A couple who rented out their homes to stag and hen parties have been fined more than £12,000 for causing a nuisance to their neighbours.
Helen Sywak and Pasquale Biscardi let their adjoining properties in Cliff Road, Brighton, to groups of revellers, who caused a repeated nuisance to neighbours with partying and karaoke.
They are the first people to be prosecuted by the council for running “party houses.”
Following repeated complaints from neighbours, the pair were issued with noise abatement notices by Brighton and Hove City Council ordering them to stop customers disturbing neighbours.
But six further complaints were made between October and December last year. One neighbour told council officers her youngest child had had to stay with relatives to get a decent night’s sleep.
Sywak, 47 and Biscardi, 32, yesterday (February 23) each admitted six counts of breaching the noise abatement notice at Brighton Magistrates’ Court and were fined £1,000 each for each offence.
Len Batten, prosecuting for the council, said: “The council started receiving complaints about 30 and 32 Cliff Road of loud noise, music, screaming and shouting coming from several parties at the properties the defendants let out to hen and stag parties.
“There was lots of shouting, screaming and noise from karaoke and computer games.
“Parties were heard in both properties, a stag party in one house and a hen party in the other. As a result, the council noise team was called several times in 2011.”
In a statement read to the court Sywak, of Ainsworth Avenue, Ovingdean, said renting out the property became her only source of income when her ex-husband left the country and stopped supporting her and her children.
She said they had tried to comply with the noise notice, switched letting agents and hired a security guard – making running the business almost impossible.
The couple were also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £950.
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