West Boca Raton condo association sues resident over loud TV

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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