Noise and Neighbour Disputes: Keeping the Peace in Apartment Living
Ask any committee what residents complain about most and the answer is always the same: noise. Footsteps overhead, a dog barking at 3am, a party on a Wednesday, a renovation entering its sixth week, the neighbour who reverses into their space at 5:30 every morning. Noise complaints are the background hum of apartment living — and left unmanaged, they curdle into genuine, lasting neighbour disputes. After thirty years managing Sydney buildings, here’s what actually helps.
Why Noise Dominates
Apartment buildings put people in close proximity, sharing walls, floors and ceilings, living different lives on different schedules. A shift worker sleeps while a family lives. Someone’s hard floors are someone else’s ceiling. The building itself — lifts, plant, doors, gates — makes noise of its own. Some of this is simply the physics of shared living and can’t be eliminated; some of it is genuinely unreasonable and needs addressing. Telling the difference is where good management starts.
The Usual Sources
- Impact noise. Footsteps, dropped objects and furniture on hard floors — the classic upstairs–downstairs complaint, and often worse where carpet has been replaced with timber or tile.
- Airborne noise. Voices, music, televisions and parties carrying through walls and windows.
- Persistent barking is one of the most common and most resolvable noise complaints.
- Renovations and maintenance — legitimate, but corrosive when they run long or outside agreed hours.
- Building noise. Lifts, pumps, plant, car park gates and slamming fire doors — the building’s own contribution, and often the easiest to actually fix.
The Fix Nobody Thinks Of: Fix the Building
Here’s the one committees consistently overlook. A meaningful share of noise complaints aren’t about neighbours at all — they’re about the building. A door closer that lets a fire door slam, a car park gate that rattles, a pump that’s developed a hum, a lift that clunks. These are maintenance items, and fixing them removes real noise without anyone having a difficult conversation. Before treating a noise problem as a dispute, it’s worth asking whether the building itself is the culprit — because that’s a repair, not a conflict.
Floors: The Perennial Flashpoint
Hard flooring installed over what used to be carpet is one of the most common causes of serious, ongoing noise conflict in apartment buildings. Many schemes have by-laws requiring floor coverings to meet acoustic requirements precisely for this reason, and floor changes typically require approval as a renovation. The lesson for buildings is that approving floor changes with proper acoustic conditions up front prevents years of dispute afterward — it’s far easier to require underlay before installation than to litigate footsteps later.
What Actually Resolves Noise Problems
In practice, most noise complaints resolve through early, low-key intervention rather than formal process:
- Talk first. A surprising proportion of noise is unintentional — people genuinely don’t know their floors transmit, or that the party carried. A polite conversation resolves more than any notice.
- Establish the facts. Is this persistent and unreasonable, or occasional and part of shared living? Records — dates, times, duration — turn a vague grievance into something that can be addressed.
- Check the building first. Rule out plant, doors, gates and lifts before treating it as a neighbour problem.
- Escalate calmly if needed. Where it’s genuinely persistent and unreasonable, the owners corporation and strata manager have a formal path — notice to comply, then mediation through NSW Fair Trading, then NCAT if it can’t be resolved.
That formal path exists and works, but it’s slow, adversarial and costly in goodwill. Almost every noise matter that reaches it could have been resolved earlier and easier.
Where a Building Manager Fits In
Noise is where a calm, neutral on-the-ground presence is worth more than almost anything else. We take the complaint seriously and establish the facts, check whether the building itself is the source and fix it if so, have the early low-key conversation before positions harden, enforce the practical conditions around works and hours, and keep a clear record for the committee if it does need to escalate. Notices to comply, mediation and Tribunal applications are the owners corporation’s and strata manager’s domain — but the building manager is usually the reason most noise matters never get that far. In apartment living, keeping the peace is a real service, and it’s mostly done early and quietly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can we do about a noisy neighbour?
Start with the least adversarial step: a polite conversation, since a lot of noise is genuinely unintentional. If it persists, keep records of dates and times, and raise it with your building manager or strata manager. Where it’s persistent and unreasonable, the owners corporation has a formal path — notice to comply, mediation through Fair Trading, then NCAT — but most matters resolve well before that.
Are hard floors allowed in apartments?
Usually yes, but typically subject to approval and to acoustic requirements, since replacing carpet with timber or tile is a leading cause of noise disputes. Many schemes have by-laws setting floor-covering standards for exactly this reason. Check your by-laws before changing floors — and expect acoustic underlay conditions.
What if the noise is coming from the building itself?
Then it’s a maintenance issue, not a dispute — and it’s often the easiest kind to fix. Slamming fire doors, rattling gates, humming pumps and clunking lifts cause a real share of complaints. It’s always worth checking whether the building is the culprit before treating noise as a neighbour problem.
How do noise disputes get resolved formally?
The owners corporation can issue a notice to comply for a by-law breach; if the behaviour continues, either party can seek free mediation through NSW Fair Trading, and if that fails, apply to NCAT. It works, but it’s slow and adversarial — which is why early, informal resolution is almost always the better path.
Keep the Peace in Your Building
Building Management Australia is a Sydney building management firm — not a strata agent. Taking complaints seriously, checking whether the building itself is the source, having the early conversation before positions harden, and enforcing practical conditions is core building-management work — alongside your strata manager, who handles notices and formal disputes. If noise complaints are wearing your committee down, request a proposal at bmaus.com.au or email Andrew directly at [email protected].
About the Author
Andrew Veron is the founder of Building Management Australia (BMA), an independent Sydney building management firm established in 1995. BMA is a building management company — not a strata agent — providing on-site and visiting building management, facilities management, concierge, cleaning and valet services to residential, commercial and mixed-use properties. Over the past 30 years, Andrew and the BMA team have managed buildings across the Eastern Suburbs, North Sydney, Inner Sydney, Parramatta and the Sydney CBD, with assets currently valued in excess of $3 billion under management. Because BMA is independent of any strata management firm, committees receive unbiased advice and transparent contractor relationships. Reach Andrew at [email protected] or bmaus.com.au.
This article is general information only and is not legal advice. By-law enforcement and dispute processes are governed by legislation and your scheme’s by-laws; residents and owners corporations should obtain advice specific to their circumstances.