first time landlord question (tenant, rental, noise, landlords)

[hhe1982]

We rent it out a condo to a couple with a 2 year old son and a teenager daughter.
Then the condo associate president who live next door starts to complain about their 2 year old son screaming and crying, and they slam the door too hard when they close it. I talked to my tenants about that, but nothing seems changed.And my tenant is obviously unhappy with comments about their son screaming too much.
Well, I can install a door closer to prevent door slamming. But for the 2 year old son screaming, there is not much you can do about it. Plus, their son is in the daycare during the day.
What's the best way to deal with this situation?

[PacificFlights]

First thing is to find out exactly what the condo association can do about it. In order to understand what makes practical business snese you have to know the potential liabilities of not taking action.

So what are the options the condo association have at their disposal if a rental unit causes complaints?

[CptnRn]

You are not obligated to do anything unless the noise is excessive. Which can be tough to determine. As a landlord you cannot treat a family with children more harshly then any other family.

As a landlord I think you have to address both sides of the problem. Try to enlist the assistance of your tenants in minimizing the problems and deal with the person complaining to evaluate whether they have a legitimate complaint or not. Tenants are always unhappy when someone complains about their behavior, even when they are in the wrong. But as landlord you do have some obligation to make sure they are not disturbing their neighbors excessively. But I do think the complaining neighbor also has some obligation to let the family know when the noise is too loud and annoying. You can't do that for them, yet I have encountered neighbors who were unwilling to ever make a complaint to the party they were unhappy with. That peer pressure when it is happening can often do more then a landlords third hand complaints.

Visit the condo yourself during the hours the child is at home, is the noise often a problem? Talk to the other neighbors around the unit to try and determine if it is really problematic behavior or normal for a family with kids. Is this a normal child or one with behavioral problems. If it is normal, the neighbor just needs to tough it out. The neighbor does not have any right to assume he will never hear any noise from an adjacent unit.

Are the neighbors complaints reasonable or are they being over sensitive? As you can see from some of the threads on this forum some people complain about every little noise they hear.

Adding weather stripping to the door can also often help soften its closure. Especially anything that helps absorb the impact between the door and frame.

[Ultrarunner]

Good advice to brush up on the the Condo CC&R's

Condo rentals is an area I try to avoid because they generally have site specific rules that add another level to management.

It would think it reasonable to mitigate those items which can be easily controlled... it would seem slamming doors is a behavior issue and one that can easily be corrected.

Off topic... In my area, many associations have a flat out ban on rentals... and problems only magnify once the powers that be zero in...

Most children outgrow the terrible "2" so I would think/hope the worst should be over...