On "24 hour call" after judgment against me. Neighbours claiming my tenants are noisy

I predict a voicemail message something like this;

"Thanks for calling your friendly neighbourhood landlord. If you would like to make spurious complaints about noisy tenants, please press 1. If you would like to tell the police about the tyres that you've just punctured, press 2. If you would like to make up stories about well behaved tenants, press 3. Otherwise, leave a message, and I'll call you back when I wake up."
 
Personally your on a loser here. I would rent the house out to the worst possible tenant you can think of. Might as well have a tenant in there that REALLY causes them problems - rather than rent to good people that are gonna get abused. Turn your phone off - no need to answer the call directly as long as it goes to voicemail.

I am serious.
 
Mark I can see why you left the house. Have you any idea what is wrong with the neighbours that they need to be constantly complaining.

You can't do anything about the judge believing them instead of you which is what the case seems to have boiled down to. Why do you think the judge felt that way about them, were they very good in court. Were the tenants in court?

In relation to the phone, you could be a heavy sleeper and might miss the call etc.

Going back to the incident of the neighbours calling out the guards that the tenant's were throwing stuff on the roof, if there was no stuff on the roof what did the guards say?

I really do not know what is wrong with them. They have cctv back and front,
their letterbox is sealed up and the kids have been moved to and from every school in the area for various reasons. None of there family is speaking to them and they have no friends. I have met his brother and her sisters and they are fine decent people who'll have nothing to do with them.

Regarding the court. The neighbour represented herself and just told lie after lie to good effect. Swearing on the Bible meant nothing to her.

In a further development we had another another letter from them today.
Where before they said the tenant was throwing stuff on the roof that's now changed to he was on my roof hitting it with a hammer!!! They also say the Guard was called twice to the house to deal with it. The Guard told us he called just the once and nothing was going on. We are in the process of trying to contact the Guard to show the letter.

They also said hammering was coming from my house at 2am two nights in a row waking them. Once again just my word against their's.

She also mentioned the phone on the letter, wanting confirmation it's my number as it went to message minder when she rang and looking for my landline of which I don't have. Of course when she rang me it came up as private number so how could I get back to her ?

Personally your on a loser here. I would rent the house out to the worst possible tenant you can think of. Might as well have a tenant in there that REALLY causes them problems - rather than rent to good people that are gonna get abused. Turn your phone off - no need to answer the call directly as long as it goes to voicemail.

I am serious.

It makes no difference who I rent to. In the end it all falls back on the Landlord.
 
Perhaps the person has some heath issues that are causing this. Some times sick people are really convincing and brilliant in their delusions.

Regardless I really think you need CCTV that captures sound and only covers your own house. Its the only way you'd be able to dispute any of this.
 
It seems to me that you're not getting helpful information from your current solicitor, so I would consider looking elsewhere. I would be surprised if, these days, you wouldn't get a brief chat with a solicitor at no charge to find out what they could do for you.

Certainly recording of some sort would help your case, whether audio or visual, and this doesn't have to cost a lot of money. But it would be useful to be able to show that ther was no disturbance occurring before the neighbours reported their latest issue, rather than having to defend or deny the non-existent disturbance afterwards (if that makes any sense).

Have you tried talking to your local councillors or TDs?

Good luck, I feel for you in this awful situation.
 
Why on earth do they have the letterbox closed, how do they get letters.

How about a softly softly approach and a bit of deviousness. Did she send the letter directly to you. That's excellent that she's putting things in writing. Why don't you reply in writing and get proof of posting. Not the registered post but the one in the post office that proves you have sent a letter but she won't know this. Maybe a few months of correspondance which will eventually prove that you are being a good landlord and being sympathic to her will eventually lead to a written trail of how crazy she is.

In the letter(s) you should reply along the lines of 'My apologies for missing the call, at 1 am last Thursday the 22 March, unfortunatly I don't have a landline as I can't afford one. Not sure what happened the phone but I had it right beside my bed but it must have not rung long enough to wake me up. I would like to get the situation resolved. What would you like me to do. My problem is the PRTB say I cannot evict the tenant's unless I have proof of their misbehaviour. As they make noise and are a nuisance all the time maybe you could tape them with your CCTV camera so that I can then evict them. Things like that. Not all in the first letter either. Also if she wrote that the guards were called twice, ask her at what times and then get proof in writing from the guards that she called them once etc.

Another question, as they have CCTV front and back did the guards or the judge not ask them for the tapes to prove what the tenant's were doing?

Were the tenants in court. Was it only the female neighbour who spoke in court. I find it hard to believe that two people could be crazy. Would the man agree with his wife?

In the letter does it state that the tenants were hammering, does the garda state that he was told they were throwing stuff on the roof. Why didn't the guard ask the neighbours where the stuff that was thrown went?

If the tenants are not at fault how come the lady is up at night so late making calls to you and the guards, does she not work or get up early ?
 
They collect their post from the post office. I think the reason the letterbox is sealed is because they have upset that many people they're afraid what might come through it.

The idea you give about the letters is a great one and something I'll be starting straight away. Thanks.

As for cctv tapes, no the judge did not ask for any. Her word seemed good enough for him.

No tenants were in the court and yes he is as bad as her if not worse. Only recently he was fined €2,000euro for attacking the local school vice principal.

This family once sent out their children with balloons up their jumpers to pop them, mocking the elderly neighbour next door who had breast cancer. This is the mentality we are dealing with.

Regarding the letter. We gave a copy to the Guards yesterday who are going through it and noting all the false claims. The Guard said if it ended up in court again they would come in and vouch for us .

Both of them do not work and are living of disability for him, but that's another story.

Where as we, like a lot of people, are now a single income family trying to survive and pay two mortgages forced on us by these people.

To them taking people to court or being brought to court themselves is just a hobby or day out .
 
I dont understand how the judge could find against you. It sounds like either a) you need to gather more proof, statements from gardai, other neighbours, tenants, previous owner etc., This is multi-decade so should be easy to get tonnes of proof. or b) the judge did not spend long enough reviewing the details. c) you were not represented well enough

Rather than appealing, would it be cheaper to take the neighbours to court for something else?

No human can be available 24 x 7 . I think a full voicemail message would be plenty fine. "sorry I cant get to the phone right now. please leave your name and number and I will ring you back ASAP"

In terms of further evidence for future court cases, I would bring witnesses with me each time to the house, and get mini statements each time from them and the garda who arrives. I would also log each call they make.
 
Since I last posted on this there have been a few more developments.

We had more calls late at night and in the early hours complaining of noise, hammering wood at 2am!? Once again the Guards called to the house and there was nothing to see or hear.

We've also had another letter from these people with made up allegations against my tenant, now only one person there ,the second left. The good thing is all the Guard statements are opposite to what they are saying.

Only last Sunday she rang us 3 times in the afternoon complaining her children could not study due the noise coming from my house. My wife called over and once again nothing. She then rang the local Gardi nine (9) times!! to complain. The Guard called to the house and not a sound. It turned out the tenant had gone out early that evening. Must have been ghost's.

I was speaking to the court clerk who told me she has been ringing them non stop to try and get another court order put on me for not answering the phone. So our file is now in front of the judge at the moment. We were told to send in a letter to him detailing everything with all letter's and statement's accompanying it. Please God we get some result this time.

Also, on another phone I have I've been getting a couple of calls a day from a private number. This started the day after I gave my number to these people.
The phone just rings a max 4 times then stops. I answered once there was someone at the other end but said nothing. Last Thursday I got my second call of the day again but this time answered with a ref's whistle blasting it down the phone. No more calls since then.
 
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