Noise and ASB

We recently took an apartment in El Valle for an extended holiday and are suffering from excessive noise from the neighbours above.

They bang and scrape their furniture about ALL day nonstop to the point I wonder what they came here to do other than take chairs and tables for a walk.

But worse than that they make an indescribable amount of noise at night for hours until well past midnight with raucous shouting, banging the shutters and crashing furniture sounds above the bedrooms,  we cannot sleep for it even with all our iPads running white noise all night. It sounds like they are breaking every solid piece of furniture in the place.

There is absolutely no peace from these people day or night and its totally spoiling our stay here. We have had absolutely no proper sleep for the past two weeks since they arrived.

I have politely mentioned this to them in a note delivered through their door but have got no improvement.

Are theyany laws that the resort management can enforce to stop this anti social behaviour?

If so how do I contact them?

Not sure how much longer our nerves will hold out!

Take it up with you community president and raise a denuncia with the police (make recordings as evidence especially after midnight)

Any noise after midnight simply call the police out (every night if you have to) and make recordings before the police arrive as sods law says they will stop just as the police arrive

Sounds like you have rented a typical holiday let this type of construction is not designed for living in  next time you rent make sure it's on a urbanization where real people live .

That may be part of the problem, but the Spanish have different time clocks too.  I don't think you'll get anywhere by involving the boys in blue.  I reckon your only hope is to have another word with your neighbours and try and find a solution amicably.

go to the gatehouse and report your neighbours to security......they are very good at responding to complaints....get security's telephone number for future reference.....

Ignore windtalker. I live on an urbanization. My walls are paper thin.

Sorry but acer is not correct the police do act especially if after midnight

we had a similar problem when our friends came over for 2 months and rented a flat a few years ago. the neighbours upstairs (spanish) were very noisy (music, shouting, moving furniture etc) and the police were called twice 2 nights in a row they were warned and threatened with arrest on the second night and the noise stopped

We bought an apartment on an urbanisation where "real" people live. We were assured that regulations in Spain were such as to make noise from neighbouring apartments negligeable......what rubbish. When people were in the apartment above ours it sounded as though a herd of elephants were rampaging around. We heard chairs scraping, doors closing, the clip clop of feet, everything. I am sure that the people were only living their normal lives but the construction of Spanish homes doesn't encourage a quiet life, particularly the tiled floors and concrete walls. Fortunately, this didn't go on much after midnight so we changed our times to suit theirs and always brought over ear plugs! Yes, I think that the local police will take action against excessive noise such as music, but normal living I'm not so sure. I know that noise can really get to you in time, it certainly did to me but not from the upstairs neighbours but that's another story. You have to be thankfull that you don't own the property! Have a word with the president and get some earplugs.

Tadd1946, you may be technically right, but the reality is wildly different.

What do you expect the Police to do?  They will always want evidence and that is not easy to prove.  Loud music after midnight is easy to prove and there are witnesses, scraping across the floor not so. 

Involving the Police is very short sighted and may make the situation worse.  There are practical solutions, but these must be agreed amicably with the neighbours in a civilsed manner.

Pop into your Town Hall or look at their web page (if they have one ) on town by-laws or get a copy, it will tell you all about Acoustics Ruido, bar, car, public, decibel range etc. Our town hall law states no noise between 22.00 and 08.00, looking at other towns and city´s throught Spàin there may one or two hours different in times but All seem to say the same things. Our Police have and will come out no problem, if called lucky for us only happend a couple of times over 12 years, good luck

acer

moving furnture around after midnight is just as easily proven as music most have some form of recording ability on mobile phones etc

this is why I suggested they make recordings

if they persist then the only way is to involve the police especially if it stops the noise some people are too rude to be reasonable or civilised the fact that they are making such excessive noise at unreasonable times only proves they are rude and disrespectful

Are the neighbours Spanish?

Sanchez1

Why does it matter ?

Unreasonable noise is a nuisance no matter nationality

Thanks so much for all the suggestions, I will be making recordings from now on although becasue the noise is not music I did wonder how that would be considered if I filed a complaint, but at least I may play the recordings back to them in the hope that they realise how bad it is. Not sure what difference it would make to the police but no they are not Spanish, and I am hoping they are just on a short holiday let. Its correct the construction here is paper thin, I can even hear the footsteps above but I don't think any amount of concrete would completely buffer the sort of heavy noises they are doing with the furniture. I will drop in at the gatehouse and see what they suggest too, last night had socks stuffed in my ears so definitely will try to find some earplugs today! Really appreciate all the responses. Thanks everyone.

if you have a smart phone download a free app for a sound meter it iwll give you a fairly accurate decibel reading and some make a record of all measurements whoich will go with your recordings

Ha wait until they've had a heavy night of furniture moving then play some early morning music and go out for the day 

Sanchez1

Why does it matter ?

Unreasonable noise is a nuisance no matter nationality

The reason I asked was because the Spanish can be a pretty noisy lot and what Brits may consider to be noisy, the Spanish wouldn't!

When my Spanish in laws used to visit us in the summer in Spain, they used to do the scraping the chairs across the marble floor thing.  The noise used to drive me mad.  I gave up asking them to lift the chairs, not drag them.  The Spanish don't like being told what to do!!

Having 8 Spaniards all talking at the top of their voices, talking over each other was pretty noisy as well.  They seem to have this way of talking that is not quite shouting, but it's quite a bit louder than a normal talking voice. 

I got used to the noise but I used to feel a bit sorry for the neighbours (mainly Brits) who probably didn't know what hit them

Sanchez1,

It's good to see at least one person understands the Spanish, but it seems you may have an advantage.

Tadd1966 - you say "easily proven as music most have some form of recording ability on mobile phones etc"  but what will that prove!  Not a lot!

Just because you can play someone a noise doesn't amount to evidence.  It would have to be a tad more sophisticated than that - starting with a confirmed decidel level,, the time, the date, location etc and how do you prove the noise came from any particular direction? 

Does your mobile really have all these apps?  Your "evidence" may be as thin as the buildings structure.

You should always remember that being "underneath" has certain disadvantages.  If you get too snotty they might just leave the bath running for an hour or two with the plug in... you'll probably jump in and say "then I'll sue them" which would be wrong again.  It pays to be nice  and it's not at all clever to suggest otherwise

acer & sanchez1

you have very good points but there are always ways and means if being nice about it fails.

mobile phone apps have very accurate sound meters available for free and are good evidence

you can even buy a sound meter from about 30€

Why not talk to them instead of slipping notes under their door?