State Specific Question About: MASSACHUSETTS (MA)

Yes, you can terminate a tenancy if a tenant is creating a situation that disturbs the quiet enjoyment of other residents.

Are they on a year-lease or month to month? If month to month, simply issue 30 days notice of non-renewal without giving a specific reason as that won't require you to prove anything is wrong. Generally a land lord is entitled to non-renew a rental agreement for any reason or for no reason at all. No reason at all is best: nothing to argue about.

If on a year-lease, issue a written noise citation and get ready for a fight. Today everyone has a video recorder in their phone. Go over and shoot some video (with sound) clearly demonstrating the problem. Do this 3-4 times at different times of day. Keep copies in case you ever need to go to court.

In my town, the police will only issue a noise citation if the tenant is violating the municipal ordinance that addresses sound. They define a nuisance as "sound that can be heard at the property line when windows and doors are closed." Time to find out what your town says about this. May not be able to get police involved if the sound is only transmitting down thru the floors. Welcome to multi-family living!

Again, I'm little worried about her claiming discrimination of the child (we are careful in NOT referring to a child,.just that it seems like someone exercising or running in that unit)

An old trick I used in my "C" class apartments in the Bread and Butter Areas:

When an apartment becomes empty, I vacuum the old carpeting and then cut back the edges along the wall exposing the "tack strip". Then I have another set of Padding and Carpeting installed over the old carpet.

Don't be afraid. Be firm and fair! If you can't, then please sell now before this tenant ruins your property and your life. I told you what to do, now go do it! (see how firm that was? *grins*

Ann,I'm down here in New Haven Connecticut.We had a three family,and Lived on the first floor ourselves.The lady who lived on the second floor,was just a little over 5' tall,about 90lb soaking wet.when she walked across the floor yould think it was a 500# elephant,same when coming down the stairs,going up ,no problem.We ended up putting a dropped ceiling in the first floor. With regular insulation.killed a lot of noise down the years.if we lived in the house,we could discriminate all we wanted,well almost.charlie.............

I'm with most of the others - do NOT say anything about the child. If you can give them notice AND you think that you can rent it out again, do so. The drama that might ensue over trying to quiet the kid isn't worth the headache to you.

Yeah well my father worked nights so we were told by our mother no running in the house and we had to whisper a lot.

Interesting that at times he was at work we still didn't run but had every opportunity and encouragement to run outside if we "needed" to,..and if far away enough from the house we could yell all we wanted to.

Some of us were very young but kids can be trained to restrain themselves. No one is stopping kids from being kids,..we had good rain and cold weather gear. In minutes we could "run and skip and jump outside" as much as we wanted. Inside we played quiet games and read a lot.

We had inside voices and outside voices. No one ever felt deprived.