Neighbours from hell

BY JANIE SMITH

A group of Auckland residents is looking forward to a good night's sleep after being kept awake by constant partying for nearly a year.

The Auckland City Council has received 69 noise control complaints about a property in Konini Rd in Greenlane in the past year. It issued 18 excessive noise notices, four non-compliance notices and seized equipment.

The council also sent three warning letters to the tenants and the property owner and were set to issue an abatement notice when it learned the tenants planned to move out later this month.

Resident Jane Davies-
Colley says they have endured a year of sleepless nights and while they’re
relieved the tenants are moving out, they’re worried who will move in next.

She says a big housewarming party when the tenants first moved in last March was followed by loud parties several nights a week for a year.

Fed-up neighbours resorted to calling noise control and police on a number of occasions when fights broke out and bottles were smashed.

Flatmate Gregor Robinson says he’s concerned problems were allowed to escalate and their calls for action from the landlord were ignored.

"If there’s been this many noise control complaints, it’s obvious it doesn’t affect them."

Mr Robinson says the main problem has been the constant noise three or four nights a week, generally outside the house.

He says although it isn’t always at high volume, there are bursts of loud noise that wake him and his fellow housemates up.

The pair say they and other neighbours have confronted the tenants face to face only to be told by one man that his mother held the lease to the property.

One man at the house last week who gave his name as Ryan says lots of "interesting things" have happened at the flat during the past year and the neighbours often yell at them over the fence.

Ryan says from Wednesday, which is pay day, the drinking starts and is "pretty non-stop" for the rest of the week.

"We try as much as we can to go out but it ends up back here. I don’t think the landlord cares as long as we pay the rent."

The property owner, who did not want to be named, says she has to go through the proper legal
procedures with tenants.

"I can’t just kick someone out."

She says she has passed the information on to the tenants and says the parents she dealt with for the lease were "really lovely people".

If she took the tenants to the Tenancy Tribunal it could take longer than the lease’s length, she says.

The owner says neighbours have been calling her late at night about the house, which she considers harassment.

- © Fairfax NZ News