Afraid I will get evicted because of my 4-year-old's tantrums -- what are my rights?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's always neat to see people come into these threads to assure the OP that they cannot get evicted because there is a child involved. Nope, luckily for the rest of us, noise is noise and you can indeed get evicted for it. The source does not matter.

Control the kid/screaming or move, those are the choices..there are only two. People that live in apartments have to accept that they can not make unlimited noise anymore.

Everybody always talks about kid being loud but I have a 97-year old living upstairs who screams day and night because she thinks the caregivers are killing her. I should be able to have her convicted, right? Or we are going to decide that at 97, it is what it is and there is really nothing much the neighbors can do but live with the screaming.
Maybe they medicate her, but OP also works on keeping the child quite. Can the lady be evicted (noise is a noise) or a family with a child? Neither, at least in DC. Both have to live somewhere and neither is making then noise on purpose.
In my building security used to be called on every noise- including somebody walking with a walker. This ended when HUD was contacted.

[Anonymous]

OP, are you allowed to use noise buffers in the walls? The music rooms in schools/ colleges use and they absorb the noise considerably when all doors and windows are closed.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are lucky you don't have security in your building. We received 30 calls in 1 year. Not once did security hear us but they said that they have to come. They really do - it's in our rules and regulation. It didn't make sense to me but this really is the rule.
We went on vacation and got a noise complaint. How do you not notice the difference in noise after having called on us 30 times? I really expected a letter thanking us for being gone.
Again, in our building you don't look for the noise, you go where the callers sends you. Security even forgets where to go and doesn't know who called them. They go from door to door waking people up all in the name of noise they don't hear.
It's like living in a dormitory. Security has no problem knocking on your door in the middle of the night because your neighbor asked them to. Nobody knows this craziness is going on until they move in here.
At least Op says they do make noise and are working on reducing it. Getting security at the door makes my blood pressure go up also, one of the PPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the neighbor doesn't want noise they can live in a single family house or in the country. The neighbor is the entitled one. Living in an apartment means dealing with noise.

Wrong. The law actually supports the neighbor. OP’s unruly children is creating unreasonable noise. OP doesn’t have a right to inflict that upon other people just because it’s apartment living. Get a clue.

If you think so, I invite you to attempt to enforce what you believe to be the law in DC in exactly this situation and see what happens and how fast it happens. You're going to be disappointed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the neighbor doesn't want noise they can live in a single family house or in the country. The neighbor is the entitled one. Living in an apartment means dealing with noise.

Wrong. The law actually supports the neighbor. OP’s unruly children is creating unreasonable noise. OP doesn’t have a right to inflict that upon other people just because it’s apartment living. Get a clue.

If you think so, I invite you to attempt to enforce what you believe to be the law in DC in exactly this situation and see what happens and how fast it happens. You're going to be disappointed.

“ Every person living in the District is entitled to reasonable noise levels that do not threaten life, health, and enjoyment of his or her property.”

OP’s uncontrolled child is very clearly threatening enjoyment of ALL of her neighbors’ property.

[Anonymous]

This situation sucks and I feel bad for both sides. I have a four year old who makes a lot of noise too. Screaming etc. We live in a small row house with only one wall fortunately, but I know the neighbor hears. She never complains, however. What we try to do (in addition to gifts, yes, real gifts, not cookies) is 1) be out of the house on weekends so she can have peace and quiet and 2) get our son in bed by 8pm at the latest and keep him quiet till the following AM, around 8am also. Kids make noise, but it sucks for neighbors. And if he is really screaming, we do go outside...we bundle him up and go and actually it improves his mood very quickly. Not as a punishment, but because going outside feels good under most circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the neighbor doesn't want noise they can live in a single family house or in the country. The neighbor is the entitled one. Living in an apartment means dealing with noise.

Wrong. The law actually supports the neighbor. OP’s unruly children is creating unreasonable noise. OP doesn’t have a right to inflict that upon other people just because it’s apartment living. Get a clue.

If you think so, I invite you to attempt to enforce what you believe to be the law in DC in exactly this situation and see what happens and how fast it happens. You're going to be disappointed.

“ Every person living in the District is entitled to reasonable noise levels that do not threaten life, health, and enjoyment of his or her property.”

OP’s uncontrolled child is very clearly threatening enjoyment of ALL of her neighbors’ property.

Again: try enforcing this and see what happens and how fast it happens. Report back in 2021 about how it’s going.

OP: concentrate on dealing with the behavior. You don’t need to worry about eviction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are raising two kids in a two bedroom apartment. Our kids make different noises than yours (not too much screaming, lots of bouncing, jumping, running). We do what we can to mitigate the noise level: carpeting, mats, we don’t wear shoes, respect the building’s quiet hours, spend lots of time playing outside - but we’ve had plenty of noise complaints from our downstairs neighbors.

Because we are following the rules on floor covering and quiet hours, there’s really nothing they can do but complain. As the building tells them, noises are a part of apartment living. When they talk to me directly, I’m sympathetic but kids are kids and there are some days, like today, where we just can’t get outside to burn energy. I did give them the name of the white noise machine we use during nap time. They haven’t complained in awhile so maybe that’s helping.

Anyway, keep working with your dd. Hopefully she’ll grow out of this phase soon. And good luck with the new baby.

Wow. You're almost as obnoxious as the OP.

Do you really think your neighbors signed up to live under a trampoline park? I have three little kids (inc two boys) and there's no way I'd be living in an apartment. And when we do trips somewhere, we demand that they're quiet in the rooms. Yes, even when that means we need to waste a bunch of time taking them somewhere to run around. It's part of being a reasonable person. You should move to the burbs where you have more space. You can't just inflict your kids on everyone around you.

