Noise Complaints Cranbourne

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Rene Seiler

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Aug 3, 2024, 6:01:26 PM8/3/24

to bedsmasera

I've taken a quick look around the forum, and I can see most people have covered the "Is it a good idea to buy/ invest/ etc etc..." part of living in an apartment. That is, the financial aspect of it.

The point I CAN'T seem to find enough feedback on is: How does it look like living in an apartment? I'll try an list some points below, feel free to pick the one you feel more related to/ have experienced yourself, and your feedback is more than welcome.

> Assuming your feedback is on the negative side, are there certain things that can mitigate the situation? (The apartment is on the top floor/ the apartment is towards the end of the building/ etc...)

If you look around long enough you'll see there are issues around neighbours and noise (in a recent thread someone had issues with hearing the neighbour's loo flush, plus I've seen plenty of neighbours smoking on the balcony complaints here too), the types of neighbours...ferals live in apartments too, parking space issues, and then it seems there are BC issues with them doing nothing to alleviate problems.

One thing that comes up frequently is that you are better off, in terms of noise etc, in a older well built apartment (as built in the days when tradies cared about the work they did, and materials used were better than the wet newspaper used today) over a newer apartment, though you don't get the layout and mod cons (such as a European laundry) of the newer apartments.

Another thing I've seen here is that banks don't always lend for some apartment style (such as studios IIRC), and certain postcodes, or require a higher deposit, just because of potentially poor return on their investment.

Edit: Personally I'd never live in an apartment. I did briefly as a child, and have visited them enough times, to enough what I have in living in a freestanding house. Sadly not everyone has Penny across the hall to crack onto :P

Yes it definitely can. There's only so much noise that some steel framing with insulation inside can block out. At best you might be lucky to be separated by a fire proof wall, but they're not exactly 1m thick so neighbours noise can still intrude on your life. Neighbours on the side are one thing, but neighbours above you who might feel like wearing stilettos or steel capped boots inside all day long and/or do all kinds of loud activities day / night etc can encroach on your comfort. Not to mention potential smells coming across from the neighbour who loves to cook his fish on his bbq every night or smoke a 2 darts every hour on.

Best apartment is usually first floor or top floor, but these are also the most expensive to buy. Otherwise try to buy one of the apartments on a corner with maybe a balcony so you're not wedged between two apartments and coping it from both sides...

In melbourne, at your price point, unfortunately you're at the very entry price point of the market so most suburbs you can buy into will be a low socio and have the problems that come with living in those areas. I'd personally avoid anything in the west (Werribee, hoppers crossing, Wydnham value) or north west (Tullamarine, Gladstone Park, Greenvale) or anything too close to the city, especialy around Richmond or inner noth.
For $450-500k odd you can buy brand new off the plan builds in outer areas like Mernda, Craigieburn, Cranbourne South, Cylde, Pakenham etc which will likely have 3 bedrooms, &2 bathrooms and be flashy new.

Try for a standalone or duplex unit in the outer suburbs with low body corp fees. Few people check the Section32, but I suggest you look at it thoroughly to work out the body corp fees and the strata land.
Look for a unit complex that doesn't look like it needs much maintenance like a badly cracked up driveway, doesn't have any big trees or extensive gardens, not full of run down houses, has low/no strata land or strata infrastructure like communal parking, fencing, garages etc as these all need to be maintained & repaired out of the body corp and everyone needs to chip in. You might put off paying a concreter to fix up a small crack in your own driveway, but when it's a bodycorp and 7 out of your 8 neighbours elect to have the entire driveway replaced due a section being a bit unsightly then everyone has to pay and there's nothing you can do.

