One of the responsibilities of a property manager is to make sure that their tenants are behaving responsibly, treating neighbors with respect, and following the rules in their lease. It can be frustrating, and also take away time from other important matters, but when tenant-tenant conflict becomes an issue, it rarely goes away without property manager intervention. This is why it’s so important for property managers to be proactive in stopping problems before they start. One such behavior that can cause issues with other renters is reoccurring noise complaints.
Noise is inevitable. It doesn’t matter if it’s a loud TV, music, pet, or guest, sometimes a renter is going to make too much noise and others around them are going to be irritated by it. There are some ways for experienced property managers like Martin Feinberg to pre-empt such situations though to lessen their occurrence. A preemptive approach is usually more affective than trying to resolve the problem after it becomes one.
The easiest way to stop noise complaints before they start is to set noise limits in the lease. This way tenants will have a firm understanding of what is allowed and what isn’t, and especially what will happen when a noise rule is broken. This will lessen those instances when the property manager has to determine what is too much noise and what is an acceptable amount. Having noise limits in place before a problem happens will be particularly useful when one tenant is claiming another is making too much noise, and the other tenant disagrees.
Setting a noise curfew is also another common technique for managing noise complaints. Noise curfews are extremely beneficial because a property manager only needs to know the time of the incident to know whether or not rules were broken. Though not every tenant will agree on what it is, curfews should be set at a reasonable hour.
Professional property managers are very good at getting information to their tenants and will understand that anytime new noise rules are created, they must be provided to every tenant and should also be very easy to find and understand after that initial introduction. If it’s too late to put noise limits in a lease then property managers can place them in other official places, such as a website, where tenants can find them when they need to.
When all these proactive approaches are in place and a noise complaint still happens, property managers need to encourage tenants to work through their issues with each other and should offer mediation if either tenant believes it’s necessary. Helping tenants to get to know their neighbors can also go a long way towards heading off conflict before it gets out of control. People who are familiar and friendly with each other can often overlook small annoyances.
Usually a property manager can help mitigate noise complaints without focusing to much on one tenant over another. However, if a property manager starts to receive multiple noise complaints about the same tenant, and nothing is working to get that tenant to cooperate with the noise regulations, threatening that tenant with eviction might be the only possible solution left. This will be much easier if the lease includes the right to evict renters who generate too many noise complaints.