While one night's worth of lost sleep isn't ideal, a B.C. renter claims they had about two years of poor slumbers due to a noisy neighbour.
In a 2023 dispute, a B.C. renter filed a claim with the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) for a staggering $10,500 rent reduction from their landlord over a noisy neighbour they said had them sleepless for months.
The tenancy commenced on Dec. 15, 2013, with a monthly rent of $1,750 due on the first of the month; the tenant paid a security deposit of $825, which the landlord still holds.
The tenant claimed they sent the first complaint of loud noises to the landlord on Nov. 24, 2020. After this, they began logging the disturbances, "which most frequently occurred between midnight and 6 a.m."
The tenant said they'd sent upwards of 70 emails to the landlord, "including over 45 audio and video files documenting the noises heard from a shared wall between the two units, which contains no pipes." The sounds included banging, beeping, and vibrating noises.
The renter added that the landlord was "largely dismissive of their complaints" and didn't act promptly. Instead, they said the landlord began investigating in October 2022, nearly two years after the first complaint. Instead, the tenant felt the landlord should have started investigating the situation with the "tenant in the south unit" over a year prior.
The landlord testified that they were responsive to the tenant’s complaints and made "reasonable efforts to address the noise issue by having professional technicians conduct numerous inspections and investigations."
The RTB included a timeline of emails between both parties. In several messages, the landlord asked the tenant for clarity about whether they were still hearing the noises, what they sounded like, and where they appeared to originate. The landlord took several steps to track down the origin of the noise, including contracting inspectors to check washers in the units and floors, interviewing other tenants, and distributing a memo to neighbouring units to remind them of courteous living expectations.
RTB believes tenant lost sleep but landlord tried their best
Section 28 of the RTA states that a tenant is entitled to quiet enjoyment including "freedom from unreasonable disturbance." The RTB said it believed the tenant experienced "frequent and ongoing disturbances impacting their quiet enjoyment of the unit" based on substantial evidence that they "have not been able to sleep through the night in two years."
But the branch wasn't satisfied that the landlord hadn't attempted to rectify the issue.
The RTB said the landlord took reasonable steps to correct the issue once they determined where the noise originated.
"Having reviewed the submissions of the parties, as summarized in the timeline, I note that the tenant inadvertently misdirected the landlord on at least six occasions from November 2020 to August 2022, as they told the landlord the noise was, or seemed to be, coming from above the tenant’s unit. This is an easily understandable mistake, but provided the landlord with incorrect information regarding the source of the noise, which impeded the landlord’s efforts to determine the true source of the disturbances," the branch noted.
Despite disturbed sleep for about two years, the tenant's claim to recoup some of the lost money was dismissed without leave to reapply. However, the renter was permitted to reapply for the landlord to comply with the tenancy agreement if the noise issue persisted after the dispute.
