Noisy Neighbors

[kimmercake.livejournal.com]

Need your help with an awful noisy neighbor problem -

I have called the police for noise complaints too many times to count, these people will not stop their music blasting and rager parties. Sometimes the police show up, sometimes not. They party in their backyard so the noise can be heard on all sides. I, quite frankly, can't believe there aren't more complaints. These people are awful. I'm wondering what my options are in terms of next steps. I'd love to contact their landlord but have no idea who that is or how to find out (most people own in our neighborhood). Can I file an official complaint with the city somehow? I've also filed complaints on these people because they leave food and garbage out for days after their parties and I'm worried about rats. Ugh. Any help would be much appreciated.

Comments

[ron_newman]

The Assessor's office at City Hall can tell you who the property owner is, but you'll have to wait until they open on Monday.

ETA - see other comments below. Apparently this information is now available online.

[ceo]

To find the landlord, use the Somerville assessor's database, available at http://www.somervillema.gov/departments/finance/assessing. This will tell you the owner of record (and when they bought it and for how much, among other nosy information).

[ron_newman]

I didn't realize that database shows the property owner's name. Seems to me like it used to not do that, but maybe I just wasn't paying careful attention.

[kimmercake.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!!

[nathanjw]

Standard city advice: Call 311, make sure you mention you've called the police before. If you calling the police in the future, keep track of when you do so, and whether they seem to do anything.

For finding the owner/landlord: Given the address, you should be able to figure out the owner of the property from http://masslandrecords.com/ (South Middlesex) and/or the city assessor's database at http://data.visionappraisal.com/somervillema/search.asp .

[craigindaville.livejournal.com]

We had a similar issue, so allow me to share a few items that worked for us.

First, if possible, I would recommend that you enlist the help of your landlord, if you're on good terms. It never hurts to have the property-tax-payer complaining along with the renters!

Second, get in touch with your alderman. We had similar issues, and found our alderman (LaFuente) to be incredibly open and helpful to connecting any and all city services and advocating for us. Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot of persistence and repeated emails/calls to get anything done, but your alderman is there for just such a purpose. You might even think about asking for the problem to be on the agenda for one of the board's committees, especially if there is a health concern with the garbage.

Third, get out and talk to some of your neighbors. Ask them to send an email to the alderman so that he/she knows that it isn't just one disgruntled resident, but a true nuisance. That gives them more power with their colleagues and the city departments, plus you might find that many of your neighbors thought that *they* were the only ones, too!

One thing you need to make sure is happening is that the new party ordinance is brought to bear (see http://bit.ly/OUo0RM). The landlord won't do anything unless they're notified, and you can bet the threat of fines will help them move a little faster.

It may sound like a rotten thing to do, but the bottom line is you need to help that household realize the negative impact it is having on the neighborhood by creating negative impacts on them (visits from the police, visits from sanitation, citations and inspections, the whole gambit). Clearly they have decided that they can get away with the behavior, because they have.

Granted, in our experience it wasn't just noise and garbage, but drugs, fights and gang activity, but the city will get behind you with a full-court press. In fact, even WITH all of those actual criminal issues it took years to get a serious response, and only once we got everyone in the neighborhood involved to some extent. Once it was clear it wasn't just us, things got going pretty fast.

Good luck, and report back over the next few weeks; it might be helpful for the community to see what works for you and what doesn't.

[kimmercake.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, this is very helpful.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

You should mention if/how you've contacted the noisy neighbors.

[hikermtnbiker.livejournal.com]

If the landlord does not live in the property they may have no idea how their tenants are behaving. I'd try contacting them with a "I thought that you'd like to know" message. Ultimately they are the ones responsible and should be given a chance to address the problem before getting blindsided by the city. If they don't take any action then go for it. I've been a landlord in this situation and I really appreciated someone letting me know what was going on.

[kimmercake.livejournal.com]

We were able to call her today. Thanks for this perspective.

[grapefruiteater.livejournal.com]

You might also get your landlord to deal with their landlord if you'd rather not get involved personally—and I have to say, having dealt with the type of thing myself, there are some major arguments for staying out of the fray and having someone else handle it.

[kimmercake.livejournal.com]

We own so we don't have a landlord. Everyone in our building/condo association is willing to engage the landlord though.

[grapefruiteater.livejournal.com]

Do you have a property manager? They could also handle it. I'm not trying to stop you from intervening or to discourage putting yourself out there, but my experience with bad neighbors has been that sometimes it's better to not be "the neighbor who complained."

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

You've gotten a lot of great advice, so I just want to put in another request for you to post back here with an update, if/when you get results. It would be helpful and instructive for many of us. Good luck!!

[elements.livejournal.com]

One additional piece of advice, from my own dealing with a similar situation a while back: call the police non-emergency line during the day and find out who your area's neighborhood officer is. There is basically one community relations kind of officer, and they are often the ones who have relationships with the universities, know how to talk to young partiers, etc. They can also arrange mediations between you and the other household. We didn't end up having to use her, but I did contact the officer for ward 7 when it was just too much over too long... but then our landlords came through, and since the offenders were our downstairs neighbors that helped enough til their lease was up.

I found that during the night, the cops will actually show up for a noise call maybe half the time. When they do, if the partiers notice them coming and are quiet by the time the cop reaches the door, the cop may not even knock. Then of course the cop drives away and the noise is back. We finally, at our third call one night when our whole house was shaking from the noise, asked the officer to park a block away and walk up... then they actually got to observe it in action. Also, we consistently asked that a noise citation be issues. I don't think one ever was, but we made it clear we thought it was a law violation.