Noise and number of legal occupants

[Lilly]

Upstairs neighbor has 9 room R/S apt & is the only person on her lease. She has several people living there who walk loudly on the bare floors with street shoes and this is extremely disturbing to downstairs neighbor. After being asked by downstairs neighbor several times and receiving letters from said neighbor she has done nothing to stop the noise which greatly interferes with the peace and quiet of downstairs neighbor. She was informed by downstairs neighbor that she is in violation of the portion of the "roommate law" which restricts occupancy to 1 unrelated person and probably is overcharging her roommates or at the very least receiving a sum of money from all of them that exceeds her total rent, but that downstairs neighbor will not inform the LL as long as she, upstirs neighbor, stops disturbing downstairs neighbor and has them remove their street shoes and install padded carpeting over 80% of the floor area.
Upstairs neighbor removes all but 1 person who sleeps there at night but now has 3 or 4 or several people use the apartment during the day.

Upstairs tenant cannot afford apartment with only 1 roommate paying half the rent. This day use is clearly to evade the roommate law but does daytime use only constitute occupancy?

[Chimera]

Daytime use does not constitute occupancy.

[Lilly]

If upstairs neighbor rents space in the apartment to people for use during the day isn't that commercial and prohibited by the RSC?

[Cranky Tenant]

If there are that many people in the apartment above, day and night, maybe they're not just renting space.

[Lilly]

they are all unrelated to the upstairs tenant and unrelated to each other.

[tiredsecy]

Chalk this to the hazards of apartment living. I think informing or threatening to "out" your neighbor to the landlord (or finding out information on your neighbor to use against them) is only escalating the problem, not solving anything. It's obvious from your initial post that you have quite had it with your neighbor.

If it's a nine room rent stabilized apartment (I don't know where you're located at, possibly NYC?) then the occupancy rule can be up to at least two people a room.

Since you are unclear as to what the nature of what each visitor/person that comes to the upstairs apartment (what their agenda or business is, personal or otherwise), all you can do is write your landlord. You've tried to alert them to the problem. Be aware this might backfire and escalate things if the landlord confronts the upstairs neighbor and it's figured you must've said something.

Have you thought of soundproofing your ceiling? I understand this can be done on the cheap.

[Phil Cohen]

You'll have a hell of a time trying to get anywhere with this kind of complaint. Noise complaints generally are difficult, and day-use stuff--well, it would take a really litigation-minded LL to pursue that kind of thing.
Your only saving grace (I assume you is the downstairs person; this "third person" method of writing you use is both unclear and irritating)is that she is in a BIG apartment, and may be paying a majorly sub-market rent.

[Lilly]

She rents out rooms during the day-I know because I have heard some of them talking in the building about what some of the rooms are used for, ie one person uses a room as studio space, another as writing space, etc. I have been in the apartment
and some of the rooms have locks on them, the living room door has a combination lock on it.
Also, I don't see why describing this as upstairs vs downstairs is annoying to you-it seemed very straightforward to me. My position is that as part of apartment living, unless you have wall-to-wall or lots of rugs, you don't stomp around and disturb your downstairs neighbors. It's just common courtesy. I was asked by my downstairs neighbors to walk more carefully so now I wear slippers or house shoes when I'm in my apartment so as not to disturb them. It's just respectful. My upstairs neighbor refuses to accept responsibility for the conduct she allows in her apartment. It is a nuisance and is quite loud and disturbing to me, her downstairs neighbor. You cannot imagine what this sounds like till you've lived under it. Boom boom boom all day and all night! Reverberates throughout my apartment. Wakes us up at 8am on a Sunday, prevents me from getting a decent nights sleep, I never have any amount of quiet except on those rare occasions when there's no one home upstairs. And since she's sooo obviously flouting the regs and MDL on occupants, day or night, it's has become an advantage to me. You have to use what you've got: I've asked her nicely for months, this has been going on since last summer. She refuses to act like a human being and she has brought what's going to happen next, on herself.
Theres a provision on the MDL or somewhere that states occupancy of more than 3 unrelated persons
constitutes a "rooming house". Renting out your rooms during the day for money is a commercial enterprise and this is a strictly residential building. At this juncture I feel absolutely no guilt about informing the Landlord. Landlord will start watching her more closely, have the super and workmen be aware, and she will have to stop renting out rooms during the day and will have to only have 1 roommate. Period. Or the LL will try to evict her. That's life in the big city......

[Phil Cohen]

Oh I think you definitely have grounds to complain to the LL. But you know how LLs are--unless there is something in it for them, or some credible threat of negative consequences, they will do nothing. The courts are very permissive re neighbor-neighbor disputes.
P.S. The only thing I found irritating about the original post was that it was a little hazy about whether the author was the upstairs or downstairs tenants. I don't like answering "theorteticals"--I like to know who is posting.