Thanks for the feedback. I am planning to do multiple days to record the other noises but the fact that he's running a motor/pump upstairs and it's on every now and then ( not fixed timing )is disturbing to us given that we are working from home now. I actually had the guard come into my house and sit for an hour but so happen that night he was relatively quiet so we did not get much but noise usually comes later so I did not hold the guard longer than the 1 hour he was already in my house. If they can dedicate an audience from 11pm to 2am daily for a week, I am sure they will capture all my pain points.

Np. I mean, the lowest cost option for you seems to be to just record your house during the hours that you described. 21 hours of audio is about 10ish GB uncompressed and about 4-5GB compressed if you don't use a super high end mic so unless you're really raring for space and it is really impossible, go ahead and record.

Another option is to pay management to pop up at your apartment. Negotiate with a security guard? Negotiate with management? Your call. In practice, it's not likely that someone will sit in your apartment for 21 hours for free and if they have other responsibilities it's also not likely that management will approve unless there's a prospective financial advantage involved. In practice, I think someone working as a security guard would be quite happy if you paid them say 20 ringgit per hour to sit down and do nothing while you offer them tea or something and then continue with your work and occasionally nod at them and say "SEE HOW I AM SUFFERING?". It's a good deal, win-win, and if it doesn't work after two or three days then just call it off.

On the other hand, your neighbor may see the guard and be silent for a week and then start up again or something, but if they do then just think of what you're paying as the price for silence.

This post has been edited by Exoflare: May 29 2020, 09:44 AM

Thanks for the advice. As of now, I am just using the phone mic as I don't think I should need any professional devices to really capture the problem, if I do, it might not be a problem for many. .......the phone records whenever it detects an elevated level in noise hence it's not always recording but it does record some static now and then which can be used for baseline ( if you're interested, I can WA you what I recorded last night )

I don't need them to be in my house during the day. Although there are noises during the day but I am not inconsiderate like that. I am okie with noise during the day as I might be guilty for some as well ( my GF walks like an elephant at times and sometimes when I lift the chair and put it on the floor, there will be some sound but keyword is lift and not drag ). I don't mind offering them some money for 3 hours a night for a week but then again I am paying Rm400 for maintenance already so shouldn't that be something they would need to help me if there are complaints?

There's no way the neighbor can see the guard cause he's upstairs though I have a sneaking suspicion that someone does let the neighbor know if I ask the guard in charge come to my unit; then again, it's just my suspicion and hold no basis so I won't ride on that for now.

This post has been edited by pillage2001: May 29 2020, 09:47 AM

Not a problem! I'll pass on the WhatsApp thanks, but let us know how it goes! 👌

May be better to record duration of audio that you described (3 hours) to defend against the selection bias argument (This downstairs neighbor just went and recorded us at specific times when we were making noise and is trying to persecute us!!! type of thing)

My wife will kill me
She says will be very ugly

Usually condo have plaster ceiling. If you knock on it they won't hear it at all. worse still, you may punch a hole in the ceiling which you have to fix. It happened to me :X

If upstairs how?
You prop up a guard there
Chances are the neighbors on that floor will complain their privacy is affected
And would you let a complete stranger sit in ur living room ? While you sleep
I suppose he is single
But for Married person your wife would surely oppose to security guard see her in pyjamas

I tried
In morning wife and kid nag at me for disturbing Their sleep

Yeah I saw that thread
It was from another guy with footstep problem
Mine is more from dropping item and drag furniture

Not as bad
Condo you got noise coming from all sides up down left right heck even diagonal left and right

Sound from above is the most trickiest to detect
You can blame the floor above you
But in actual fact it came from 5 floors above you
I had to take the stair case see who is above me
Some units are empty
Then 5 floors I hear chair dragging
Bingo

Not rly prop up a guard outside. Pillage has a problem I think with the ambient noise in his room/home office?

So in practice it would be like ok, pay you to come in and sit in my house for about three hours (probably not while you sleep - Pillage said 11am-2pm? Unless he meant 11pm-2am, then that's a different story lol he will have to be awake with the guard together for that duration of time) and maybe provide makan. Then you work in the same room as the guard, which makes sense because otherwise how would you know whether he is doing his job to pay attention to the noise, lol.

If it's 11am-2pm, that's an ok time to have someone in your house I think, but then of course most of us are concerned about pandemic and having people pop into our houses so some people may dial back but mileage may vary.

Can't really claim violation of privacy if you can hear the noise in the apartment and you can say your neighbors are violating your privacy for intruding on your having a guard come for tea, lol.

This post has been edited by Exoflare: May 29 2020, 10:27 AM

What do you expect the security guard to do when the noise starts? Is he going to be able to force the neighbour to quieten down? Even police can't do much and I don't think the neighbour will be intimidated by a lowly paid security guard with no enforcement power.

I think they should have a curfew for people not to keep awake between 12 midnight to 7 am. Ban people who work in graveyard shifts from staying in middle class condo. Haha if only this can happen.

ops. forgot serious kopitiam.

This post has been edited by KHunterz: May 29 2020, 10:41 AM

But can you trust the guard not to steal anything ?
While y r asleep
Also security co And MO may not agree
Resident committee also may oppose to the proposal
For the reason they don’t want to be sued
If anything untoward happens
I would feel very uncomfortable having a complete stranger sit in my living room while I am asleep

I can tell you
For sure
When a security guard come knocking at ur door
Or ring ur intercom
Telling u to stop the sound
It can feel very uncomfortable
Then next day MO call you in response to a complain
If they keep doing it
You would feel some frustration

No biggy, I'll check on the feasibility of recording for 3 hours which means I have to be out of the house during the MCO time which can be challenging as I don't know where to go. lol.

I'll let you know how things go. I am planning to ask for an audience with the JMB to check with them on how we can sort this out. Upstairs is just a rental tenant for now and not an owner so not sure if it makes things easier.

Definitely easier if it’s a tenant
They may move out after their contract expire
But owner is another different ballgame altogether

But you have to make sure if it’s really from that tenant
I can bet you
Sound can come up to 5 floors above you

You don’t have to on your mic the whole night
Sometimes there is a consistent pattern
If they make noise at 4 am
Then chances are it could repeat again
Unless it’s a tit for tat revenge

This post has been edited by Pitiuran: May 29 2020, 10:47 AM

Same problem I'm having. Kids running around, heavy furniture dragging, door slamming etc.

The problem is the upstairs neighbour is Iraqi who can't speak a lick of english. Impossible to communicate with them. Complain to MO, and they will just call the owner, who will just inform the agent, that's it.

I'm just waiting day by day for them to move out.

This post has been edited by archinkent: May 29 2020, 11:06 AM

Haha not force the neighbor to quieten down. I'd just say write a report as a piece of (slightly more expensive) eyewitness or rather earwitness evidence in this case lmao.

Well not while you're asleep, which is why I said (if you could read what I wrote carefully) that if the hours are 11pmish, then pillage needs to be there lol.


Lol sure.