Apartment living comes with its fair share of noise from neighbours going about their usual activities, but judging when it becomes too much to live with is largely up to the listener.
"Would it be fair to politely ask him to partake in his vocal exercise somewhere where it doesn't echo off four blocks of apartments?" "It is hard to practise, you're always really conscious of everyone around you, especially when you have a bigger voice and you're not just working on smaller sorts of pieces," says the singer, who did not want to be named as they still live in the same place.Her neighbour confronted her about it, so she explained what she was doing and why, but he maintained she had to stop.She says it was frustrating to have her singing labelled as noise, when she is a professional musician.
"This is exactly the kind of thing that the local council should be saying, 'We've got four apartment blocks here, can somebody build a facility so that people can practise music?'."The Strata Collective managing director Rod Smith says most disputes about noise are resolved either by residents talking to each other, or, if that doesn't work, a "stern letter from strata".