Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in New York

Re: noise neighbor

In accordance with the warranty of habitability implied by N.Y. law, the landlord has a duty to take whatever measures required, up to and including eviction, to compel noisy neighbors to stop the noise, to stop disturbing the other tenants.

Therefore, once you submit a written complaint to the landlord detailing the noise pro0blem, the landlord has the responsibility of compelling the noisy neighbors to stop the noisy activities.

Note however that the noise complained of only rises to the level of a breach o the warranty of habitability, and the landlord only has a duty to act toi stop the noise, if the noise is an ongoing regular problem which moreover is loud enough to interfere with your routine activities including, e.g., your sleeping, and/or your conversation, and/or listening to television or radio.

Before writing the complaint to the landlord, unless there is danger in doing so, you could approach the neighbors and tell them that they are disturbing you and ask them to stop.

If this is impractical, or does not work, then write the complaint to the landlord. Moreover, start assembling evidence should you need to take further legal action such as going to court: For example, keep a written journal of the noise, describing it and hours of the day and dates during ehich it occurs; you could also make audiotapes of the noise for use as evidence.

I discussed the issues of addressing the issue of noisy neighbors in my 12/22/05 REPLIES (which I replied to at length, more than once, in a several part answer), in the LANDLORD AND TENANTS LAW category of LawGuru in, to the question titled RE: PROBLEMS WITH NOISY NEIGHBORS THAT MANAGEMENT WILL NOT TAKE CARE OF.