Noise & Neighbour Conflicts
Community Situation Noise Complaint / DocumentationDocumenting a Sudden Noise Problem After Ten Quiet Years
New, recurring noise from a long-quiet neighbouring unit exposed how hard it is to prove noise, and how little support an unhelpful property manager may offer.
- History
- Ten quiet years before the noise started
- Noise type
- Loud TV, movies, and bass, several nights a week
- Management action
- Warnings sent, no further escalation
- Evidence challenge
- Phone video does not capture low-frequency noise well
An owner in a condo townhouse had ten quiet years with the unit next door. Then loud TV, movie, and bass noise started several nights a week. The owner went to the property manager and bylaw enforcement rather than approaching the neighbour directly. The neighbour denied responsibility, even though it was the only adjoining unit.
The property manager sent warnings but took no further action. The noise stopped each time a bylaw officer's vehicle was seen arriving, so no ticket was ever issued. The owner's main difficulty was evidence: the noise was clearly audible inside the unit, but phone video tends to filter out what it reads as background noise, so recordings did not capture what the owner actually heard.
Documents an owner in this situation should gather
- A written, dated incident log (date, time, duration, description) kept consistently going forward
- Any audio or video attempts, even if imperfect, plus notes on why they under-represent what's actually audible
- All written complaints submitted to the property manager and their responses
- The specific noise or nuisance rule the complaint is being made under
Questions to ask management or the board
- 1What standard of evidence does the corporation actually require to act on a noise complaint?
- 2What has bylaw enforcement documented on each visit, and can those visit reports be shared?
- 3What is the corporation's own escalation process if warnings aren't changing the behaviour?
- 4Beyond the corporation's internal process, does this situation fall within the Condominium Authority Tribunal's jurisdiction?
Facing something like this?
Read the plain-language guidance for this exact situation, or run your own documents through the Free Notice Decoder.
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Curated and maintained by Alexander Baraz, Condo Owner Advocate.
This is a Community Situation: a real situation shared publicly by a condo owner, most often in an Ontario Facebook community group. It is an illustrative community case. It is not a Condo Owner Advocate client, not COA casework, not a testimonial, and not legal advice.