Hello-
I have an up/down duplex and the tenant upstairs has 3 dogs. The problem is they bark non-stop all day while the pet owner is at work. The downstairs tenant works nights and is very frustrated with this noise. I really don’t know how to approach this problem and wondering if you all have some ideas that could help. Thanks again!
I would require the dog owners to invest in and use bark collars or get rid of the dogs. They have some great bark collars out these days that do not cause physical pain to the dog and they are cheap.
This is a reasonable request so your tenant should be able to comply. If the tenant does not, you should evict them or at the very least cancel their lease at the earliest time available.
Richard Stephens
ANTI- FREEZE WAFFLES!!!
Dogs love 'em!!!
Stops barking PERMANENTLY.
(Just kidding)
While I agree the dog problem needs to be addressed, the night worker tenant should wear earplugs when trying to sleep. It works great for me because I not only have noisy kids, but people mow lawns, cut down trees, etc… during the day.
You can buy a device that is hung on a fence near the dogs; it emits a high-pitched sound that dogs don’t like but people can’t hear. It is negative conditioning, the barking noise triggers it.
We have had reasonable success with it, only tried it 1x. It was obtained on-line. That’s all I remember. Good luck.
Other solution is to require that all tenants have dogs! Then no one complains.
There should be a clause in your leases that indicate each tennent has a right to reasonable peace and quiet. Even during the day, a dog should not be barking all the time. Go to the dog owner and point it out in their lease, and tell them that they are violating the lease. Then tell the guy downstairs to start calling the police. The dog owner needs to find a solution, not you.
You do not want to start a war between your tenants, so do not tell the upstairs tenant that the downstairs complained.
You call the upstairs guy and tell him you were driving by and could hear his dogs barking, so you stopped and sat in your car for nearly an hour and they didn’t stop once. That he was going to have to stop the barking before you start getting complaints from the neighbors.
I would go and hang out for awhile and verify that the dogs are barking. Tenants sometimes act like 3 year olds and the guy downstairs could be mad about parking places and trying to get the upstairs guy in trouble, and to hurt him through hs dogs.
I’ve learned from long experience to never believe anything a tenant says until I have verified it independently.
I have 3 dogs (hounds) so they bark a lot. My next door neighbor bought one and pointed it at my back yard. My dogs barked and it squeaked (or whatever it does). My dogs figured it out and they thought it was the best thing since cheese. They commenced to bark at it pretty much non stop. It became this game of let’s make the thing squeal. My neighbor took it down and they went back to barking at lizards and frogs and normal stuff.
Gotta love the hounds…I used to belong to a hunt club with about 35 beagles and one doofy black and tan…
Keith
Hehe. Yeah, I got a beagle at home so I know all about that. The thing goes absolutely nuts over the stupidest stuff, and if he is barking his “rabbit” bark (or anything rodent) when he’s inside the house, it is absolutely deafening!
When a pack is hot on a deer, it’s a great sound!