Help!! Neighbour wants to sue because my son is 'noisy'.

[Deuce Dropper]

Hi all, I'm new to posting on here but I could really do with some advice here.

I have a 2 year old son and I would say that we let him play a normal amount, never too loudly and never before 9 in the morning or after 9 at night. Most of the time he is either at day care or out and about with us at weekends.
A while back my downstairs neighbour told (not asked) us that we should not make any noise in the house before 11 in the morning as her children want to sleep. Her kids meanwhile go to cram school until 11/12 ish at night, then come home and get subjected to a screaming match with the mother most nights, sometimes until 2 in the morning. We therefore carried on letting our son play, although we did make an effort to not let him play with the noisier of his toys, we also put a small carpet down in his play area.
They then threatened to sue us, saying that we were driving them crazy and their whole family was losing it because of our abnormal behaviour. We went to get advice from the free government lawyer who told us that they dont really have a case and we should ignore them, which we promptly did.
We've now got a letter from their lawyer saying that they are starting proceedings against us. One half of me is saying that we don't have anything to worry about, the other half is panicking about being sued! I've started recording their shouting matches as potential evidence.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Do they have a leg to stand on? anything we should do to protect ourselves and our son's right to enjoy his home?

Thanks.

Tell her society is well under way at 9am and if she can't allow her kids to get up at a decent hour then she can go fuck herself.

[Chris]

Taiwan becomes more like America every day.

No, here you get dumb people suing other people over mostly dumb things, they think that democracy is all about their right to sue ... look at our politicians and superstars ... they can! It's all about trying to Make the quick buck ...

In other words, just like America...

[llary]

They have not sued you, they will have got a friend or family member to send a nasty letter which should be ignored because it has no legal weight whatsoever.

DO NOT reply to their 'lawyer', that acknowledges you are frightened by the claims. IGNORE IT. That is really important, please do not be intimidated by this empty horseshit. I guarantee if you start writing back they will just threaten and frighten you more.

Most of our neighbors are really nice but a while back one of them complained that our (collectively; the community) kids were keeping them awake. The problem was that they work night shifts and want to sleep in the afternoons and while I really can feel empathy for their situation they really can't expect us to keep our kids locked up all day like vampires. The reason why most of us bought houses there was exactly because there are lots of other similar families and it's safe for them to play outside. Honestly I don't think they really expected us to do anything about it, just venting.

A few people suggested counter action etc. and while it would be briefly satisfying it's going to escalate things and she sounds like she has more energy to follow it through to the end, which is basically what determines who wins in this kind of situation. If she is shouting and screaming at night you could get the police over to prove a point and they would have to log the complaint but it depends whether you are willing to put the time and energy into her inevitable comebacks.

In the long run I think it will frustrate her more if you completely ignore her and I would absolutely not bother trying to keep your son quiet, within reasonable hours let him play as much as he wants.

[Gman]

In the long run I think it will frustrate her more if you completely ignore her and I would absolutely not bother trying to keep your son quiet, within reasonable hours let him play as much as he wants.

Maybe buy your kid a pogo stick when he`s older.

[divea]

A toddler playing is not noise, not after the sun has risen! OP, I am sorry they are threatening to sue you. It's a stressful place to be in.

[Toby72]

They have not sued you, they will have got a friend or family member to send a nasty letter which should be ignored because it has no legal weight whatsoever.

In the long run I think it will frustrate her more if you completely ignore her and I would absolutely not bother trying to keep your son quiet, within reasonable hours let him play as much as he wants.

The letter we got was signed and sealed by a law firm, but I still think Llary's advice is correct. We wrote a very long letter of reply, but haven't posted it yet, I think we'll just hang onto it.
We spoke to someone at child welfare today who also advised us to ignore her. As much as I would like to tell her to go fuck herself, I do think that ignoring her is the correct thing to do. The police also told my wife that unless other neighbours also complain, there is nothing she can do.

My wife is going to speak to the free Taipei city lawyer tomorrow to get their opinion, unless they suggest otherwise, we won't reply to her.

By the way, anyone know a cheap place to buy pogo sticks?

Toby

[dahsiung]

Right when we bought our apartment, we had a run-in with our downstairs neighbor over a leaking air-conditioning unit. She was hell-on-wheels at first, storming up to our apartment and banging on the door/ringing the bell at 5am to tell us that it was driving her crazy and that she couldn't sleep.
She threatened all kinds of legal action, including having the EPA fine us (a real thing, as it turns out, but nothing came of it). My first impulse was to bludgeon her to death with my trusty doorside baseball bat, but better angels (my wife) prevailed. We called a repairman to fix the problem twice; he didn't find anything either time, but we thought this would mollify her.
Then one morning, at the much more reasonable hour of 6am, she banged on our door and started waving her finger in my face, accusing me of this and that, and threatening this and that. Bleary-eyed from several midnight bottle-feedings, I was still struck by what a crazy banshee she looked like. It almost made me smile.
I held up my hand in the universal "stop" gesture, which miraculously caused her to stop her tirade. I then said, "You don't talk to me like that. I called a repairman last time, I will call a repairman this time. This is clearly a mechanical problem and not me dumping water onto your a/c in the middle of the night. In the future, if you have a problem, tell the guards and they will contact me. Don't knock on my door again."
For some reason this worked. Months later, she made a half-assed apology in the elevator, but since she was clearly just fishing for ME to apologize, I just pretended I neither saw nor heard her. We have continued in this way ever since, pretending the other does not exist, and honestly it has worked out fine.
This was a very long, convoluted way of making my point, but in my opinion, in Taiwan ignoring the problem WILL make it go away at least 90% of the time. And the other 10% you really can't control. If she does actually go through with her suit (my guess is not) I don't think you have much to worry about. Crazies are best left to their craziness.
Ignore, ignore, and ignore some more, until there is actually something to do something about (ie the police or a court summons showing up).

[viba]

We spoke to someone at child welfare today who also advised us to ignore her. As much as I would like to tell her to go fuck herself, I do think that ignoring her is the correct thing to do. Toby

You are wise here Toby. Don't bite. How's it going now anyway?

[baberenglish]

There are some ways out of this, suing on the basis of being noisy is reserved for manufacturing facilities and businesses. But this law, like every law in Taiwan, can be interpreted three different ways.
They want compensation-plain and simple. Don't go there because you didn't do anything.
There is a noise ordinance law put in place nation wide that says between 10 pm and 10 am should be the quiet time. Basically this was put into place to stop people from firing off firecrackers and KTVs to be more responsible with their clientele.
This has worked some places and hasn't in others.
To prevent any legal costs, you should contact your lizhang, who is your community leader. They are in place to settle any disputes.
If your neighbors are connected to that person, then go to the county/city government building and they offer a mediation program for these type of disputes-free of charge and more objective. Don't go through your strata board because that won't work.
The courts, due to their work load, try to get as much as they can settled out of court. The last straw is legal precedings.
Good luck.

[cyborg_ninja]

They won't do anything. Usually if the cops haven't shown up at your place yet means they have no legal case. As llary said, just ignore them.