How to put a *Stop to a Noisy Neighbor*

Our home, no matter what we live in, is supposed to be a place of peace and quiet and where we relax, live and enjoy life.  We have enough noise and problems to deal with on the outside so we look forward to the only place we have to get away from it all, our home.

Sometimes that peace gets interrupted by an inconsiderate noisy neighbor who cares nothing for anyone else and is constantly playing loud music, throwing parties or having friends over for an evening of drinking, watching the game, playing loud music or just annoying loud talk and laughter.

You’ve tried to be neighborly by asking them to calm it down a bit or turn down the music to no avail or maybe because it’s not past 10:00 pm you think you can’t do anything about it so you think you have to put up with it.  Wrong!  Your peace can be disturbed 24 hours a day.

You have exhausted all of your resources, you’ve called the Police several times, you have been polite and neighborly but nothing seems to work.  Yes, it can be very frustrating to say the least so, follow these tips in the order that they are listed and you will defiantly put a stop to your noisy neighbor:

Write a letter

Most complaints come from people who are living in an apartment complex and it seems that there is at least one apartment where there is a group of people or one person who care nothing about anyone else’s peace and is always creating noise.

Write a certified letter to the manager and the owner of the building demanding that the problem be rectified. If it is a single residence then write the letter to the residence owner.

Mention in your letter that your next step is to file a "class action law suit" for "noise annoyance" and a complaint with the City Attorney's office declaring the apartment complex a "nuisance to the City".

Writing a letter helps you build a case in the event your situation ends up in court.

Call the Police

Calling the Police and documenting 'every' time there is a loud party or major noise complaint is a must because it proves and shows that the noisy tenants are a "nuisance" causing the City to use valuable Police resources to solve an ongoing problem.  Believe me, the city will not tolerate this for very long.

Make a Citizen’s Arrest

An important step to solving this noise problem is to make sure when you call the Police that you tell the Police Dispatcher to have the Police Officers stop by your house first so you can explain to them what has been going on.

Once the Police arrive at your home tell them that you want to make a “citizen’s arrest” on your neighbors for disturbing the peace.

Once you demand to make a citizen’s arrest the Police must either write a citation or make a physical arrest of the neighbor.  it is important to understand that if a citation is written then ‘you’ are the one who signs the ticket as the “arresting person” at which point the Police will then take your neighbor into custody. During the arrest the Police will most likely confiscate the electronic equipment from the DJ or the stereo system and the items will not be returned until after the court case is over. This can hurt a lot.

This is a vital step because the fines on this are extreme.  The city will charge your neighbor the price it cost to send out the Officers, put a Helicopter in the sky overhead and any other city resources.  That can add up to a lot.

File a Complaint with the City Attorney

You now have plenty of proof and documentation to file a complaint with the City Attorney's Office.

Once the complaint has been filed an investigation is launched and the owner of the building will be contacted by the City.  The owner will be given a certain amount of time to rectify the problem.  If the problem is not rectified the property can be deemed a "Nuisance" and the owner could lose his property.

By following these steps you can see that your ‘noisy’ problem can be stopped. Hopefully it will stop before the situation gets to an unnecessary point.

Putting a stop to a noisy neighbor takes the right moves and some cooperation on your part.  The time it may take to get to the stopping point may be well worth it rather than sitting in your home, boiling over with anger having to listen to inconsiderate neighbors bothering everyone.

The system is on your side and it will work for you.

This article also posted on Triond.com by Kaoss1 and ehow.com by Kaoss