Dear first floor,

We understand that you are renovating but, really, after an 8am - 6pm session with sawing, banging, tiling, smashing and drilling, is it really necessary to start back up again at 9.30pm? Please don't be alarmed when I start screaming and banging on the ceiling!

Dear second floor,

Your bass is on so high that we can hear you constantly. Whilst we can appreciate the artistic endeavour of Brazilian dance music, it would be great, if you had to, to play more than the same song over again.

P.S. Happy new year!

Any suggestions? Both flat occupiers are local and don't understand English at all. Is anyone biligual and wish to translate the above (with additional profanities preferably?!)

"Ho cho" = Very noisy.

It's not hard to get across the idea that the noise bothers you. Point at your ears and grimace.

But I'd bet they know exactly what is bothering you. Anyone who drills concrete at night knows full well that it will piss off the neighbours and has already decided to go ahead regardless.

Anyway, it's illegal to make construction noise at night or on Sunday, you can call the police and insist they to come around and give a warning.

Har de har.... funny. (that's not directed at you Alan,... just the rules)

Actually it's not funny, but I have noticed that the local landlords/builders don't really give a fig about these rules, just as they don't give a toss about drilling to build new flats above the current village houses. It's amazing how many flats have been built upon rooftops lately.

Lamma is slowly filling up with four storey buildings now. Illegal yes,... but there you go.

Yes, you should call the Police if they are doing construction work at 9.30pm at night ... .but be warned,.... last time I threatened to call the Police after asking a builder to stop drilling at 10pm, (I asked him nicely at first but he ignored me) then when I said I would call the Police - he threw the phone out of my hand and it smashed on the floor.

The second time I had a problem with drilling was on Christmas day 2009. I was woken up at 8.00am by drilling. I went to my neighbours (tried the sweet/diplomatic tact) wished them a Merry Christmas and asked them if they would please stop as it was a holiday, and all the neighbours were trying to enjoy the holidays. They ignored me. I asked them an hour later. They ignored me again.

I called the Police...... what did the Police do?????

They asked for MY ID number...... and told the 'noisy inconsiderate assholes' (in Chinese) that I was just a crazy woman. LOL.

Lamma is not quite the 'wonderful place' that we think it is. Beautiful yes,.... with a fantastic group of people making this place a home and a community, but the greedy landlords and builders have thier own rules basically.

Thanks Alan and Tigger.

I will see how we get on in the next few days and build up from polite. We've been living in flats for some years now and it still amazes me how little courtesy occupiers in other apartments have for their neighbours.

so it turns out that the first floor were wholly innocent! It is the top floor with music and construction! They are building an additional flat on top of the second floor. I have not seen four storey flats before - is this legal? I took a photo which I'll upload later to show you.

how does planning permission work here? If they have no planning permission, who do I contact? It has been incessant hammer drilling for three days now. It does stop at 7 or 8 at night, but i am supposed to be working from home shortly and if it continues, I will have no chance to work. I'd therefore love to get them to stop.

Sorry first floor we love you again!!

It's illegal.
If you contact the Lands Department they may take action.

Your neighbours will be extremely pissed at you though.

interesting. I may just do that. Are they a department on HK island? I will google it.

I can handle my neighbour being angry with me: after all, I am really angry with them!

I will also knock on first floor's door tonight. If it is bad for us, it must be horrific for them.

I only noticed the erection because a group of locals were outside the building pointing and shaking their heads.

Thanks again Alan

got any photos

http://www.landsd.gov.hk/en/about/enquiries.htm

The District Lands Office (Islands) should be responsible.

Village houses aren't allowed to be over 3 stories, they're all these days already built to the maximum size allowed, 3 floors of 700 sq ft..
Though they don't look for infractions (obviously) if reported they have to take action.
I haven't done this myself, no idea if they have the balls to enforce the law.
But worth trying .

You have two main choices here,
either trying to talk to your 2/F neighbour about the noise and get it stopped at illegal hours (these constructions don't take more than a few weeks and will probably be finished soon anyway),

or drop a nuclear bomb on them by complaining to the Lands Dept. and potentially (maybe) stopping the construction, causing them huge financial and face losses and making a severe and life-long enemy who can cause you and your girlfriend massive trouble depending on their power and local influence. They'll surely find out who complained and will take any "meddling in their private property" very seriously, especially from a non-Chinese neighbour. Be prepared to move to another village if it's somebody really powerful and/or really annoyed about your actions, even if you (quite likely) won't manage to stop them.

These completely enclosed 3/F are becoming very common all over HK, going on top of Village Houses in all Outlying Islands and the New Territories. I've seen loads of them there recently, as they have really multiplied only in the last few years. Several of my close neighbours have built 3/Fs recently, one next door just being completed right now. I haven't seen a single one dismantled yet or even stopped mid-construction.

It's not technically legal, like so many things on Lamma, but it seems tolerated as long as you don't step on any toes doing it and they complain to the govt. So the builders are usually not working nights or holidays not to piss anybody off. But any construction noise during working hours is completely legal 6 days/week, I'm afraid, as long as it's not really, really excessive which is subjective. They've just completed building a new Village House just metres away from ours and that takes much longer than building a 3/F within a few weeks.

