Noise

The following is a note from a reader:

Think you’ve found a nice quiet unit or apartment near the CBD, buyer beware!. I’ve found agents like showing near CBD properties in the quite weekday afternoon or Saturdays. This is because noise is generally at a minimum at those times and more importantly, no garbage trucks. But beware the 3.am week-night nightmare – industrial garbage trucks. 

Most  apartment complexes have large industrial type bins these days as opposed to the traditional Council-type gray and green bins. Traditional Council-type gray and green bins are usually collected after 6.am onwards. With for example, 30 or more units in a complex, industrial bins will require emptying twice a week. My block has 80 apartments. The garbage trucks come 4 times per week. (Luckily, I had checked this out beforehand and found in advance that our Corporate Body let the contract on the basis they come after 7.am.) The big industrial bins need a big garbage truck and generally, no traffic or strings of parked cars to obstruct entry by these big trucks. These big garbage trucks usually start around mid-night precisely for the above mentioned reason, ease of access. And they make a LOT of NOISE. 

I know many people who have found themselves in this predicament – the 3.am garbage collection three times weekly.  I have experienced it myself, woken up every night by the industrial bin collection rampage. I know people who sold up and left apartment blocks in both South Brisbane for exactly that reason. My friends in Milton did the same, sold up and moved because of the nightmare 3.am garbage truck four times per week, twice at their block and twice at the neighbouring block. My friends at Teneriffe did the same, sick and tired of “bang crash bang crash” at 4.am in the morning.  Hundreds of residents woken up long before the wee small hours, four times EVERY week.  And if your apartment block is near restaurants, expect even worse, hundreds of bottles being dropped into a steel garbage truck bin from the skip raised 3 meters above the truck. I once lived in a apartment block in New Farm. It was a nightmare. Every morning, industrial garbage trucks started banging and crashing as of 2.am. It went on and on till daybreak as they went around the area servicing all the apartments  and restaurants.  Every day of the week including Saturday. I never slept one single night right through, at that unit. And I had to close the windows to sleep. I was glad to leave for good.     

So, do some homework. Remember, you are about to part with $400-600K, or more. If you are seriously looking at buying a particular unit or apartment, ascertain the location of the industrial bin collection area. Is it right below your bedroom windows? Is it the large industrial type?  Is it accessed by large trucks? Do they arrive between 1.00am and 6.00am? Because if so,  run a mile.  Don’t bother asking the manager, he/she will tell you there is no garbage truck noise because they are well aware of the joke. Do ask to check the Corporate Body records to see if they have arranged day-time garbage collection. Even so, if the neighbouring apartments have not, you are still sunk. So go there yourself in the early hours of the morning with a coffee and a book, sit in your car till day break, Sunday to Saturday and wait it out to see what time the garbage trucks arrive and the noise level they make. Note what happens at what time at the apartments next door and within your area. You will be very well rewarded for just a few hours of your time.