Residents protest against noisy students

RESIDENTS who haven’t slept for months because of their ‘neighbours from hell’ have mounted a picket outside the rented house on the edge of Waterford city to vent their anger.

They began the protest outside the house in Lismore Park on Tuesday. One couple say their life over the past seven years has been “a living hell” because of the noise and nuisance caused by those in the house. Paddy and Kay McDonnell say their lives have been made “a misery” by a succession of troublesome students next door. The couple have lived in Lismore Park for 36 years and claim their problems only began when the adjoining house was first rented out to students seven years ago.

Kay said: “Our lives have turned into a nightmare because of these students. There are up to nine living there at this stage and they couldn’t care less.

“At all hours of the night, they are making noise, banging doors, shouting and roaring, playing music and kicking a ball around inside.

“I’ve tried talking to them. We’ve had to call the gardaí on a few occasions and the college won’t do anything because the students are in private rented accommodation.”

Ms McDonnell said: “I absolutely love living in Lismore Park but I don’t know how much more we can take,” she said, adding that herself and her husband had lodged a formal complaint with the Private Residential Tenancies Board.

Chairperson of Lismore Park, Lawn and Heights Residents’ Association Jimmy Hannigan said the problems being experienced by Paddy and Kay were widespread.

“There are 606 houses on the estate and 104 of them are rented out to students. To be fair, only about 12 or 14 houses are causing these kind of problems but a huge amount of people have sold up and left the estate because of these problem students in recent years.”

“Waterford Institute of Technology introduced a Code of Conduct some time ago, which has led to some improvements. The problem in some cases, however, is that you need to have the name of the particular students causing difficulties and unless they are first years, they’re not obliged to register.”

Workers’ Party councillor John Halligan , who attended the protest, said laws needed to be enforced to make sure landlords who turned a blind eye to such anti-social behaviour were stopped from renting out property in the future.