Nuisance neighbors and complaints

[Erik Pacpaco]

Hello landlords, we have a question regarding a complaint that our tenant has been having issues with their neighbor. He said that his neighbor in our rental has been crushing aluminum cans at 2 o’clock in the morning, the neighbor has a back porch light that shines directly into our tenants’ bedroom, the neighbor further cut down some of the branches from some of the trees our tenant’s yard without asking. Our tenant has a suspicion that his neighbors are up at late hours because they are doing crystal meth and tweaking in through the night. He has seen them using sunglasses at night. This is the third complaint that we have had regarding the neighbor and we have contacted their landlord twice to try to resolve the issue. I just wanted to open this up to the BP forums for any advice on what we can do because as landlords we need to be responsive and think that the last straw would be to advise our tenant to call the police

[John Underwood]

@Erik Pacpaco

I think it is always best to have a conversation with the person causing the issue. Either send a letter or knock on the door.

Explain there are numerous complaints from neighbors (don't single out anyone). That several are at the point of calling the police for noise complaints past 10PM. If there are doing something illegal I would think they would not want the police coming by to catch them.

Maybe put up a privacy fence or plant some trees to block the light and absorb some sound between the houses.

If all else fails have your tenant start calling the police every time there is an issue in the middle of the night. This should be a last resort in my opinion.