If you know that "kids are kids" (said by lazy, entitled parents everywhere) then why did you decide to live in an apartment? I'm so shocked at the entitlement of some people. We held off on starting a family until we could move to a house for them. Even when it was a small house, and we had to give up a lot else in life to get it. It's what decent people do. Your reproduction decisions shouldn't constitute a societal problem.

As someone who lives below a family with very noisy kids constantly thumping, jumping, rolling, dropping things, and screaming - THANK YOU! I wish everyone actually considered others as much as you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a DC landlord on a very small scale. I don't know the details, but i hear over and over that it's basically impossible to evict a DC non-commercial renter.

+1 to this, esp. someone with kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are lucky you don't have security in your building. We received 30 calls in 1 year. Not once did security hear us but they said that they have to come. They really do - it's in our rules and regulation. It didn't make sense to me but this really is the rule.
We went on vacation and got a noise complaint. How do you not notice the difference in noise after having called on us 30 times? I really expected a letter thanking us for being gone.
Again, in our building you don't look for the noise, you go where the callers sends you. Security even forgets where to go and doesn't know who called them. They go from door to door waking people up all in the name of noise they don't hear.
It's like living in a dormitory. Security has no problem knocking on your door in the middle of the night because your neighbor asked them to. Nobody knows this craziness is going on until they move in here.
At least Op says they do make noise and are working on reducing it. Getting security at the door makes my blood pressure go up also, one of the PPs.[/quote

Is it at the Towers on Cathedral Ave?? This sounds exactly like there... used to live there with my infant and had those problems which is why I moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The notion that someone should only have children if they can afford a single family home is probably the most privileged nonsense I’ve read here in a long, long time. You people are ridiculous.

Living in an apartment means that you are in close proximity to your neighbors. Being courteous means doing your best to limit your family’s noise, and there are a fair number of known ways to do that, many of which it sounds like OP already has in play. She is doing the best she can and is worried it’s not enough. Most of you came here to pile on and tell her she’s a bad mom and a bad person and shame her for having another child. Do you feel better now? Proud of your awful selves? You sure told her!

Someone needed to tell her because she obviously doesn’t get it.

Except she’s not a bad mom or a bad person. She’s in a difficult situation and was looking for some support. Plenty of people figured out how to offer her suggestions without being jerks. You chose to be mean to someone because you think you’re right. Do you think that makes you a good person? I don’t. I’d take OP and her kid over you people and your privilege and horrible attitude any day.

OP isn't the one who needs some support. Her neighbors do. And probably her poor kids. Telling OP that it's all fine, she has a right to terrorize her apartment complex and it's all fine, doesn't help anyone. It doesn't sound like a remotely healthy family or living situation for the children. She's stubbornly wanting to stay there because of some pie in the sky idea of sending her kid to a certain school. Never mind that studies after studies have shown that the most important thing determining outcomes is the family and home life, not the school. And also never mind the fact that if her daughter continues with the misbehavior at school, she'll likely have a bad experience there anyway.

[Anonymous]

This would be a great premise for Super Nanny or one of those parenting shows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You will not be evicted in DC for thishttps://ota.dc.gov/page/guide-evicti reason. Here is the list of reasons why you can be evicted in DC:

on

This isn’t on it.

Everyone else here seems to believe they have the parenting advice part of this down, so I’ll leave that part to their capable hands. I just want you to know that you are not in danger of being kicked out of your home because your 4 year old is going through some stuff. Hang in there.

[b]Yes, landlord can evict. It's under no. 2. Every single lease guarantees the tenant the right to quiet enjoyment. Such is the law in D.C. So, yes, the tenant below can have the landlord evict. A: Yes, the landlord is required to take reasonable action against tenants who cause disturbances to other tenants. ... Under District case law, however, the “warranty of habitability” goes beyond just the property's physical aspects, and includes the tenant's right to the “quiet enjoyment” of the rental unit.May 2, 2014
https://www.washingtonpost.com/www.washingtonpost.com › express › 2014/05/02 › ask-the-advocate-ca...
Ask the Advocate: Can D.C. landlords enforce law and order ...

This. Yes, the landlord can evict. Yes it will take time but they can evict OP. Every tenant is guaranteed the right of "quiet enjoyment" of their apartment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would be a great premise for Super Nanny or one of those parenting shows.

Agree, parent coaching is needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This situation sucks and I feel bad for both sides. I have a four year old who makes a lot of noise too. Screaming etc. We live in a small row house with only one wall fortunately, but I know the neighbor hears. She never complains, however. What we try to do (in addition to gifts, yes, real gifts, not cookies) is 1) be out of the house on weekends so she can have peace and quiet and 2) get our son in bed by 8pm at the latest and keep him quiet till the following AM, around 8am also. Kids make noise, but it sucks for neighbors. And if he is really screaming, we do go outside...we bundle him up and go and actually it improves his mood very quickly. Not as a punishment, but because going outside feels good under most circumstances.

It's amazing that you do SO MUCH for your neighbour. While i applaud you for it, i don't get it. Kids are kids. It's much worse if adult neighbours disrespect the rules of peaceful living. I had many bad experiences with college students, recent grads, working millennials (i'm one of them) who lived in my apt complex and threw parties on weekends. There was loud music, loud voices, screaming/laughing and pot smells. That's the problem not little kids. Seriously people get a reality check. I also once lived in an apt that shared a wall with a woman in her 50ies who had a family in Belgium and used to call them around midnight (it was 6 am in Brx then). I could hear every f...g word. Not some mumbling, every f...g word. That's disrespectful not parents with little kids.