Case in point ; in my unit complex, we recently had to replace the front fence facing the street due to a annoying neighbour not liking that it was not in the best condition. The fence is a shared fence with strata land and Unit 1. Owner of that place is on a disability pension. She couldn't afford to pay 50% of the fence cost to replace it so we had to pay 75% of the fence out of our pockets to help her out and she now will be paying extra in her bodycorp fees for the next 3 years to pay off her 25%. I voted to keep the fence and was going to do the replacement myself to save us labour costs but 4 out of the 6 units voted to use the most expensive quote and so we had no option but to replace it.
We now have to pay $1200 out of our building fund to replace a small section of the shared driveway because 1 unit complained it's a bit crap to walk on to get to his house. It's a 50cm crack that lifts up about 2cm and he'd have to walk a mere extra metre to go around it. It's a "safety issue" and we have to replace an entire section to fix it. We needed that money to cut some enormous trees that are scratching cars drivng up the driveway to get their house.
I had a 12" x 12" section of my driveway drop almost 4cm and I just patch repaired it myself at my cost (4 bags of concrete, bag of gravel and some steel bars drilled into existing driveway aorund it) to save money.
Welcome to shared living in a unit complex ....

Sound insulation is designed to reduce the enegy of the sound waves so you dont hear so much of it, but some sounds have too long wavelengths or too much energy for insulation to block them out. Sounds coming from a sub, drumkit or a boot pounding a hardwood floor can be as long as 1m so you'd need nothing short of a castle wall to block them out.

I'd argue the opposite. A very old apartment may be made out of besser blocks or bricks which are thicker than modern concrete walls so do a better job of blocking noise, but that'd have to be 1940s era. We've been buillding bigger apartmnet blocks out of concrete for years. These days apartment complexes have to meet 6 star energy efficiency requirements and stricter fire codes so will have more insulation and protection than the old apartments. The difference is that years ago we had much higher expectations for size and space in our dwellings so older apartments are typically bigger than modern ones. Bigger apartment means more space for the noise to dissipate and loose energy.

OP just mentioned Apartments so not sure if he means low, medium or high density but Jazz and Blues comprehensive post about high rise apartments should mean OP wipes high density off the list. Sounds like hell.
Friends of mine with 3 young kids spent over a year in an apartment while their house got renovated. I remember feeling sorry for the kids thinking they'd have to play together as there would be no other kids to play with. How wrong was I !
Every second apartment it seemed had young kids.
My impression of apartments only being occupied by singles or couples was very out of date. This was a medium density, built about 30 years ago and an easy bike ride into the cbd.

Also apartments are a terrible place to raise kids or pets. (Pets should not be cooped up in a multi level apartment with no yard IMO).
Likely have no backyard or desire to grow a veggie garden etc. Cant have a late night party or karaoke session at home.

- Apartments can be quite spacious or quite cozy, either way, it creates a nice living space you can decorate as you like and really enjoy living in. My wife and I spent two years as students in a really nice 1 bed apartment in Melbourne's north, small but cozy and a lovely living space.

- Strata really is one of the greatest challenges. If theres something you dont like outside your front door, its very hard resolving it. Things like communal halls, lifts, rubbish, car parks, gardens...good luck getting anything done, you lose all control for managing thing as you would your own house.

- Very unsafe OUTSIDE the apartment, unless theres actual security onsite. You'll never recognize everyone around and car parks/storage cages get targeted nightly almost, and theres nothing to stop it. Ive never heard of an apartment underground car park where this wasnt the case.

Very unsafe OUTSIDE the apartment, unless theres actual security onsite. You'll never recognize everyone around and car parks/storage cages get targeted nightly almost, and theres nothing to stop it. Ive never heard of an apartment underground car park where this wasnt the case.

You can look through the thread I posted above for more details. Basically theres nothing to stop thieves gaining access by posing as tradies or resident's, or simply jemming open the front doors or using generic fobs. Once in the basement, there's nothing to stop them stealing whatever they want.

I could walk past them and just think they were a resident. Tradies living there had to leave, because thieves brought in oxy cutters to break into their ute cabinets. My storage cage with a mountain bike survived as I had a huge lock and put in a fake security camera.

Because that's the point, it's not secure. The garage doors would be open 30secs when.someone drives out, easily enough time to run in. Thieves also would call up random apartments in the intercom and request to be let in, saying they lived there or whatever.