A Burnaby townhouse owner who claimed noise from her upstairs neighbour forced her to relocate her home office and incur a vet bill for a noise-related "bird injury" has lost her case against her Burnaby strata.
Iwona Gerlich appealed to the province's Civil Resolution for an order forcing the strata at her Beresford Street townhouse complex to enforce its noise bylaws, according to a tribunal ruling last week.
She also claimed $1,841 in damages: $156 for the cost of relocating her office to a different room in her townhouse, $1,000 for time spent dealing with the noise and $685 for the bird injury, the nature of which was not specified in the ruling.
Gerlich said the nuisance noise was coming from the unit directly above hers, mostly in the form of footsteps and dog barking that woke her up after midnight or as early as 5 a.m.
She told the tribunal the strata has ignored her multiple noise complaints for two years, and she claimed her upstairs neighbour was getting "preferential treatment" because they are on the strata council.
But the strata said it responded to Gerlich's complaints quickly, addressing them directly with her upstairs neighbour.
The strata also said the owner developer had warned buyers the thin wooden walls in the townhouses would make "regular noise travel easier," according to the ruling.
Like many strata noise complaints that end up at the CRT, Gerlich's complaint failed to meet the bar set by previous rulings about what constitutes nuisance noise.
"People complaining about noise must prove with objective evidence that noise is intolerable to an ordinary person," tribunal member Micah Carmody said in the ruling on Gerlich's case. "This guards against the risk that a particular person may be unusually sensitive to noise."
Gerlich had presented three recordings of the noise and a witness statement from a friend who had stayed at her place, but Carmody ruled Gerlich hadn't provided enough evidence, in the form of a noise log or noise measurements, to prove the noise was unreasonable.
While there was no proof the strata had issued any warning letters or fines to Gerlich's upstairs neighbour, Carmody said the law doesn't require stratas to impose fines if other approaches are effective or if the strata reasonably believes there is no bylaw contravention going on.
Carmody also concluded there was no evidence Gerlich's upstairs neighbour was getting preferential treatment.
Carmody dismissed Gerlich's noise complaint.
He also dismissed another, separate complaint from Gerlich, in which she asked for orders compelling the strata to address problems with the building's noisy parkade gate, her front door and her balcony.
Carmody ruled she had not provided enough evidence to prove the repairs needed to be done.
The CRT is an online, quasi-judicial tribunal that hears strata property disputes and small claims cases.
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