Problem with neighbour advice please

samanthaxxx

My husband and I rent a two bedroom ground floor maisonette and above us lives a woman on her own who is in her 60's.
She has always been a bit strange and in the past we have heard her ranting to herself.
Our small balcony is directly below hers and since the hot weather we have been sitting out at various times enjoying a glass of wine only for her to drown her pot plants and the water comes down onto our balcony and we have got splashed and it makes one corner of our balcony soaking wet.
The balcony is only small enough for two chairs one a little round table so moving away from it isn't an option.
The first time it happened my husband called up and asked her could she be more careful and she said sorry but when it happened again two weeks ago and he shouted up she started ranting that he was picking on her and then continued a tirad of foul language for over an hour shouting the most awful things to my husband such as 'When you are at working nights she's (meaning me) out F**king other men etc etc among a load of other complete lies as she doesn't even know me!
Other neighbours were in their gardens and could hear everything because she was ranting really loudly to herself and I was so embarressed I went indoors but could still hear her through the ceiling.
Since then every other day she is up in her flat with her balcony door wide open shouting nasty things about my husband and I and then yesterday I could hear her telling another neighbour how she is being picked on by us and slandering my name calling me a !!!!!! etc.
My Husband says to ignore it and we will move out in 6 months when our tenancy expires (we have been here 5 years) but its really upsetting me that this nasty vindictive woman can do such a thing and ruin the rest of the time that we have to live here.
As far as I know she rents her flat from the council or a housing assoc and she used to argue with the previous tennants that were here before us.
Any advice about what we can do about this situation in the meantime would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks,

clutton_2

she sounds as if she has real mental health problems... perhaps one way might be to knock on the door and have a friendly face to face chat with her about the water problem and see if you can resolve it that way.... but if you cant then moving on does seem the only option

Anew

Contact the local CSO to pop round for a chat with you and her if face to face doesn't help. Might sort it out, but if she's got mental health issues any fix might not last long.

mrcol1000

Move. People like this will never change and the only way to deal with it is either for you to move or get them evictied and move the problem elsewhere. Getting them evicited is possible depending on how bad their behaviour is but is very drawn out and slow and depends on the organisation that is her landlord. If and only if they were willing to deal with their problem tenant your have to keep diaries of her behaviour, attend court...... Also when a person like this starts to have action taken agasint them it can make them a lot more worse.
Really she needs help or to be living somewhere more suited to her problems but sadly its unlikely that is going to happen so just be grateful that you can move. I know it feels like she is winning but living with a neighbour like that is something I deal with every day through work and have previously done personally and its miserable and can affect your life. So just give notice soon as you can, move somewhere nicer and just draw a line under it.
You could report it to your local council for anti-social behaviour or even the police depending on what she says about you. If you all rent from the same organisation or landlord then you can speak to them. But if you got them to take action it would be a slow and stressful process.

Jowo_2

Or dementia as this causes behavioural changes. I once moved into a council flat where the previous elderly tenant was found wandering around the balconies in nightwear saying the flies in her flat had turned into witches. The neighbours contacted social services and she was moved into a care home.

If you download the deeds for the property for a couple of quid from the Land Registry this will give you a clue if its local council or HA stock, or ask the neighbours, and then you can contact them to advise them of the behaviour of their tenant. The social housing landlord will invariably want proof and won't act on hearsay.

samanthaxxx

Thanks for your replies my husband has knocked on her door but she wont answer. Also I have told our letting agent about it but they say its not their problem so I suppose the only option is to move asap even if it means paying two lots of rent for a few months.

What's the local CSO by the way?

carefullycautious

It would be worse if it was privately owned. I know some one who is into year 4 of an ASBO situation it is a long drawn out process trying to get a prosecution


As you rent I would be inclined to move on and draw a line under this.

lee636

Lob a pot plant through her window? :rotfl:

Jowo_2

mrcol1000 wrote: »

Move. People like this will never change and the only way to deal with it is either for you to move or get them evictied and move the problem elsewhere.

I totally agree that these things are usually persistent and social housing tenants enjoy great security of tenure and are extremely hard to evict, probably even harder if the behaviour is considered to be the result of illness rather than criminal behaviour.

But sometimes these things persist because of the reluctance of people to take action.

I had a noisy and abusive neighbour when I lived in social housing who turned up the music even louder when I politely asked him to turn it down - he also left it on loud when he went out of the property (sometimes for days). Following a complaint to our social housing landlord the nuisance actually stopped.

princeofpounds

You will be able to deal with this eventually, but it will take a long period of time. Some people don't consider such fights worth it for rented property, but that's up to you.

You might wish to visit neighbours from hell (nfh) forum, for more specialist advice.

Otherwise, I reckon your best bets are to keep a diary, preferably even recordings, of the harrassment, and complain to the police. At first very little will happen, but with a sustained problem you can hopefully get them to talk to her, and then look at ASBOs, breach of the peace, harrassment and so on.

You should also contact social services. If this woman does have mental health issues, it's better that it it flagged to them. I don't know how severe the problems so you'll have to judge how likely a problem this is. They are unlikely to do very much unless she is a danger to herself or others though.

Your council may well have anti-social behaviour units too.

You might also wish to consider getting your landlord to contact their freeholder if her actions are in any way a breach of the lease (they may not be). Your LL can probably do little but they would probably want to be aware of any problems.

nikki_angel

Are you on a periodic tenancy agreement or did you sign a new agreement? You maybe able to just give your one months notice (make sure it is done on the right date) so you can leave before 6 months.