Any other courses of action? [neighbour problems]

BrunoM

Hi all,

Mainly a rant, but I want to know if anyone thinks we're missing something obvious, or being unreasonable, etc? Thanks!

We're private tenants, but our flat is ex-council and our neighbours are council tenants. It's a line of 2-up 2-down properties, all with their own front doors etc, but each two 1st-floor flats share a rear balcony from the kitchen doors, which has shared stairs down to our respective gardens, turn left for one garden right for the other. So although the gardens are separate, there is no barrier between them.

To cut a very long story shorter, they constantly leave rubbish (from black bin bags of rotting food to broken fridges - can be anything) on the shared balcony, scattered on the stairs, and their garden is always full of it. They got a terrier puppy in January, and 'walked it' by leaving it outside on the balcony. Initially it was too small to climb the stairs so it simply covered the balcony in thick layers of poo (directly outside our kitchen door), but later it did the same over all the available gardens. It was often left for hours unattended, so that if we went to our garden we would find the dog there, or even at our kitchen door trying to come in.

We complained to the council. They made several visits (both antisocial behaviour and dog control unit) to us and to the neighbours. The neighbours outright lied to them about a number of things, but did do a one-off cleanup of the dog mess and the balcony. The council suggested they would look at the feasibility of installing gates separating the gardens; the dog control unit took a statement from us in case of progressing for an Asbo.

We could see they were doing some sort of work in their garden, so we waited a few weeks to see the end result and stayed out of the garden.

Today we went out for the first time in weeks - dog was immediately at our door trying to come in, and unattended. Trash scattered all over the shared stairs. Worst of all and new, a massive fly-tipping style mound of rubbish in OUR garden; a bike, a stroller, some chipboard, etc.

I've written to the council and copied our landlord, but is there anything else I should be doing? (bar speaking to the neighbours, which I understand why people would suggest it, but isn't going to work) As things stand, we're simply going to give notice and move asap, which is a shame and a hassle. They're breaking their council tenancy agreement in multiple areas.

Thanks

Bruno

Gwhiz

Sorry to hear your plight. Just on the dog front... I hate people getting a dog and then not walking it and leaving all day. Dogs are social animals. Have you tried RSPCA ? (although won't get my hopes up)

BrunoM

We did speak to the council's dog unit about the RSPCA, who said the RSPCA would just refer it to them. I don't know if that's true, we didn't pursue it any further. It might be worth a go. The neighbours also made some promises to the council about never leaving the dog in shared spaces, walking it and caring for it as appropriate, etc, which they're breaking.

Norma_Desmond

Anti-social scum!
Surely you're not allowed to even keep a dog in a council flat?
I'm afraid if it was me suffering this then the family from hell would be getting all their 'mess' back through their letterbox.

Fire_Fox

I would get the letting agent to deal with it as well as keeping records (written and dated photos) to pass to the council yourself. Have you also tried Environmental Health?

BrunoM

No letting agent, private landlord. Making him deal with it is an option to some extent, but they happen to be in the USA for a year just now so he may not contribute as much as he might want to.
We have been taking digital timestamped photos and sending them to the council as well as obviously keeping copies. We gave a witnessed statement to dog control about 6 weeks ago which covered the situation up til that time, so there's that in writing.

Although the council agreement says no pets without prior agreement, apparently now that they have a pet the council doesn't tell them to get rid of it (unless it breaks other conditions - which it is - but yeah).

Blackpool_Saver

I would never have rented in such a terrible place, my advice would be to move and be thankful you don't own the place and can't sell it.

BrunoM

The council tenants moved in at almost the same time we did; the exiting tenants we replaced waxed lyrical about the lovely old lady and her cat who lived next door

pawpurrs

Why stay there? If you dont own it, then find somewhere else, and be thankful you dont own it, nothing worse than bad neighbours.

BrunoM

Well I think that's the conclusion we're coming to; we've not been keen on moving recently as we had a new baby and my job was at risk. Probably all sorted now though so I guess it's time to start looking. On the other hand I still want the neighbours to suffer (or "become better neighbours" I mean), and it's still going to be 2 months notice til we're out.

pawpurrs

From experience reporting these kind of people to authoritys is not going to make them better neighbours, on the contary it will get their backs up and make them worse. You have to pay rent where ever you are, and rental prices in most areas have come down, if you can find something else for similar money, there really is no reason to stay there. Should you be made redundant, you are in a better postion than a homeowner as you can then claim housing benefit. Imagine if you owned the flat, I would think it would be difficult to sell it, with the current situation, and you could be stuck there for years, seeing your equity drain away, make plans to move now, and be thankfull, you dont have money invested in the property.