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Obnoxious and Disrespectful Neighbors

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mmm442

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Massachusetts


My wife and I just moved into a multi-family home in MA near Boston. There is a downstairs unit, which the landlord’s granddaughter lives in, and an upstairs unit that we just moved in to. Within a few days we found out our new neighbors are loud and obnoxious people. We were told by the landlord that his granddaughter lived by herself on the 1st floor. To be nice I knocked on the door on the first day to introduce myself and a man answered the door (looked like he just woke up) and said he was “her friend who lets the dog out.” Anyway, this man we quickly learned is the live-in boyfriend and in 1 month’s time we’ve heard them fight LOUDLY over 5 times, slamming doors, threatening each other with physical violence, etc. It’s one thing to have it out with your boyfriend/girlfriend every once in a while but this happens about twice per week at around 1-2 AM, often on weekdays, costing me a lot of sleep loss and affecting us at our jobs. When they don’t fight, they are just generally loud, slamming doors and stomping and I hear the guy always say “I don’t give a f**k” about us upstairs. On other occasions that they don’t fight, they will play really loud music, again at 1-2 AM, and have disgustingly loud sex. They also have had one roommate for the past month, who they kicked out on the street over the weekend. This was another huge scene and vocal altercation. The roommate who had to leave was an extremely nice girl (at least in our interaction with her) and tried to be very reasonable with this couple but it was of no use. After 3 hours of fighting and screaming, in which the couple teamed up on her and called her all sorts of unrepeatable names they finally just kicked her out. The roommate was arguing about how she had to find “safe places” in the house whenever the couple brought home OTHER COUPLES from a STRIP CLUB to have sex with! We also heard the granddaughter hit herself on the face in order to make it seem like the roommate had punched her.

They obviously have no regard for us as neighbors and feel entitled to get their own way, I think, especially because one of them is in the family that owns the house. I have no idea how to reason with people like this, who I feel are just going to get more and more obnoxious and immature. If I confront them, they will most likely just lie to my face or tell me to f**k off because it’s “their house”. Plus, I don’t have any leverage with the landlord because I’m complaining about his family!

We just moved to this place because we need to save money and need more room because my wife is pregnant. But at 1 month in I am ready to just break the 1 year lease term that we signed. I don’t feel safe there and our quality of life in our own home is now horrible. What is the best way to get out of this lease?? Can I cite the neighbors as a valid reason for breaking the lease? Also since we just found out my wife is pregnant, can we use the fact that it is a very old house that potentially has lead paint in it? Are there any other legal avenues we can take against these people without just making out lives more miserable? Thanks for any advice!
 


FarmerJ

Senior Member
lots of drama huh, call the police every time they disturb the peace during sleep hours and every time they argue loud, report the arguing as possible domestic if it you hear threats of violence. Ok so your LL either really does not know that all this drama is going on or they know and have head in sand , either way not your problem keep calling 911 , note the calls on a calendar and the time , If your town has a rental nuisance ord where after X calls to a property they put a LL on notice to fix it or else they will do so. The reason to go to all this trouble is at some point you can send LL letter via certified mail and in the letter lay out the times and dates you called police and suggest they either agree to a early termination of your lease with no penalty to you. If the LL wont take action, keep calling 911 as needed then when you have quite a number of incidents logged I would say a option is to take the LL to court for breaching your lease by failing to act.
 

Mass_Shyster

Senior Member
Talk to the landlord and explain that
  • You think the granddaughter may be in danger
  • You do not feel safe with the live-in boyfriend downstairs
  • Wife is pregnant and
  • You really don't want to go throught the expense of having the apartment tested for lead paint
Then ask if s/he will simply release you from your lease.
 

mmm442

Junior Member
Thank you FarmerJ and Stevef. Both are very good suggestions. I agree having some sort of documentation on record will be extremely helpful. Basically, I feel that (at least immediately) I'm in a lose-lose situation because contacting the landlord, police, or neighbors themselves will only lead them to be more belligerent. This, of course, will provide us with more of a legitimate reason to break the lease but I am really not looking forward to this process if it involves weeks/months of complaints, documentation, and dealing with the neighbors from hell. These people are classless and will not follow any warnings since they know they are just going to drive us away in the end.

Thanks a lot for your help.
 

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