I have a tenant on the 3rd floor of a building I live in and own (3 Family). The tenant has a small dog that does tend to bark allot I guess when she’s not at home during the day. My neighbor’s tenant, who lives in the adjacent attached house next store, has left my tenant a bunch of notes basically saying that he works at home during the day and is unnerved by the dog’s barking all day. Basically now my neighbor is now threatening to call 311 and saying that I would be subjected to fines if something is not done about the dog. I’m not sure what my neighbor expects me to do honestly (I mean I’ve tried reasoning with the beast )? No one else complains about my tenant and her dog. She’s quiet and pays her rent on time. My neighbor was implying that I should evict her which I would nevert do. But I’m just wondering what if any fines I could be subjected to? The dog never barks at night. And it doesn’t bark continuouslly. I think my neighbor is just over reacting honestly. Thanks for advice.


Comments

  1. True, but the landlord is an interested party in other ways.

    The OP says that this is a good tenant who pays on time and is otherwise quiet.

    If the tenant keeps getting tickets, she’s going to feel compelled to move. This is bad for the landlord–good tenants are worth keeping.

  2. No way they would give a ticket to the building owner, The LL is not responsible for the criminal behavior of a tenant. Do you realize how many tickets would be issued to LLs if noise complaints were written to the owners.

  3. Some breeds are so barky by nature and their breeding, like terriers, it’s impossible for the owner to do anything. My parents had such a hard time with our Dachshund barking too much for their condo neighbors. They were fined by the condo board. And I had a friend who had to get her terrier’s vocal cords snipped. Which sounds awful but it was either that or get rid of the dog and she and the dog were too attached to each other.

  4. “We have a yapper ourselves and considered an anti bark collar, something like this:”

    This stuff is on the market, and people use it, but it’s not very nice, in my book. Basically you’re electrically shocking your pet into submission. Definitely not the way to handle the situation, in my book.

  5. Thanks everyone for the imput. Plan on talking to the tenant tonight.

    Hopefully it can be resolved with as little trouble as possible.

  6. Agreed, but I don’t know for sure either.

    Practically speaking though, if the city comes out to a location on a barking complaint where no one is home and they can’t determine which apartment the barking is coming from and the person who complained does not know either (clearly not this situation), then they’re just going to write the ticket to the building and the owner will end up with a ticket that s/he will need to deal with one way or the other.