Help!! Want to know a good way to notify residents of noisy neighbors...

I want to find a special way to put out a letter that will be very informative to let our residents understand the severity of the noise and curfew times, and keeping the community clean if someone has some good suggestions I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks! help me to make it plain but firm.

I post a "Friendly reminder" note that takes the words straight out of the rental agreement.

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Please remember that per the terms of your rental agreement, quiet hours are from 10pm -7am, and that is it a violation to disturb the quiet enjoyment of other residents at any time.

If you have any questions, please contact the office.

Thank you,
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If the noise continues, I knock on their door while the noise is happening to let them know it is too loud. If it happens after that, an official non-compliance notice is posted and mailed. When they come question me about the official notice, I remind them that the official notices affect their rental history. Then I'm done trying to work with them nicely. Further issues will result in a call to police. It very rarely comes to that point, but I have discovered that the residents who aren't influenced by me or their neighbors, do tend to respond to a police visit.

Good luck!

Thank you so much for the great response!

We have almost 350 apartments, so noise issues represent a serious matter that could lead to a loss of customers and should be handled in a serious way. These issues are not easily finessed and require real sensitivity. They are also issues that should be managed on a personal level, rather than through management by memo.

First, we must experience the noise problem first-hand; we would never act upon a second-hand "complaint" (e.g., calling us on Monday morning to discuss what happened the previous Friday night). If a customer experiences a problem with a neighbor's excessive noise, we insist that they call our 365/24/7 maintenance service immediately so that the on-call maintenance person can experience the noise directly.

Second, when we experience the noise first hand, we take ownership of the noise complaint in the conversation with the offending neighbor. It is entirely counter-productive to say to someone that their neighbor is complaining, which could escalate the conflict between neighbors. This is why we ask our customers to let us handle these issues, rather than trying to do so themselves.

Third, in the conversation with the offending neighbor, the on-call maintenance person will work to eliminate the noise issue, and SIMULTANEOUSLY schedules a next-day appointment with the offending neighbor to meet with the manager. After eliminating the noise issue, the on-call maintenance person would stay in the vicinity of the apartment for a period of time until he felt confident that the noise issue wasn't coming back (e.g., turning the volume of the stereo back up). In the unlikely event that the offending neighbor is uncooperative, the on-call person would contact the manager and police and await their arrival to address the matter.

However, in the event that the complaining neighbor's noise expectations are unrealistic, then the on-call maintenance person would not knock on the door of the "offending" neighbor, but instead would talk to the complaining neighbor to arrange a meeting with the manager, whose objective is to discuss the reality of "community living". There are some customers who may not be suited to "community living".

The on-call maintenance person submits a report of the noise event to the office staff to insert into the offending neighbor's file. When monthly lease renewals are prepared, issues such as these are considered when making renewal decisions. If an offending neighbor continues to be obstinate, ultimately we would chose not to continue to do business with the person.

I would urge managers to minimize the use of management by memo and instead take a more personal approach to addressing these kinds of issue. While there are occasionally some issues that necessitate both memo and personal, many can be addressed directly, in a personal way.

The worst tool for solving difficult problems is the telephone, and always insist on face-to-face, for several reasons. First, face-to-face allows one to experience all aspects of communication, including body language - with the telephone you miss that key part of communication. Second, a person is more likely to say something unfortunate over the telephone, than face-to-face. Why increase the possibility that someone will say something they can't take back because you used a telephone, rather than face-to-face communication?

While this unconventional approach to noise issues requires more effort, in the long run it is worth it because the cost to replace existing customers with new customers is so high. In this instance, our objective is to achieve better customer retention.

Rick Hevier
Richard Hevier
Richard S. Hevier
[email protected]
rickhevier.brandyourself.com/

Wow Rick! It sounds like you are really on top of things at your property! Any suggestions for smaller communities?

My maint. tech works 7am-4pm, so if residents were calling the maintenance pager all night he wouldn't be able to do his job during the day. I used to forward my office phone to my cell after office hours, but I'm simply not able to field these calls and also get enough sleep at night. During the day I will check into a noise complaint, but since it's not "Quiet hours" there is not much I can do.

Our official policy is to let the police handle disturbances. We simply don't know if the screaming and thumping is a TV or a real fight, so we don't let employees endanger themselves by approaching a potentially violent situation.

Nearly all of our residents are employed, so a next day in-person appointment would simply not work.

Management by memo may not be preferable for communication, but it is required for court action. If we attempt to evict someone for repeated violations based on conversations, it becomes a "he said she said" that a court cannot issue a judgement on.

Once we have four memos in the file, we don't offer to renew their lease. Very few choose to stay month-to-month because we charge extra for it.

Another thing I've noticed is that residents do not take conversations as seriously as written notices. Because it is spelled out in their lease contract, they know that if they are issued multiple notices, it negatively effects their rental history.

