Hi all, I’m new to posting on here but I could really do with some advice here.
I have a 2 year old son and I would say that we let him play a normal amount, never too loudly and never before 9 in the morning or after 9 at night. Most of the time he is either at day care or out and about with us at weekends.
A while back my downstairs neighbour told (not asked) us that we should not make any noise in the house before 11 in the morning as her children want to sleep. Her kids meanwhile go to cram school until 11/12 ish at night, then come home and get subjected to a screaming match with the mother most nights, sometimes until 2 in the morning. We therefore carried on letting our son play, although we did make an effort to not let him play with the noisier of his toys, we also put a small carpet down in his play area.
They then threatened to sue us, saying that we were driving them crazy and their whole family was losing it because of our abnormal behaviour. We went to get advice from the free government lawyer who told us that they dont really have a case and we should ignore them, which we promptly did.
We’ve now got a letter from their lawyer saying that they are starting proceedings against us. One half of me is saying that we don’t have anything to worry about, the other half is panicking about being sued! I’ve started recording their shouting matches as potential evidence.
Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Do they have a leg to stand on? anything we should do to protect ourselves and our son’s right to enjoy his home?
Tell her you are recording how much noise they are making (from midnight to 2 am), and will in turn sue them for that. Since the noise they are making is louder and at a more inconvenient time, you might win.
I’m guessing Taiwan doesn’t have “noise” laws? I have a free standing house now but for many years we lived in apartments. The general rule of thumb no matter what state we were in was “no noise before 9am and no noise after 10pm.” As long as you were in-between those hours, you could have a Wii dance party and stop around. lol
In Australia you would complain to the local council staff until they come out and measure the sound level. If and only if the sound level is in breech of local laws, they would do something about it.
There has got to be some (even if it is not well known) equivalent in Taiwan?
Not that this helps, but if it were me, I would use my sound meter (or an iPhone sound meter app) and keep a log of their sound levels at particular times of day. This would probably help if it did come to legal action.
I doubt they realise how noisy they are from your apartment.
They’re not suing because your son is noisy, they’re suing because they think you’re rich, their kids are driving them mad, and you’re a big-nose.
I would let off firecrackers outside their house each night about an hour after they’ve gone to sleep, and then every third night set off another couple of bigger ones about an hour or so after that, but never on a regular basis. Keep em guessing, and trembling.
But that’s just me, and I’m a miserable prick.
Perhaps you’d be better off recording their kids and the parents arguments, and suing them for child abuse as well as noise complaints.
Seriously, I don’t think they could “Sue” you as you know it. I had a similar situation happen to me. I live in a row house. I had a noise sensitive nutcase of a neighbor. The women put in a complaint against our family and two special police officers showed up.
Her complaint was about the noise our family made going up and down the stairs, banging on the floor which was in reality my kid dropping one of his toys on the ground. Noise is amplified at night.
These special police officers, to my understanding, had no real police power. They were there to smooth things out. If continued in our confrontation, we would be put in some sort of forced mediation. I kind of felt sorry for these guys.
We put in a wood floor with sound proof padding to help smooth things over. Still there are times when we would get banging on the wall. The next day I will just apologize or tell her it ain’t easy raising 4 kids. You forgot how you raised your kids, uh. We also bought them off with Mango.
I suggest you get some Chinese speaking friend to check out the process of noise complaints. I only get it second hand. Good luck.
to protect yourself record their noise with proof of time somehow and and record your noise as well. A recorder can be had cheapo enough if it means you can sleep at night knowing they have no hope of winning.
I would also check your building rules ( i assume your in an apartment?). See if they allow children, some dont some places. then see their sound rules. record them breaking those rules and you could get them evicted maybe…thats nasty but if push comes to shove…
its weird this is something i expect back west, never here. i could scream at teh top of my lungs for an hour at 4am here and no body would say a thing cause they dont want to be the rude one lol.
Between 9 and 9? You’re fine. There are laws about noise levels at that time, but they are pretty high; like industrial machinery high. On the other hand, her noise after 11 is a no-no. You can call the guan-ying ren or even the police and file a complaint. The woman sounds unreasonable…
It sounds like you are driving your downstairs neighbors insane and you’ve left them no other avenue except to seek legal redress. Nobody wants to waste time and money on that. Stop the toddler bashing things on the bedroom floor, and this problem will quickly go away. Put it in the lounge or the kitchen or somewhere else to play - as far away from the bedrooms as possible.
I agree with everyone else. You’re find, your neighbors are dsiturbing the peace by arguing at night. Record them for a while, and then let them do as they will. I would also counter sue them, though. If you only let them drag you into mediation (which is more likely than actual court), and then cause them to lose face by playing their noisy late night arguements for everyone in the room, they may try other little creative ways to drive you nutts as long as you live near them. If you counter sue–let them see that you’re willing to do this and that you would win–then agree to drop it in exchange for a mutually respectful neighborly relationship, you’d stand a better chance of being able to still live in your appartment after this all gets sorted.
