A nurse who complained she had not had a lie-in for 18 months due to “excessive sound” emanating from the apartment above hers has been awarded €2,000 in damages by a Residential Tenancies Board tribunal.
Orla Mohan lodged a dispute against landlord Cristian Chirilov, claiming he had not come to any compromise regarding the alleged noise from his tenant, who lives directly above her in Baldoyle, Dublin 13, with an 18-month-old baby.
Ms Mohan, who provided several videos of the “unreasonable noise pollution” to the tribunal, claimed the noise could be heard from 6am and occurs “at all times” throughout the day, sometimes until midnight.
She described the sound as “heavy objects being repeatedly dropped or dragged on the floor” and furniture “scraping on the floor”. This, she claimed, was accompanied by “pounding footsteps day and night”.
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While saying she understood “children need to play”, Ms Mohan told the tribunal she had not had a lie-in since the tenant moved in 18 months previously, nor had she had a “proper night’s sleep”.
Telling the tribunal she is a public health nurse, she claimed she had also been at a “financial loss” as she could not work night shifts without being able to sleep during the day.
While accepting there was a level of noise she must accept in apartment living, she said the noise “goes far beyond what is reasonable”.
Ms Mohan said she had tried to speak to the tenant on several occasions, and they were “shocked” there was an issue. She claimed the noise had “escalated” since she opened the dispute with Mr Chirilov.
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Noting that an 18-month-old baby lives in the apartment above Ms Mohan, Mr Chirilov’s representative, Ed Dempsey, said “babies jump around and make noise”.
Mr Dempsey told the tribunal the tenant’s partner stays over occasionally, while the tenant’s sister and niece, who has additional needs, also occasionally stay. He argued that the noise was a “consequence of living in an apartment”.
He said he was told by the tenant there was no excessive noise and claimed the issue was “being exaggerated” by Ms Mohan, adding that there had been no complaints from others.
He said he “did not mean to be dismissive” of the issue, but had no grounds to issue a notice of termination.
Mr Dempsey told the tribunal the insulation under the apartment’s floor meets building criteria. He said the installation of carpet and further insulation was “unrealistic” as the baby would “destroy the carpet” and there was no guarantee it would work.
Ms Mohan, who has lived in the apartment for more than seven years, said all she wanted was “for the noise to stop”, adding that she “works really hard” and cannot read a book or watch TV when she comes home to her apartment as a result.
She said there had been no solutions forthcoming from the landlord or his agent, adding that she had not asked for the tenants to be removed, but “just wants a solution”.
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The tribunal found there was a “distinct lack of response” from Mr Chirilov to Ms Mohan’s complaints and he did “nothing to ameliorate the situation” aside from talking to the tenant.
It deemed the landlord’s actions to be “inadequate and inappropriate”.
“It was not sufficient for a landlord simply to deny the excessive noise complaints and state that the noise was caused by normal apartment living.”
It said the “lack of any meaningful response” had prolonged the “difficult situation” Ms Mohan had been “forced to live with” and ordered Mr Chirilov to pay her €2,000 in damages within 21 days.
