Mary lost the case. It was decided in Louisiana. The Court ruled that the right to enforce the rules did not require the Board to exercise that right. So Tony, you are right.

Mary filed police reports but the cops did not stop the Noyze.
Mary finally moved out.

I represented an owner with the same problem as Mary. I was able to get the Board to threaten termination of the owner’s proprietary lease for breaching its nuisance terms and not complying with the requirement that 80% of the unit flooring be carpeted (excluding kitchens and baths). (we had recordings of the noise, written diary entries with date and time, and police reports, other neighbor corroboration) The owner evicted the tenants.
It is important to remember that each case is unique and each state is different in its application of the state law.

Laurie– your technique is pretty common, I’d say. It either works or leads to retaliation. I know cases where garbage was left outside doors, nasty notes taped to doors for all the other neighbors to see– someone even greased the stair bannister. I advised one client to soundproof his ceiling (which he did). Heck, I once lived in an apt building where the guy downstairs waived a gun because he objected to noise. That’s one reason to live in a detached home.

When I lived in NY I too had the tenant from HELL below me in my co-op building, I owned, he rented. He was like clockwork right around midnight he would crank up the music, start screaming at his wife and would often beat her, he was most likely a drinker and a nasty drunk. The heel of my western boots worked well for banging on the floor to try to get him to shut up and stop, but alas, it too was ineffective.

What Mary needs to understand is that being in the upper unit she has a distinct advantage, as I did. I decided to get even with the pr*$k!

I enlisted my sister. Together we moved my furniture to the walls, moved the coffee table out of the way, rolled up the area rugs, had a few drinks of our own, turned the monster sized speakers down onto the wood floors, laced up our roller skates and had a great time dancing in skates, jumping up and down, singing at the top of our lungs, blasting the music…just making all the noise that we could possibly dream up.

Of course I waited until a day that it was obvious that he had company over.

When he and his buddies banged on my steel door, we ignored them and rocked on. We did this in the middle of the day, when we had the right to make noise – not at an unreasonable hour.

Nobody could do a thing. We went on for hours and had a great time while doing it.

The wife left him about 2 weeks later, he moved within a month.

The lesson here…………..never, ever screw with your UPSTAIRS neighbor!