The problem, as Urodacus has pointed out, is that they think you’re too white to understand Taiwan’s laws and procedures, so you can’t defend yourselves. They also likely assume that the law will automatically make them right because they are Taiwanese and you’re not. This is a common, uneducated, perception. But usually, foreigners are treated fairly in official processes.
Minor point of clarification, you cant get someone evicted if they own the apartment. I don’t know what percentage of people rent, but I wouldn’t bank on the hope that they are not owners of their apartment.
Check about the recording first, they could countersue regarding “privacy laws”.
Talk to the lizhang of neighborhood representative. See where other neighbors stand, you might need witnesses, and if they are also afraid of the boisterous neighbors, then the lizhang or other third party might have to step in.
Noise is Okish until 12am. If at 12:01am they are screaming, call teh cops. Get something in written, It is the only defense.
No, here you get dumb people suing other people over mostly dumb things, they think that democracy is all about their right to sue … look at our politicians and superstars … they can! It’s all about trying to Make the quick buck …
Have your neighbors actually taken the step to file a complaint against you or are they just venting. My neighbor actually filed a complaint against me.
As said, they sent over two special officers. They really did their best to understand the problem. The officers really don’t want to take it up to the next level. Telling the OP about rules of when you can and can’t make noise is fruitless. This is Taiwan.
I asked the officer "Don’t the rules say I can make noise between… "
He cut me off and said, “Well… the rules… are just rules…” meaning that I have to do my best yield to the nutter next store.
I would find out what office handles these things. Explain that your neighbor is on the verge of “Suing you”. and see if you can have them come and visit. They’ll check your living habits and make suggestions and explain to your neighbor what is reasonable or not reasonable.
We own the property so they can’t speak to our landlord. The property is on 2 floors so we don’t even let him go down to the livingroom until around 9, from then on I still try not to let him make too much noise. The previous owner was a disabled old lady so the neighbour appears to be comparing us to her.
I’ll look into the noise laws in a bit more detail and let you all know what I find.
We (my Taiwanese wife and I) already checked with the Lijiang, he thinks we are right but doesn’t want to do anything about it (in case they don’t vote for him) .
The last letter we got was from their lawyer saying that they will start proceedings, not from the government informing us that an actual proceeding has been lodged - they might just be trying to scare us.
I’m still drawing up my collection of recordings so I don’t want to let them know I’m doing it until as late as possible. Its pretty gruesome listening though- I need to clean up the files as there is a lot of background noise but I think I can hear the girl screaming at her mum not to hit her anymore. If it is then I will report regardless of anything else. :fume: I’ve just been recording them on my iphone so it records the date and time but not the noise level.
We are currently writing our reply to their lawyer, rebuffing their accusations and making a few of their own. A problem we might have with counter suing is that A) we are broke B) we never officially complained to them about their noise - I assume that to sue you must have some evidence that you have lodged complaints over a period of time and that these complaints have not been listened to.
In all seriousness though, I think the lady is a bit mad and I hope anyone looking at the facts objectively would be able to see that.
you could always drop a cd of her recorded madness in her mailbox…don’t put any labels on it though…let her guess that other people are listening to her…play mind games but don’t confront her…
If they are having shouting matches at 12- 2 am I would call the police anonymously - make sure they can’t track it back to you. But I am not sure if you have to give your name etc. You could be a concerned citizen passing the house for example…
Would it be filed by the police here? I am not sure. But if there are enough calls made, the woman will have her own issues to deal with.
I’ve heard it is traditional to counter-sue, regardless of the evidence on either side. It’s sort of a special game played by the bored, psychotic, workaholic middle classes when they realise their life is pretty much over, and they have to wait 40 years until they actually die. Damn, what can we do today to blot out a few more days of our pointless existence? I know - let’s sue the neighbours!
As someone else noted, it is also possible to call the police over, and you could simply tell them you’ll do this every time they start a screaming match. Even though the police have no power to actually do anything, the neighbours may wish to avoid this scenario because of the immense loss of face involved in having the police knock on one’s door, and a few of the police are surprisingly good at on-the-spot mediation.
Good idea. I hate the Taiwanese “don’t get involved” attitude when it comes to nasty shit like that. There is a helpline to report child abuse. You might want to call that anyway (since it sounds like there is real abuse going on, although possibly not to Taiwanese standards) or you could just threaten to use it if you hear any more of that sort of thing.
It really depends how far you’re prepared to let this escalate, but I have noticed, in most Taiwanese confrontations, the guy who does the most screaming and makes the most hyperbolic, irrational threats wins the argument.
