Neighbor Sending Noise Complaints For Current Tenants
I own a single family home in Chicago Suburbs. Currently have tenants that have been there for a couple years. Never had any issues with them paying rent or taking care of the property.
I no longer live in the area and have a property manager to handle essentially everything. Over the past year or so, one of the neighbors of the house has been informing me about noise issues at the property. I have reached out to my manager a couple of times, and she has forwarded the information to the tenant. My understanding is that any noise issues are during daytime hours, and largely just a result of the tenant owning motorcycles and having friends who own motorcycles. Now I am not there in person, so can't really verify this.
The neighbor has called the cops recently for a noise complaint. The tenants actually reached out to the property manager the next morning to let them know about the situation and said that the cops themselves had no issues but just had to check in because of the call.
I am not exactly sure how to deal with this. I don't want to piss off neighbors, but I also don't feel any need to start an eviction process. Additionally, even if I wanted to evict, I don't think I have any ground to do this. This is really just hearsay at this point that they are being loud.
Anyone dealt with a situation like this before?
Even if it does get worse and I do want to evict, would noise complaints with police enforcement be enough to make it an easy process?
This is simple, stay out of it. If there is a real noise complaint that is legitimate then code enforcement will be involved. Until then it's noting more than an annoyance.
When I had a neighbor with a noise issue from my tenants dogs I simply said "thanks for letting me know, but there's really nothing for me to do. Have you gone over a knocked on the door and talked to them about this?" The answer was ALWAYS no, and they never did. Eventually they quit telling me about it...if they're not going to try talking to the noise maker who isn't doing anything actually wrong, then it must not be that big of an issue.
I agree with @Matt Devincenzo. The tenant is aware that the neighbor is irritated by the noise so hopefully they will be considerate in the future. But if the neighbor immediately jumped to calling the police over this issue and it's the first time, then the neighbor might be overreacting a little bit. I get it though, I've had annoying neighbors too.
Your manager can mediate between the tenant and neighbor to keep the problems to a minimum. Doesn't really seem like an eviction is warranted unless the tenant is in violation of their lease terms. And even if you figured it was best that they leave you could just not renew their lease or offer to break the lease & do early termination in the best interest of all parties.
Quote from @Ian Thorp:
I would advise the neighbors to speak with your tenants and try to reach an agreement. If they are too scared to have that conversation, they can report it to the police and let the police determine if it's an issue or not.
I also recommend you advise your neighbors to speak with your PM instead of bothering you. Your PM is in a position to monitor this and handle it, if necessary.
