HDB Complaints?

Just got my first complaint for loud noises from my flat. Funny thing is i am using electronic drums.

Suspect my neighbour is abit too sensitive. What can HDB and the police do? Confiscate the drums/amp?

I searched the forum, but there seems to be very little hard evidence and guidelines from HDB, besides that we have to stop by 11pm.

No the police have no right to enter your house, or to look at your drumset, much less touch it. Do not allow them access to your house unless they have a warrant to do so, which they will be unable to get.

You are allowed to play up to 10 or 10.30pm, from 10am onwards. It's the same regulations as construction work.

Your neighbour has no right to complain, as long as you can prove that you have taken sufficient measures to prevent it from being a nuisance to him. You'll only be in trouble if you play at ungodly hours, or your neighbour can prove that you're playing drums with the sole intention of creating nuisance to him. Oh, and there must be more than one complainant.

The most that he can do is to sue you in a civil court, but then again it's not very common because of the legal hassle and costs involved.

That's our Bro alvyn ....... abosolutely correct.

We respect our neighbours (by being considerate ourselves as always) - but it had to be a give & take situation too. Drummers does have their own right to a certain degree.

lol. like omg even with electronic drums ur neighbours complain omg. haha yup u shud play at those given hours.

construction works was done as early as 8.30am last time when my 10th floor new neighbour was remaking the whole house...

so yeah just drum around the given time...

shiok... they start drilling.. then we start blasting ....\m/

when neightbour complain we just say home renovation...

i think our mind set should be

" drumming in hdb is a privilege. not an entitlement. "

i believe things should be settled nicely. be nice, drum in peace. =)

dont worry bro i feel your pain i got a complain when i was playing on a saturday at 2 in the afternoon. sucks balls. maybe should find a compromise with your neighbour?

hhahaha. i chased around 3 neighbours already . i dun realli care if police come to my house or wad. im used to it. moreover, they come from the same branch . tired of seeing the faces. hahahah. but always warning warning and warning.

hey they warning how many times but still what can they dooo???

never had a single complaint before... only my 2nd floor friend called me while jamming in the middle of the song that he can hear im playing the drums... used to close windows but that day i opened the door and windows...

hahaha. yea man. they cant realli do anythin. they wanna confiscate my guitar then go home play ah . hahah .

for me what I do is.. (i play with a 4x12) I play at a good loud volume in the day time between 10 and 10. and at late nights. i just turn it down just below 1. the gauge is if im waking my own family members up then its time to lower down.

if u realise that u r bothering someone, would u drum in peace?

did u take steps to improve the suituation? electronic drums? sound proofing? other practice venues? negotiating with your neighbour?

i believe they are reasonable people as well. if they ever complain u drumming on a practice pad or electronic drumset, then i believe they r being a bit too picky and sensitive.

if u just bash your way through n ignore, i find that to be totally irresponsible and selfish.

it r drummers like that hu will eventually take away our privillege of drumming in hdb.

=X

true true. but hey, the best option is to try and negotiate with ur neighbours and have like a curfew or so to say, Oh and btw did u plug in earphones/headphones. or don't they have any kind of headphone jack on ur electronic kit?

=weckish

Yes bro absolutely right on the last sentence. Irresponsible drumming (ie. drumming at full volume, drumming in the wee hours of the day or late at night) isn't the right thing to do, and will land you in deep trouble.

Mediation is usually the right approach to retaining your privilege to drum, but in my case, mediation did not work out because the other party refused to abide by the terms. I offered to play only from 12pm - 4pm, or 6pm to 8pm. The chairman of the RC, a representative from HDB and town council, and the other party involved agreed to the terms, and I abided by it all. However, the other party involved continued to complain to both the police and the HDB. I received a call from HDB the other day, and the person in the line received a tongue-lashing from me where I pointed out the impotence and the lack of authority that the HDB personnel had in dealing with trouble-makers like them.

I labelled them trouble-makers because they were trying to create problems even though an agreement had been made.

For the first part of your sentence bro, I think that it's not entirely the TS's fault. For one thing, it's highly impossible to find an alternative practice venue because the drumset is in his/her house. After spending that kind of money on a drumset, I don't think it's fair to ask him to spend additional costs transporting and storing the drumset somewhere else. Electronic drums do not come cheap, especially if you're looking for quality drums. They run from $1000 for a low end yamaha model, to around $4000+ for a high end Roland v-drum. At the same time, sound-proofing is not possible in every apartment due to space constraints. The idea of sound-proofing in laymen's terms would be a room within a room, with sound-absorbant material in between. The cost too, can run up to a rather extravagent amount.

As for negotiotion and finding ways to rectify the situation, the TS can try to do so, but its eventually up the the other party to see if they want to abide by the agreement, or be a bastard as my neighbour did, and continue complaining.

Fight the system, but fight it in a smart way.

recently some neighbour asked my mum whether i was drumming den she said yeah
den they say some uncles need to sleep at 8 so must keep the volume down
well its okay lah, since they tell us their problem nicely...
so i'll only like drum from 10am till 8pm and about 1 hour each time.
some times i oso sleep late la so i think should'nt drum too early too!
:-D

i agree to the fullest extent with alvyn.. eh next time ampai come my house u talk for me ah?? u very powderful ah bro...

anyways alvyn, u quoted wrongly... a high end roland would set u back SGD$12,000...

Not including gst and haven't minus 20%...

thats the flagship TD-20... it costs around 5k USD in america and costs that much in swee lee...

yup. i see your point. but they should even consider before committed and spending on a drumset. y nt just get practice pads? don't they serve the same purpose as well? i know of pads going for 200+ nia. but cheaper than a drumset. well, lets not go into the details like the texture that differs between the 2.

well in terms of soundproofing, i believe if one is able to afford decent sound proofing, most likely he is living on landed property. it is extremely expensive to build up 1!

well the point is that, there are always alternatives. if my neighbour upstairs loves basketball, and practice his dribbling every afternoon, i believe i will be pissed off also. u might disagree with me, but i believe that if your neighbours r pissed off with you drumming in your flat, u should really consider not drumming in your flat anymore.

aquanaut once told me: to piss of his too loud guitar player neighbour...he plug in his bass and literally "jammed along" with his "too loug uitar friend".


Another time when he was in another neighbourhood he had an over enthusiastic and much too loud "best of hokien hits" karaoke wanna be performer, so he promply started "learning" to play his son's trumpet during their sessions...


fighting fire with fiire perhap??

Chaserr said:

true true. but hey, the best option is to try and negotiate with ur neighbours and have like a curfew or so to say, Oh and btw did u plug in earphones/headphones. or don't they have any kind of headphone jack on ur electronic kit?

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I usually play with earphones, cause i'm using VSTis for my drum sound. I do have a hartke 200w keyboard amp for when my band comes over to jam. but i never turn it past 3