Article Courtesy of The Sun
Sentinel
By Rachael Joyner
Published September 22, 2007
WEST BOCA - Her
neighbors say there's no peace at La Paz Place.
The cause: a TV that's so loud at night it can be heard at least five
condos away. The neighbors asked Ruth Bishins to turn it down but say
their pleas have been ignored.
Now the spat has landed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, and the La Paz
Condominium Association is asking a judge to order Bishins to turn down
her set or face the consequences — everything from fines to even a day
in jail.
But Bishins, 80, says she has done nothing wrong.
"We've been trying to resolve this since early August," said her
lawyer, Gary Rosner. "She has had a rough go of it lately. I want to
get this resolved so she doesn't have to be any more upset then she
already is."
Bishins suffers from a number of health problems, including lung cancer,
he said, yet she's "coherent and understands the situation."
She tried to fix things by getting her condo soundproofed, but her
neighbors wouldn't cooperate, Rosner said. Neighbors complaining about the
noise wouldn't let a contractor into their condos to check the sound
levels.
Her neighbors in the upscale gated community west of Boca Raton have a
different story.
They say Bishins' TV is particularly loud between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m.,
despite attempts by the condo association to get her to stop.
It held a hearing in February to resolve the matter, but Bishins didn't
show up or try to appeal the ruling ordering her to turn down the set,
said Guy Shir, the association's lawyer.
And the late-night noise hasn't stopped.
Esther Frank, who lives a couple of buildings away from Bishins, knows
people complain about noise that's "going all night long." She
hears it too, but it's not enough to bother her, she said.
Other neighbors say the noise is constant.
The "level of her television is so loud that a person with permanent
nerve damage when not wearing their hearing aid, still hears the noise
from the television ... as do owners living five or more units away,"
reads the lawsuit, filed Sept. 17.
The feud has been going on for more than a year between Bishins and a few
of her neighbors in the 7400 block of La Paz Place, a neighborhood of
condos within the more than 3,000-home Boca Pointe community between
Florida's Turnpike and Powerline Road.
Bishins called the Sheriff's Office at least six times between April 2006
and August, complaining she was harassed by neighbors, according to
reports. She told deputies that two of her neighbors, Marvin Simon and
Carol Highman, had left threatening messages on her phone and had cut her
power.
Deputies investigated but could not determine who shut off the power or
made the phone calls. Simon and Highman said they were not involved.
One typewritten letter left under her door last April warned: "Shut
off your T.V. at night, this does not mean lower it, shut it off. If you
do not, bad things will happen to you. Your electric will be shut off at
night, your windows will be broken," according to the Sheriff's
Office.
Reached by phone, Simon declined to comment while the suit is ongoing. He
told the Sheriff's Office last year that there was an "ongoing
problem with Bishins' TV being too loud" and that he and other
neighbors were trying to get her evicted.
Highman could not be reached for comment, despite several calls to her
home. She told sheriff's deputies in July that she's asked Bishins to turn
off her TV and has also called Bishins' daughter and two sons for help.
"I don't think people are lying or doing this out of
retribution," Shir said. "They just don't want to hear the TV
when they're trying to sleep."
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