Great comments everyone!! Rick, it is clear that you have a great system and it is working for you. I like the personal, face-face touch, it's kinda like getting called into the principle's office in high school. Not that I would know what that was like~~just heard stories! LOL.

On a small property it is sometimes difficult because it is a 2 person operation. Instructing residents to call the police may be the best option. If you do this, you need to have a good relationship with the police, so they will send you a report anytime they come on your property.

No matter what the size of property, having the complaint in writing is advisable, before acting upon it. I also suggest that the 'noise' be verified by a staff member when ever possible, BEFORE a noise violation letter is sent out. We all know that some residents will complain about normal everyday living noise! When a Face to Face meeting takes place, I would follow it up with a written summary of the meeting and give to the resident~~perhaps have them sign it~~and keep a copy in their file. Having documentation is helpful if you need to take matters to the court.

Keeping your residents informed of the property policies should start at move in. You can follow this up with reminders in monthly newsletters~~just keep it positive!!

It is certainly true that smaller apartment properties can be more challenging than larger properties, simply because of a lack of the economies of scale for staffing that large properties experience.

For example, we offer Anytime Maintenance Service 24/7/365 - need a light bulb changed on Christmas Day, we'll do it. A property with one maintenance person could not accomplish that level of service. We're also fortunate to have a strong, stable customer base - we recently had our first sheriff's eviction in more than 5 years and a turnover rate of less than one-half the NAA-reported national average.

Let me address a few of your concerns:

* "... a potentially violent situation." We certainly wouldn't want our maintenance staff to place themselves in situations that require law enforcement, if they perceive a dangerous situation. At the same time, you also mentioned that you would knock on the door of the offending neighbor.

* "... next day in-person appointment would simply not work". The manager is available to meet a customer at any time after business hours, whether weekday or weekend and the maintenance person has the authority to schedule the meeting on the spot.

* "Management by memo.. is required for court action." I pointed out that in our approach the on-call maintenance person submits a written incident report that we could use in an eviction action. However, I can't recall a circumstance in almost 20 years where we had no other recourse but to pursue court action to solve a noise issue. Rather than sheer luck, I would like to believe that it's the result of a face-to-face approach to resolving these kinds of problems.

* "... residents do not take conversations as seriously as written notices." In those almost twenty years, with a long stretch encompassing two properties of nearly 700 apartments and more than 1,200 residents at a time, I've experienced perhaps thousands of opportunities to use a face-to-face approach to problem solving. I've almost never needed to resort to pulling out the lease contract to achieve a good outcome. Of course, not every encounter with a customer can be a "success" but, overall, I've found that the face-to-face approach can be effective.

We use a simple lease contract - one page, regular-size paper, two-sided. We have a set of Rules & Regulations that have the grand total of three items. In fact, for most of those years, we didn't have any traditional Rules & Regulations. As contrarian as it sounds in our industry, I'm convinced virtually all apartment management problems can be solved face-to-face. In fact, the most effective tool in my arsenal is not the lease contract/Rules & Regulations, but the Fair Housing Act.


I don't want to appear argumentative (or so verbose), but rather to suggest a different approach. I agree with you that it can sometimes be more challenging to manage a smaller apartment property, because of limited staffing.

Rick Hevier
Richard Hevier
Richard S. Hevier
[email protected]

@Gerry: Wow! I should have "refreshed" because I didn't see your comment.

You are 'refreshing' Rick.
I have been in property management for a long time~~before it was know as an industry/career choice! One of the things that has bugged me for years is that the office is generally open when the residents are at work. We don't make it easy for our customer!

Having a staff person available 24/7/365 is a great idea. I did this at properties that were in my portfolio. THAT'S customer service. My resident retention jumped to a company high level! The number of noise complaints dropped significantly. Manager's met with resident's at hours convenient to the customer~~so did I.

It comes down to this~~If you think something WON"T work~it won't. On the other hand if you think it WILL work~~~it usually will. (Even if it sometimes needs a little tweaking!)

In response to the smaller property, I used to manage a group of properties (about 50), just myself and one other staff. I outsourced my 24x7 maintenance or disturbances to a 3rd party that was licensed and insured. There are several of them out there that charge a low monthly fee and/or a per service fee. Each resident had their number in case of emergency, and I left it on the office voicemail as well. This saved me huge headaches and allowed me to sleep at night knowing everything would be handled. All of this of course for issues that didn't require police intervention.
At my last property we used a 3rd party security team that patrolled several communities, and was on call if needed for noise complaints. Our maintenance staff was always on call for maintenance purposes, but never handled noise complaints. This was a 350 unit community, so our staff was a bit larger.
I would call around for pricing, some of these services are very reasonable.