Seek for advice on noise in the apartment problem

3 months ago we moved to an apartment. As soon as after we moved we realised there's some noises from the apartment above us that vibrate the whole day above our bedrooms area, from early morning until around 2am after midnight. These noises bother us so much especially our sleeps and quite time. It's very loud and vibrating. But we had no idea what could it be.

My husband reported to the landlord but they said the management office had to take care of it. My husband reported to management office but also not very cooperative. After a few weeks of waiting they measured the level of the noises but still didn't do anything.

So my husband went to the apartment upstairs to find out. He only met two helpers and the kids of the family upstairs. One of the helper said the wife of the family could only speak Chinese so she didn't want to come out to see my husband, whereas the husband wasn't at home.

The information from the helper my husband got was that this family has hot water pump that vibrates in their whole apartment and our apartment too whenever they use hot water. Even their kids said that the noises bother their sleep. They have the water pump for quite a while already, not just recently. Worse is that the wife of the family always takes a bath after midnight. That's why it's always still very noisy until around 2 am.

After a long wait and emailing back and forth with the landlord, property company that we used to find the apartment and the building management company, the building management company agreed to come to measure the level of the noises again! And it's only after two months we lived in this apartment.

Before the building management company came to measure to level of the noises, they already made an appointment with the family upstairs. But on the day when the building management company came, none of the wife and husband was home. They had no intention to solve the problem at all.

The building management company later-on agreed to issue a letter to the family upstairs that they had to do something with the noises of their water pump. My husband also consulted a lawyer. The lawyer adviced us to write a legal letter that mentioned that if the family upstairs didn't do anything with the noises, we'll take a legal action. Then we went on summer holiday for a few weeks and returned just a few days ago.

The noises are still there, no improvement at all. No feedback from the building management company either. My husband wrote them an eMail asking them to give a feedback but no reply.

It's very frustrating for us. The vibrating noises have been bothering us a lot. We had no peace anymore living in the apartment especially in our bedrooms which is most important. If we stay home all Sunday we have to hear the noises all day from early morning until 2am after midnight.

My questions are:

- The landlord doesn't help us at all to solve this problem though they are also responsible to help us. We think that they actually knew about the noises but didn't inform us before we sign the rental contract. When we viewed this apartment a few times before we signed the rental contract it was only for a few minutes each time so we didn't hear/notice the noises. But everytime we came to view the apartment the landlord was always there and said that he was doing things in the apartment and was there the whole day to wait for people coming to view the apartment. So we're sure that he knew about the noises but didn't inform us. Or perhaps he already knew about the noises from the tenant before us.

Question:
Could we terminate the contract soon and suit him to pay our compensation for not informing us about the noises and didn't help us to solve the problem at all?

Question:
How could we suit the neighbour for the problem with the noises? Anybody can advice us with a good lawyer for this case?

Any advice is welcome but please I don't need to hear any nasty comments!

If it's any consolation, you're far from alone in experiencing the 'noise nuisance', as our building management so aptly put it.

In short, there's no effective remedy. From what I read and learned, noisy neighbors rank as one of the top complaints about living in the 'Kong. Like you, I've also consulted lawyers and available HK government resources, to no avail. The only way out is to move out, hoping for a better luck in terms of neighbors.

Try going to the Police. They will come and make an agreement with the occupants upstairs...

I'd know for we got the visit a few years back when my boy was still a baby...kind of a shocker..for how can you control the noise of a baby, isn't it?

Anyway, it''s worth a try...

This is extremely annoying. I know as I have dealt with EXACTLY the same issue some time ago. Im my case the pump from the neighbours left a constant knocking sound which seemed not to bother the neighbours at all but drove me nuts and is extremely stressful.

Here is what I would do.

1 - Put the LL on notice that this is something that makes your apartment unlivable and withhold rent until it is resolved.

2 - Make a record of the noise (use a video camera, showing the date, and clearly recording the sound (and ideally capturing the actual pump if you can see it).

3. The police are relatively useless, although you do have a basis for action under the Noise Control Ordinance , but unless the police deem it at truly excessive (and the very unlikely will) you will need to bring a civil action (on the basis of noise causing nuisance), which, provided you have a very good chance of winning you will win.

4 - The pump they have is either broken, or a cheap Chinese version. From my case, I know that I higher quality pump, properly installed, will not make such noise. In my case the matter was actually resolved with the owners hiringa plumber to fix a defect in the pump, but I would have insisted in a Court that they cease the noise had they not fixed it. (And in my case, as I was an owner, and not a tenant, it was actually worse - at least you have the option of moving!)

That's worth a try. I'm really surprised you did get a visit from the police - in our case, each time the police came only to talk to us, who complained about noise, but did not visit the noise-maker at all. It's more like going through the motion. We gave up on the police front after several tries.

Maybe it would've made a difference if we were local and speak Cantonese?

OP - maybe you can also try the consumer council?

I had a similar problem a few years ago that I managed to solve with the help of the police, so would not agree that the police is "relatively useless". A young man in the flat upstairs was throwing very noisy parties until the early hours of the morning almost every weekend. On numerous occasions I had gone up to complain, but to no avail so one night I had enough and called the police at 2:30 am on a Sunday morning, and 3 police officers arrived within 5 minutes. I had kept a record of all noise disturbances for the last several months which I showed to them, and I got the impression they took it very seriously. The police went up and gave my neighbors a warning and they were told that if it happened again they would be summoned to the police station and ultimately if it didn't stop it could lead to eviction. This completely solved the problem, have not heard any noise from upstairs since then which was about 2 years ago.

I got the impression the police had instructions to take this matter seriously, Hong Kong is a crowded place and this kind of problems can easily escalate into violence. I would suggest you keep a record of all noise incidents, and when you call the police do so at nighttime, preferably some time after midnight as some noise is allowed until 11 pm. Even if the police cannot force your neighbors to buy a new water heater, at the very least they should help you tell your neighbors not to use the water heater after 11 pm.