“Dear PoPville,
I live in a large apartment building that sits directly above a restaurant (which opened early last fall). Nearly every day for two months, they have been operating a very loud industrial fan right below my window whenever the restaurant is open, which I have measured at 70 db from outside at the property line and 80 db from my apartment (with the window open), and sounds like someone is running a lawn mower nonstop. I’ve caught the restaurant management lying on multiple occasions, claiming to have turned the fan off when it was still running well after service had stopped, and one night a few weeks ago they forgot to turn it off and kept it running all night.
I scheduled an inspection with the Department of Buildings and got an email confirming that it was conducted, and that they did not find any violations. This seems odd since
I conducted a reading of my own on the same day (using both my phone and a sound level meter) and measured the fan at 70 db from outside. I was never contacted by the inspector, which may be standard operating procedure for DOB, but that leads me to believe that they either went to the wrong place (the inspection comments say the measurements were taken from the “front property line” when the fan is in the back) or conducted the inspection before the fan was turned on. Either way, I’m not feeling super confident that DOB will be helpful.
The restaurant was able to fix the issue and run the fan at a lower speed for a few days in June, so I think it’s solvable, but the problem returned. My apartment’s manager has been helpful, but since the company that owns the commercial space is different from the residential landlord, they don’t have a ton of leverage. The restaurant and commercial landlord both claim to be working on a fix, but don’t seem motivated since it doesn’t affect their business and I don’t know if they’re breaking the law.
tl;dr, do I have any recourse for a very annoying, nonstop noise disturbance that the Department of Buildings says isn’t a violation, other than hoping it gets better as the weather cools down and eventually moving out?”