Building these rooftop flats - often beautifully decorated and fully appointed with aircons and even kitchens and sinks, like living quarters - has become a major additional income for local construction companies and landlords who probably even sublet them or charge extra to the 2/F tenants.

I should consider getting a 3/F above my 2/F flat by doing this, then subletting it, offsetting our upcoming massive rent increase. We've got the fixed-frame rooftop canopy already, put up in just a few days by the landlord to replace the former cloth canopy destroyed in a typhoon last year. It would be easy to just add walls and windows and create a beautiful 550sqft flat with amazing views above most neighbouring buildings. Just kidding...

So I'd recommend talking to your neighbour, bring a nice Chinese-speaking friend along, maybe even mention that you might complain to Lands Dept. if they don't stop making out-of-hours noise, and soon you might even be invited for coffee or tea inside that 4/F rooftop flat, admiring how much effort, time and money they're investing into this technically illegal extension and admiring the views.

But just out of curiosity, it would be interesting to talk to some of the property agents about the legality of these 3/F additions becoming so common just in recent years. I'll do that soon. There have been recent changes and upgrades to the specifications of Village Houses, allowing landlords to build new ones 1 metre taller and have some upgrades like rooftop water tanks for flushing and double outdoor gas heaters.
Maybe these spec changes make it less illegal to build enclosed 3/F extensions, as long as you don't live in there and only use them for storage, gardening, BBQ or as a workshop??

Well, I've read recently that some luxury-style Village Houses in the New Territories even put in (technically even more illegal) wine cellars and basements BELOW their already massively upgraded Village Houses. Imagine the noise and inconvenience, somebody digging out a cellar BELOW your G/F flat!

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For most places around here, you'd end up with a basement swimming pool. We have damp rising up the walls in the wet season. Most houses here are built on former paddyfields, raised up a bit on some rubble. That's one reason to be a bit wary of ground floor flats.

Thanks for the information all. Right on queue, no more noise since about 2.00pm today. It looks pretty much finished.

I cannot locate my memory stick reader but as soon as I do, I will upload a pic for you. Having gazed around, I can see there are a number of blocks with such extensions too. Is there really anything the Lands department can do if so many blocks have undertaken these extensions?

L-G - do you really think the landlord would subject people to intimidation and bullying?

Property agents now seem to refer to these as "glass house" in NT property adds.

Ok picture taken and you also get part of my thumb too.

I went up and talked to them as they had a leaking tap and they tried very hard to appease me. They had an English speaker with them so they said they would finish earlier in the evenings. They also managed to get quite a lot of concrete on our Patio (some piece as big as tennis balls) which involved another complaint. Maybe these workers genuinely don't realise the effect of their work on others.

One final thing - they are dumping their rubbish such as wood and rubble onthe small green that is between maybe four buildings. Is it normal for them to clean this up at the end of their jobs? No one else living here seems that concerned...[/img]

Raise the issue ASAP, it's too late after the workers have packed up and moved on.

I think it is safe to say that they almost NEVER clean up at the end of a job outside the actual construction area, especially not if it's not a private area. They might even dump entire small digging machines, cement mixers, rooftop canopies and any amount and size of construction rubbish into any "public" area not obvious or clearly marked as "Private!".

And (almost) nobody will care or even complain if it's not in their own private backyard. Have a look at Living Lamma's pictures of rubbish black spots in public areas and their "Stop the Mess" campaign:
http://www.livinglamma.com/projects/stopthemess

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Yes, dumping of rubbish after the construction.... also the cases of builders flouting the laws and not giving a shit, dumping, etc... chopping up animals if they are irritated by them... (but that's another story which I don't want to go into right now).

As previously mentioned, now that the greedy landlords want to fleece all and sundry, as this being a paradise apparently.... well....... it's not.

I digress.....Back to the rubbish dumping.

You only need to look at near the Power station beach where a few new houses were built, and you can see a huge mound of rubble/construction waste (stupid really,... landowners want to sell at an over inflated price, but a potential buyer has to walk through a construction tip first to get to it.)

Or even opposite the Yan Yan store, where Chow Yun Fat planted trees.... you will still find mounds of construction waste right there around the house and at the edge of the path.

Will anything be done about this? Or illegal fourth floor houses that keep us up at all hours with drilling at illegal/inconvenient hours.

Nope.

I'm not going to do anything. I've given up. And I'm tired of being warned that I will have to 'move islands' should I dare.

So there you go.

There are things that we can do. But we don't.

So welcome to Lamma.

iliketurtles (me too!), I think what everyone means to say is "yes, please speak up." Once the builders leave the site you will be out of luck, as Alan has said. I get as frustrated as everyone else with the mess and lack of respect for the natural environment, but it is not going to get better if we keep quiet and just accept it. Sometimes we try our best and fail (i.e. lily pond to landfill), but other times island residents and government staff have listened and tried to help (some examples from the stop the mess campaign). It is shocking when one first moves here and starts to understand how many laws related to building and the environment are being violated, but ignoring it or becoming jaded will not help.

I obviously am incapable of attaching photos... here is my second attempt...

I did - right at the outset! They initially dumped right outside our flat which was our first interaction. The guy smiled, shrugged his shoulders and instead dumped all the waste in the middle of the green. He then smiled and I shook my head but he put out his arms as if to say "well what am I supposed to do?"

I will speak to my landlord tomorrow about this. He may know who is third floor's landlord.