her that) rented a couple months after I moved. The building is owned by Bob who owns the property.

    Around July 17 2016 I started hearing hammering and construction in the middle of the night during the week, as the pictures below show this progressed and most of the time I address the landlord with my concern, he said he would talk to them, hammering and tiling followed sanding and so forth. I complained to the landlord as I thought he should be addressing the tenants and not me. As you can see in the pictures these incidents kept on for many months.

    Around May 2017 my upstairs neighbor, Georgia, which I never had a complaint about , moved out and the noisy neighbor Ali asked the landlord if she could move to the top floor above my apartment.

    One of the texts I sent to Bob clearly I told him that Ali’s schedule(work nights, I think) didn’t match my 7am-5pm work schedule and that given the past noisy habits it might not be a good idea for her to move, but again I am just a tenant.

    My landlord allowed Ali to move upstairs and around May 2017 and immediately the midnight/midweek construction started, again I complained to the landlord Bob, he said he would talk to her, things got better for a couple days and they got back to hammering, tiling, sanding etc, this continued for the remainder of the year on a weekly basis. Around December most of the construction(tiling, sanding, hammering) decreased but still continued. All this time the foot traffic from Ali’s apt around 12am-5am was very noticeable to wake me up, she also had late visitors (1am-4am) that knocked furiously on her door which is several feet from my bedroom and of course woke me up, this is still going on in the middle of the week.

    I have a very stressful job, I go to bed around 9:30-10pm and wake up around 5:55am, I need to have a full night sleep in order to perform in my job.

    Most recently my neighbor Ali has decided to use the dryer and washer that we share and it’s located in the basement. The basement is below me and the old dryer and washer are several feet below my bed, the problem is that my neighbor runs the washer and dryer from midnight till sometimes 5am, keeps running down the inner stairs to the basement and puts in another load, this is all night during several days within the week, since the walls are thin and my kitchen has an access door to the basement, every time she runs down my dog can hear her and my dog wakes up and wakes me up. I have told the landlord about this and the foot traffic and late knocks on the door and he agrees it’s ridiculous and that he will talk to her and he encourages me to tell her to “shut the f*** up, I am trying to sleep” which I have told her to please stop the noise but never cussed her out.

    On my last conversation with the landlord he agreed that it was ridiculous but that he had told her and didn’t know what else to do, he also mentioned that it was going to be more a game of attrition to see who will move out first, I think this is unfair. Now, I don’t know why a landlord would allow a tenant to do a remodel of a rented apartment not only once but twice. In that sense I think he is taking her side since Ali has remodeled two of his apartments.

    Now may you ask why haven’t I moved? Well the place is in a very good neighborhood, dog friendly and it has a pool, you might think it’s stupid but I am from Miami and I miss the water and the pool is the closest thing to the water I could find. It also is very close to work. Btw pools are not common in St. Louis.

    One last thing, in December I went for the holidays to Miami, while in Miami my intrusion alarm detected an open door and I looked at the cameras and my landlord was inside my house, I called him and he said that it seems there was a leak, the water bill was around $400+ and he wanted to check. He said several days earlier he was in the basement and heard some water so he wanted to check my apartment. I told him I wish he could have called me and let me know he was going in, the intrusion alert freaked me out, I turned on the siren and was about to call the police until I saw it was him. The problem was a toilet the was running from the inside, not the handle but something inside the toilet, it was fixed the next day. Yesterday I got a water bill from my landlord for $400+, I have never paid a water bill as it was included on my lease. I think it’s not my fault that the toilet was leaking as I was not even in the state when he noticed it and went inside my apartment. He said the toilet was leaking for many months, I would assume he would have noticed in the bill as I never noticed anything.

    What are my rights? My work offers legal counsel, should I contact them and pursue this differently? At this point I’m so fed up that I feel I have been paying for a place that doesn’t allow me to fully relax. At this time I’m considering moving out, I don’t feel that everything I have gone through and still are is worth a place with a pool. Just this morning the neighbor fired up the washer at 5:30am and later started hammering at 7am on a Saturday.

    Link with screenshots to landlord below
    https://imgur.com/a/TWGkK

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    38,867

    Default Re: Upstairs Neighbor is Extremely Noisy, Landlord Aware Yet Nothing Changes. What to

    Bottom line;

    unless her disturbances rise to the level of being unlawful, if the landlord won’t do anything to remedy the situation, your options are to live with it or move out when your lease expires.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Posts
    1,026

    Default Re: Upstairs Neighbor is Extremely Noisy, Landlord Aware Yet Nothing Changes. What to

    From your posting, it appears you signed a one year lease in March of 2016. If you did not renew this lease, you are now have a month to month tenancy (sometimes known as a "tenancy at will"). Such leases can typically be terminated with a 30 day written notice.

    You are living in an "ant hill" situation; folks living above and next to you. It should be fairly obvious that the noises are not going to stop. It may be in your best interest to find another rental situation and provide the required 30 day written notice to your landlord and then move to a quieter situation.

    Gail

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    7

    Default Re: Upstairs Neighbor is Extremely Noisy, Landlord Aware Yet Nothing Changes. What to

    Thank you for your response, the text messages to the landlord won’t be enough proof? I just spoke with the other neighbor that lives on the 2nd floor and they told me they complained to the landlord about the same neighbor when she lived below them.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    38,867

    Default Re: Upstairs Neighbor is Extremely Noisy, Landlord Aware Yet Nothing Changes. What to

    Quote Quoting Foxtrot
    View Post
    Thank you for your response, the text messages to the landlord won’t be enough proof? I just spoke with the other neighbor that lives on the 2nd floor and they told me they complained to the landlord about the same neighbor when she lived below them.
    It really doesn’t matter if the landlord won’t do anything to abate the problem. Unless the noise violates the law (in which case a call to the police would be the appropriate action), unless the landlord chooses to do something, your choices are to live with it or move.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Posts
    8,006

    Default Re: Upstairs Neighbor is Extremely Noisy, Landlord Aware Yet Nothing Changes. What to

    Proof of what for what purpose? If you are a month-to-month tenant, give notice and find somewhere else to live. If you are not, see if you can negotiate with the landlord to terminate the lease.

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