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I've posted this in my city forum but since no one seems to be answering, I thought I'd ask a specific crowd.
My family recently bought a house and it's almost close to a year that we've been going through renovations, permits and such. There's been heavy construction since it was an old house.
However, my problem is with the annoying neighbors who have nothing to do but sit on their asses and complain about every single thing that is subject to "disruption" for them. This includes construction during THE DAY and these people complain that we make a lot of noise. I'd like to clarify that the renovations take place inside the house, NOT outside the house. There has been a total of 3 complaints over the last few months. It's like these people are watching our house to burn or something.
-One complaint was illegal plumbing work. I don't understand this. Our heater wasn't working well, we brought out the tools and these people assumed there was illegal work going on. Are you kidding me?
-Another was working after hours. (and not the kind that is at 10 pm) I don't know how that is illegal. Will someone explain this to me? A school across my apartment have worked during midnight and let me tell you, the buzzing was loud and no one complained.
-And then there's one where there's no permit on the construction work. We hired a legitimate company and their team of workers has nothing to do with our choosing, whatsoever.
I'm assuming this but someone has probably complained about the furniture deliver we had over the weekend...at 7pm on a SATURDAY and that the delivery guys were loud.
I mean, are you kidding me? These bored people set our work back for so long, it's given us hell. Is there anything we can do - file a complaint against them for disruption of work? Anything?! It's been a nightmare thus far, especially for my parents. The bad part is that the Department of Buildings keeps the complainers anonymous so we don't know who's constantly stalking our house, as silly as it sounds.
My fam. has been going through hell back and forth over these absurd complaints, taking days off work so inspectors come and we want to do something about these false complaints. I saw something about a letter of solicity but there's no use of it since the names of the complainers are kept confidential. Please help!
Geez what is wrong with your neighbors? If the building inspector has not fined you, written anything indicating you have broken any laws or verbally said you or the contractor did anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about legally. Three complaints seem like a lot when you have to take off work but really it isn't if you are doing heavy construction. Listening to construction all day nonstop can get on people's nerves when they are home all day. I know I went through it with my neighbor, though I never once called the town/bldg. inspector to complain. What whiney little one's your neighbors are. My neighbor even did the heavy loud construction on Sundays!, argh!
Just try to get the work done asap and go talk to your neighbors and let them know it will be done asap. You can't do anything about the length of time since but you are doing your best. Remind them that once it's done it's done for a very long time. Ask them to be patient and also let them know you can't wait to have it done too. They may just be getting anxious to have the noise over with. Either that or they are old biddies with nothing else better to do but complain due to their own misery. If that is the case after talking neighborly to them then look for things wrong with their homes and report them annonymously of course
I wouldn't be that nice. I'd figure out a way to call the cops on them or something. Maybe stash some dope in their mailbox and say you saw a suspicious transaction
Just to show a different perspective - having ongoing noise for what you say is almost a year now can be grating on even the nicest of neighbors. I started staying home with my infant son in 2010, and only then did I notice a neighbor would keep his large dog outside all day long while he went to work. I kid you not, the dog barked all day long. After a week, I mentioned it to another neighbor of mine who knows the man well, he spoke to the guy, and the situation has improved.
I couldn't imagine having to stay at home with a baby and listen to ongoing construction, all day and even into the evening, for almost an entire year. I hear you, we bought a foreclosure and pretty much gutted the entire bottom floor, rebuilt the kitchen, did at least three months where we did lots of loud sawing, etc - but only on four days out of every week, and only for three months, and you can believe we always chatted with our neighbors and told them to please let us know if they were expecting company, needed a break, were having an outside party, etc - because we felt that three months was a long time to be dealing with this. We were new to the area, and didn't want to be on bad terms with neighbors we planned on living near for the years to come. Even quiet, inside work would often require us making cuts in the garage, so nothing was ever truly quiet.
Have you bothered to befriend these neighbors? Is there any reason at all that they should see you as anything but the new guy in the neighborhood who has been destroying the peace and quiet of the neighborhood for almost a year?
Just to show a different perspective - having ongoing noise for what you say is almost a year now can be grating on even the nicest of neighbors. I started staying home with my infant son in 2010, and only then did I notice a neighbor would keep his large dog outside all day long while he went to work. I kid you not, the dog barked all day long. After a week, I mentioned it to another neighbor of mine who knows the man well, he spoke to the guy, and the situation has improved.
I couldn't imagine having to stay at home with a baby and listen to ongoing construction, all day and even into the evening, for almost an entire year. I hear you, we bought a foreclosure and pretty much gutted the entire bottom floor, rebuilt the kitchen, did at least three months where we did lots of loud sawing, etc - but only on four days out of every week, and only for three months, and you can believe we always chatted with our neighbors and told them to please let us know if they were expecting company, needed a break, were having an outside party, etc - because we felt that three months was a long time to be dealing with this. We were new to the area, and didn't want to be on bad terms with neighbors we planned on living near for the years to come. Even quiet, inside work would often require us making cuts in the garage, so nothing was ever truly quiet.
Have you bothered to befriend these neighbors? Is there any reason at all that they should see you as anything but the new guy in the neighborhood who has been destroying the peace and quiet of the neighborhood for almost a year?
I wouldn't necessarily go as far to say "destroying the peace and quite of the neighborhood". We've been constructing for only a few months and everything else we've been trying to fix is minor - meaning everything is fixed inside the house. There were no noise complaints at all, more like assumptions made from seeing something. If you want to call 10 mins. of furniture delivery men outside, communicating with each other 10 ft. away to move big and heavy items in a small door at 7 pm on a Saturday disturbing, I don't know what would validate that as a disturbance of peace. I've had worse around my apartment.
However, my family has lived 2 doors down for almost 30 years now and we know our neighbors surrounding us. Like I said, these people are nitpicking and make assumptions based on what they see. They are complaining about everything from scratch as if they're the inspectors themselves - everything from the working permits to the plumbing tools, which are INSIDE of our house. As of now, we don't know who is being the snitch or who are the snitches. We just know that someone/people are after us.
I wouldn't be that nice. I'd figure out a way to call the cops on them or something. Maybe stash some dope in their mailbox and say you saw a suspicious transaction
That would be ideal. Too bad the anonymity of these snitches are keeping us from doing that. I would do everything to them in a heartbeat.
You say they are complaining. What action has the City taken? Have they issued a stop order, or fined you, or even cited you with violations? If so, then you are in the wrong. If not, they are probably getting tired of responding to obvious dubious calls.
If they haven't cited you, then why worry about it?
On the other side of the coin.....I lived across the street from a guy that took three years to build his house. For three years I had to look at his unfinished house, with construction crap all over his yard. A call to the County was worthless. All he had to do was show "some progress" to get his permit extended (they are only good for a year). While he finally finished and moved in, his yard is still a dumping ground for crap he brings home from work, or somehow collects. For instance, there are two a/c units sitting next to his garage, and three basketball goals laying in the side yard.
Looking at your past posts, you're in Astoria. Astoria has been in some sort of transition multiple times over the past 25ish years. Its gone from mini-neighborhoods to becoming mixed (it had a hispanic, italian & greek mostly). All this while Sunnyside and Maspeth have stayed more stable. These neighbors are probably remnants of the old mini neighborhood that was once there. In short they are bigots.
If you are still doing work that requires permits, post them in the front windows. If permit required work has been completed, post the passed inspection reports in the windows. If the contractors are using music radios, ask them to stop. Passed that they can call inspectors and the police all they want and they will do nothing.
Here is the NYC noise ordinance if you haven't read it yet.
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I would do everything to them in a heartbeat.
