DH and I are hosting a New Year’s ‘Party’ tonight with 9 adults (all children are being looked after in a separate area by family/babysitters). We live in an apartment building with a communal rooftop terrace with views of the city to watch the firework displays. There is one table with benches either side that seats maybe 8-10, and a few lounge chairs. We’re in Australia, it’s a warm night so we are expecting to remain on the terrace for the next 4-5 hours.
I asked about using the area at a body corporate meeting in October, and then again via a notice in a communal area last week and again this weekend that:
- We would be using the space on New Years
- That we would keep the noise to a considerate level
- That everyone would leave by 1am,
- That other residents were welcome to join us
- Finally, I also left my mobile and apartment number in case anyone had a problem with this
There’s no formal ‘booking’ process for communal areas, I just thought it would be polite to inform neighbours.
About 4 hours ago I ‘decorated’ the area with a few banners and balloons, laid a table cloth and set out some food. DH set up the BBQ we’d borrowed from PIL.
Friends started arriving, all was fine. We all left the area for approximately 10 minutes to settle the children in with the babysitters, and to bring the main meal upstairs. By the time we returned there was another 15 people on the terrace, they’d moved the table to one side, folded up half the table cloth and pushed our table settings down to one end, and had rearranged the benches. There was no seating left at all.
DH asked the person who we believed to be a tenant if she could please let us use the benches for the next half hour or so, and to my utter disbelief she said no, that she had a right to be there, something about how much rent she paid.
So we are currently back downstairs scrambling for chairs to haul up, we’ve got a friend on the BBQ and I’m imagining it’s going to be a very awkward New Years! There’s really not enough space for 25+ people up there, they’ve put their own music on over ours and the majority of their group just seems so passive aggressive about it (admittedly a few people looked a bit embarrassed on the tenant’s behalf!)
So what do we do? We’ve got another 4 hours till New Year’s and the atmosphere is just awful up there. I understand that we don't own the space, but am I being unreasonable to expect her to at least attempt to share the space with us, and to have simply called/knocked on the door beforehand so I could have been prepared with a trestle table/folding chairs?