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Crystal Dawn
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Renter in trouble - Advice Required

Crystal Dawn
Posted Nov 15 2008, 11:31

Hello all

We desperately require some advice regarding my living situation.

We are a young professional couple currently renting while saving for our first home. Finally after almost a year of searching we came across the upper level of a house with affordable rent (which allows us to save), spacious and comfortable; very challenging to find in Edmonton.
We're good tenants; we're quiet, no drinking or smoking and no loud music. Basically our evenings consist of cooking dinner, watching a show or reading. We do not even have company over; generally socializing is done outside of the home. Our rent is always paid on time or in advance. Our landlord pays a portion of the utilities, we've viewed the bills and the usage has been cut in half since we've moved in. Our only downfall is we have a cat; this seems to be frowned upon in today's rental market.

The problem:
As I said we live in the upper level of a house, this is an older house and quickly found out there is not much of a sound barrier between each suite. The woman who is renting the lower level started complaining the day we moved in. She informed me my spouse and I were not to have *** in the bedroom as she would hear everything. She complained because she could hear us going to the bathroom. She complained that we put our garbage cans in the garbage area. She complained our laundry was not finished before eight in the evening. She's turned the water off in our suite as I was doing the dishes and again because apparently our toilet was running all night. Every time we turn on the television she bangs on the ceiling. The list goes on and on. We've done all we can to accommodate her, been polite, spoke with the landlord once we saw where this was going, letting him know these were not justified. Most of her grievances are beyond our control. I've been in her suite and truthfully I could even hear our cat walking around upstairs.
Our landlord has been mediating the situation respectfully and diplomatically until last night. He was in her suite downstairs; we were upstairs getting ready to go out for a nice dinner. I was doing my hair makeup etc... My spouse was working at the computer. We were talking to each other, walking around, nothing out of the ordinary. No music and no T.V. The landlord comes banging on the door and demanding to know what all the racket was about; asks why we're stomping around and yelling to each other. He informs us that if this continues we'll be evicted; there is no need for all this noise and to stop torturing the woman downstairs.
I do not know what to do; we tried to reason with him however he was firm in his belief that we are being maliciously loud. This is insane; I've started looking for a new place as there is nothing more we can do to keep the 'noise' down. We've only been here for three months. This situation is defiantly more incentive to buy my own home.
Does anyone have any advice? Is there any precedent for this type of situation or legal right? Or should I start packing?

Thank you in advance for any advice, I'm sure it will be helpful as I'm totally in the dark.