Neighbor complaining about noise level. Do we have any right on this subject?

Fortunately dogs are (almost) infinitely forgiving of the bad ways some humans treat them and so five minutes after the fireworks are over she is asleep and snoring in bed and I am lying there totally frazzled, unable to sleep, and wondering if I should call the police next year and risk pissing off all my neighbours.

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My only guess is that it was Christmas/New Year’s after all, and since it’s an area heavily involved with weddings, there could have been a proposal. We do allow parties - with pre-approval and extra fee and extra deposit only. Neither groups applied for the party approval. We do not have any loud speakers and we are on over 3 acres. We are the first house in the neighborhood, and the other side is an empty lot. So we are pretty private. We do not have any sound systems, so the TVs have very minimal impact. Considering how much it rained during that time, I doubt anyone could have had a party in the backyard. My only guess is they really didn’t think it would disturb someone that much, and as I mentioned before, there’s some dog in the neighborhood that barks quite often in the middle of the night (it sounds like it’s right in my backyard, but in the darkness I have no way to tell for sure). City ordinance for noise level is between 11pm and 7am.

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You obviously can’t stop her :slight_smile:

However you can be a good neighbour and rather than feeling antagonised, you should think about how you can work with her to appease her concerns. Good neighbours are worth their weight in gold.

Talk to her about the measures you are putting in place to ensure guests have minimum impact on the areas such as late night noise house rules and no fireworks.

Reassure her that you have CCTV at your property so you can monitor noise and guest activity.

Give her a mobile where she can reach you if she has safety concerns relating to guest activity.

Unless you live on the property you don’t know whether your guests were noisy.

Work with her rather than seeing this as some sort of affront.

And find a way of moving those bins off the curb, if you are not close enough to the property to do this yourself on a weekly basis, then pay a local kid or ask your clean/local manager to do it.

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First off I would absolutely ban fireworks or anything of that nature. The rest of it I would let go in one ear and out the other. Not sure that they can complain on behalf of other neighbors and their pets. If the other neighbors had issues then I’m sure they will or would have been in touch.

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Check your local rules, which may be different for STR (that is, if you have any rules covering STRs, it may be unaddressed I realize) than for the owner-occupant. My U.S. county STR regulation does not allow any noise that can be heard outside the rental dwelling unit for example, regardless of timeframe – and I’ve embedded the entire regulation language in my house rules. This is much more strict than the noise rules that apply to me.
I’ve found it helpful to offer “good buddy” rates on my Airbnb rental to my neighbors if they have family or friends visiting who need a place to stay.

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Great idea… Yeah I’m looking into the county laws and they do have a special section for STRs (one that just came out a week ago). I plan to call the county to make sure as well…

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You ask: “Do we have any right on this subject?”

I suggest that instead of trying to determine whether or not you have the right to accept money from strangers and allow them to cause a public nuisance on your property, you consider another right. That right being your neighbors right to quiet enjoyment.

I’m a little confused. I’m not aware of any right my neighbors have to “quiet enjoyment”… Because if such a right existed, I would really like to know. As stated earlier, there’s a neighbor’s dog that barks all night… I assumed my neighbor has the right to have a dog so I just have to put up with it. If that’s not the case, please enlighten me.

We all have a right to enjoy our properties, and the neighbor with the dog can be made to shut it up if you put up enough of a stink about it. All of this is just noise, you have had some good and no so good advice here. Take the best and leave the rest.

RR

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Laws are different everywhere but homeowners (here anyway) …

> have the right to the quiet enjoyment of their property. That means that they should be able to use their property without interference from others.

Also, property owners are responsible for ensuring that their tenants (including STR) do not cause a disturbance. (And by law it’s definitely the landlord’s responsibility and not Airbnb’s).

But there’s a larger issue with neighbours when you’re an Airbnb host. In all the years I’ve been doing this I’ve found that it’s so important to have the neighbours on your side. Neighbours can make a host’s life difficult in so many ways - remember that even the Airbnb site has (had?) a feature where neighbours can complain about local listings.

I’ve always encouraged neighbours to report any issues directly to me. And only once in all these years have I had to throw a couple out of one of the rentals for disturbing a neighbour - who had complained (nicely). I’m right on the spot near the rentals but I can’t be spying every hour of the day and neighbours’ input is valuable. When I first signed up with Airbnb the immediate neighbours were horrified and thought it would be dreadful. Ask them now. Apart from that one instance, which must be three years ago, there have been no problems whatsoever. If the host isn’t on the spot, ensure that the neighbours know how to contact the co-host.

Life is a lot easier, and hosting is very stress-free, when the neighbours are on your side.

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They still have it but I find it hard to believe they do anything.

https://www.airbnb.com/neighbors

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I find it hard to believe too. It was probably just a knee-jerk reaction to some media report once upon a time.

Nevertheless, neighbours can make a host’s life a misery if they’re not on side.

I absolutely agree. Which is why I plan to play fake nice and make them feel like their concerns are listened to. I just talked to another neighbor who’s also running an STR - they’ve also gotten a complaint from the same lady as I did. The complaint was that some of their guests apparently made u-turns in the cul-del-sac, which in turn shined their headlights through the lady’s house… So I guess this lady can come up with a lot of things to complain about…

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Wow. I’m glad you don’t have an STR near me :slight_smile: :frowning:

If it were me, I would “own the problem” – tell your neighbors what you are going to do to make sure that never happens again and tell them to call you if there is EVER anything that is disturbing them, that you will come and talk to your guests. Make the restriction of fireworks, as others said. Perhaps it should read “Shooting off fireworks is grounds for ejection without refund.” Who knows if Airbnb would back you but… it sounds good and might make guests think twice.
Finally, be sure you are charging enough – charging an appropriate, or a bit high, rate will help to keep the riff raff out/off of your property.

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I’ve been left wondering if 3 acres in the UK is larger than 3 acres in the US.

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No, they are the same. LOL. Even 3 acres isn’t enough to overcome fireworks. I had a friend on 4 acres in Indiana. She fancied herself an animal rescuer and at one time had 14 dogs and 17 large parrots. In the summer the parrots could be heard squawking up and down the valley. Also dogs would periodically escape the “invisible fence.” Her neighbors all rightly hated her. That’s the risk moving out to the country. You go for peace and quiet then the guy with Harleys moves in, the people with dogs, the family with dirtbikes and ATVs who are always shooting off fireworks.

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I:am struggling a bit with guests who brought fireworks to your home and then created a challenge with your neighbors.

If they injured someone, or caused a fire, who is responsible?

Would you book a nice place for vacation and assume you could light fireworks? Most hotels would shut you down. If you ask me (and you didn’t, but here goes) your neighbors might have a point.

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There are parts of the US where yes, you would assume that you could. I have friends in rural Indiana and fireworks are an issue in their neighborhood.

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That’s my plan. And yes I do charge higher than others in the area. I try to stand out by charging more than others. :wink:

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