Tenant harassment (i have an autistic toddler)

Tenant harassment (i have an autistic toddler)

Member since 2019 · 9 posts · 1 vote

The neighbor above me has been stomping over my head very early in the morning 5am and after "quiet hours" late at night well after midnight. She slams doors, she "drops" things which shake my apartment ceiling. I have an autistic child who has sensory processing disorder so the loud noises scare her. For the last few months her cat has been staring into my window, also scaring my autistic child, who is 5. I have an older child(16) who has severe anxiety and depression and has a cat as her emotional support pet, so when this lady's cat comes.to our window my daughter's cat freaks out scratching my child. Now her cat has anxiety the vet has told us. Which makes it difficult to provide support for her. I have contacted the landlord on several occasions, taken pics of the cat at our window, the landlord went on to tell the tenant that I reported her so now she goes around and tells the other tenants that I'm mean and has even used explicatives. I can hear her speaking to tenants when she is outside my window. They tell her if my window is open or not. So I can't even open my window without wondering when her cat is going to come push on my screen and scare my child.

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Rental Property Investor · Erie, PA · Member since 2018 · 6k+ posts · 9k+ votes
7y

You had me till you said the cat has anxiety .. that is nonsense 

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  • Rental Property Investor · Closter, NJ · Member since 2015 · 884 posts · 722 votes
    7y

    Way too much drama here over trivial kid issues and cat issues. If Tenant is unhappy, perhaps finding another place to live, in an upper unit, is the solution.

  • Rental Property Investor · Rockford, IL · Member since 2014 · 4k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    7y

    @Account Closed,

    It may be time to talk to your attorney about ADA violations by the upstairs tenant. You may have grounds to sue, though I doubt you'd get much beyond a judgement which will cloud her credit report for years.

    If this is an on-going issue, renewing may not have been the wise thing to do. Again, ask your attorney about the landlord failing to provide a safe place for your family to live as grounds to terminate the lease. You may even be able to name your landlord as a co-defendant in the suit against the upstairs tenant.

    There's no reason to tolerate your situation, but you may need to stretch your comfort zone just to stand up for yourself and your family.

    My $0.02 ...

  • Member since 2019 · 19 posts · 10 votes
    7y

    @Mike McCarthy Research ADA.

  • Rental Property Investor · New York City · Member since 2019 · 703 posts · 538 votes
    7y

    Imo - I would Give my cat some Catnip and it may make friends and have fun with anybody or anything....

  • Real Estate Broker · Cleveland, OH · Member since 2017 · 719 posts · 658 votes
    7y
    Originally posted by @Bill Kramer:

    You can't be held to upholding the lease you had your tenants sign equally?

    So when this woman moves out, and you try to hit her with charges, you will win in court even though she has proof you refused to uphold your side of the contract?

    I understand that you get used to wave the Fair Housing at every opportunity but it would help to read it and not just interpret what you’ve heard somewhere.

    The law protects people from discrimination on the basis of race, familial status, national origin, color, disability, religion, sex.

    That’s it. If I’d decline to rent her because she has a child - that would be discrimination.

    In my example, in that particular building, there are owners who live in each unit, not MY Tenants.

    How do you see people should be treated equally? What if she’d bought that condo - who would she complain?

    Before you give one advice for every life situation, you should educate yourself, at least on the law, you’re referring to.

  • Contractor · Evansville, IN · Member since 2019 · 142 posts · 208 votes
    7y

    Thankfully, I am getting educated all the time. I like people to be held accountable on all sides on the fence.  Fairness is a double edged sword after all.

    There are some key words at play here: autistic (special needs) child and support animal.  


    I have been to fair housing seminars to get certified in order to be a vendor at many apartment complexes locally. We were shown many absurd scenarios of discrimination that had nothing to do with protected classes that actually went to court and won. They taught us how to act and behave so as not to trigger a lawsuit. If you want I can easily cite examples.

    One of those scenarios was eerily close to the original post. Discrimination comes in many, many forms. The lease works both ways. And this tenant has a very strong case on her hands. 

    My advice is based off those seminars taught by a leading attorney/law firm. Maybe he was misininformed, I dunno. But I know he drilled it into our heads. And he even gave dollar amounts to backup how expensive fair housing lawsuits are. It was shocking how much $ is involved in those suits and how easy it can be to trigger them.

    I would say the landlord has to make every reasonable attempt to address the person violating their lease, hold them accountable, and if that doesn't work, evict. By cherry picking what clauses to enforce and what not to enforce and with whom is discriminatory.

    It starts with something minor like noise, but cracks turn into caverns as they say.

    If it wasn't in the lease, whole different ballgame. I would never put in a lease anything I wanted to enforce randomly. And I would hope any decent lawyer would advise the same.

  • Investor · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    7y

    @Orlando Jurado can you point out in the ADA that it says someone isn’t allowed to be a jerk. 

    I don’t agree with it, I think the world would be a better place if everyone put niceness first, looked out for others, but not everyone does that.  it’s hard to make someone else not be a jerk and there’s no law against it. 

  • Multifamily Syndicator · Houston, TX · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    7y
    Originally posted by @Dennis M.:

    You had me till you said the cat has anxiety .. that is nonsense 

     I had to second this!

    I was like wow... Cats have anxiety too these days? 🤔

    Really learning something new, other than real estate, every day on BP! 

  • Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    7y
    "If they are making noises at 5 am, talk to your neighbour and remind her of the quiet hours set by your landlord. "
    ---------------------------------
    I disagree only because my understanding is that the neighbor has already been spoken to. Send written notice to the landlord to enforce the quiet hours or you will consider  him in breach of your right to quiet enjoyment of your demise. Back it up with a REAL doctor's diagnosis of the problem (nobody less than a bona fide MD) that your daughter is suffering and why. Tell him as part of your written notice that if it is not cured immediately, you will move out in 60 days That gives him 30 days to cure and you 30 days to move out.

    If it doesn't stop, then move out.

    Above all, don't blame the woman's cat. I hate cats, but this sounds like normal behavior for a cat, so you can't expect the cat to conform to your pecadillos. You CAN expect the landlord to enforce quiet hours and non-harassment rules and laws.





  • Rental Property Investor · Erie, PA · Member since 2018 · 6k+ posts · 9k+ votes
    7y

    I understand some of this is simply no fault of your own and happenstance but geez just move if it’s that bad and giving you that much grief 

  • Member since 2019 · 23 posts · 47 votes
    7y

    @Account Closed

    I would move if you can manage it. That’s a lot of drama. Take yourself and your kids out of that environment. You are entitled to quiet enjoyment of your property, but fighting an awful neighbor might not be worth it.

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