Apartment living: What to do about noisy neighbors

The Houston area is staying home during the coronavirus outbreak, and single-family homeowners sometimes complain about nearby noise — leaf blowers early in the morning, next-door backyard activity, or a neighbor’s truck that could use a new muffler. For apartment residents, though, this challenge can be amplified.

You don’t just share a property line and a fence with our neighbors. You share a Sheetrock wall that is just a few inches thick. I don’t know how many Houstonians are into practicing the standing high jump in combat boots, but I’m pretty sure they’ve all lived upstairs from me at some point.

So, what are apartment residents’ responsibilities to keep quiet, and what are your rights to expect your neighbors to keep it down?

The lease

Every apartment lease should have some general provisions about noise. The standard lease prepared by the Texas Apartment Association prohibits “behaving in a loud or obnoxious manner” or “disturbing or threatening the rights, comfort, health, safety or convenience of others.” This isn’t just a restriction aimed at you, it’s a protection giving the manager the ability to hold your neighbors to the same standard.

The law

Within the city limits of Houston, it’s against the law

“… to make, assist in making, permit, continue, cause to be made or continued, or permit the continuance of any loud, unnecessary, or unusual sound or noise that disturbs, injures, or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace, or safety of others.” It’s also a specific violation of

city ordinance to keep “any animal or bird that causes or makes frequent or long and continued sound that unreasonably disturbs, injures, or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace, or safety of ordinary, reasonable persons of normal sensibilities and ordinary tastes, habits, and modes of living who reside in the vicinity…”

The ordinance goes on to set specific decibel limits for residential property — 65 dB(A) during daytime hours, 58 dB(A) during nighttime hours. This ordinance is enforced by the Houston Police Department. HPD has decibel meters, but not in most patrol cars. A responding officer generally has to summon a sergeant to bring a decibel meter, which is then used to measure sound “… from the property line … where the sound is received toward the source of the sound.”

What to do

If you have noisy neighbors, don’t confront them. Notify the property manager, in writing, with as much information as you can give. Which unit? What date and time? What sort of noise? How long did it last? Notify them separately every time it happens, and keep a copy of what you sent.

If you think the noise warrants police intervention, use HPD’s non-emergency number: 713-884-3131. This is generally useful for sustained noise only, such as ongoing really loud music, but much less useful for a neighbor stomping around upstairs. It might be helpful to know that the “property line” in an apartment is considered to be inside your apartment next to the wall that faces the source of the noise.

One major exception — if you hear something that sounds like someone may be in danger, call 911 immediately and make sure the dispatcher knows where you are and where the officer needs to respond with an exact street address and unit number. Be prepared to stay on the line as long as the dispatcher needs you.

Understanding your utility bill

Years ago, when you rented an apartment, the only thing you paid was your rent. Rent included everything — electricity, water, trash, parking, taxes — sometimes even cable television.

Why isn’t everything free anymore? Well, of course, nothing was ever free. You just didn’t see the individual costs broken out separately in a detailed statement. As the apartment industry has evolved, more and more properties bill with line items for separate services. Most of these are pretty straightforward, but we a lot of questions about the way properties bill for utilities.

Water

You may get a water bill for your apartment calculated in one of several ways.

The first uses submeters. An apartment property will typically have one — or just a few — big water meters between the city water main and the property’s water pipes. The city bills the property for water (and assumes the same volume for sewer service), with one account for each meter. If all the water for an apartment unit comes into the unit from one pipe, you can put a smaller meter on that pipe and measure the exact amount of water flowing into that unit. The property then bills you for that amount. This is great, because if you use half the amount of water your neighbor uses, you don’t overpay.

Unfortunately, many properties cannot install submeters. A lot of communities weren’t built with submeters in mind, so in some buildings water to the kitchen comes from one pipe and water to the bathroom from another.

In properties with central boilers, hot water comes through a completely different set of pipes altogether. With properties like these, owners generally use “allocated billing” — which involves estimating the amount of water for each unit based on a formula. While this isn’t as precise as submetering, it is better than making a single resident in an efficiency apartment pay the same as the family of six in the three-bedroom unit next door.

Under Texas law, properties that do allocated water billing have specific formulas they have to follow. They also have to have a copy of their water bill — and the Public Utility Commission rules — available for your inspection.

Before starting an allocation system, properties have to install water saving devices such as low-flow toilets and shower heads. They have to pay for the water they use for common areas (the pool, office, clubhouse, etc.) themselves — they can’t allocate that to you.

If you have questions about the way your water bill is calculated, talk to the property manager. They will be happy to explain how it works.

Electricity

Most Houston apartments are metered separately for electricity — you pay a bill for exactly the amount you used to your retail electric provider. A property with a single master electric meter can submeter electricity, or can allocate the bill according to the square footage of each unit. As with water, the property’s bills for the past year have to be available on site for your inspection, as well as the formula they used to calculate your bill.