Is this fraud??

hermum

I would have thought that someone with MS would be on some kind of disability benefit. Often people with it seem fine others they are incapacitated, maybe her way of dealing with it is to be loud. Maybe if you chat to her when she isn't outside with drink in hand about the loud music you can get her to understand where you're coming from.
You can do permitted work, I think £20 a week while still entitled to your benefits, you can also earn £93 for 26 weeks & keep benefits, however party plan & avon probably keeps her to around or below the £20 mark.
I do sympathise with you, noisy neighbours are dreadful.

LittleTinker

hermum wrote: »

I would have thought that someone with MS would be on some kind of disability benefit. Often people with it seem fine others they are incapacitated, maybe her way of dealing with it is to be loud. Maybe if you chat to her when she isn't outside with drink in hand about the loud music you can get her to understand where you're coming from.
You can do permitted work, I think £20 a week while still entitled to your benefits, you can also earn £93 for 26 weeks & keep benefits, however party plan & avon probably keeps her to around or below the £20 mark.
I do sympathise with you, noisy neighbours are dreadful.

Anyone who claims Disability Living Allowance, even at the higher rate, can go to work 60 hours a week if they want to.

Working has nothing whatsoever to do with Disability.........and this is why there is so much confusion with people thinking that some disabled people are defrauding the system.

DLA claimants are allowed to work and earn £10,000 a week too, if they are able to!!

Numptytoes

Whether she is claiming falsely or not sounds to me like she is a pain in the backside neihgbour and doesn't respect that you live next door to her (i.e. the noise situation). That in itself is a nightmare

loopylou862

Hi I know it can be difficult with noisy neighbours but I think if you try and make friends even if distant then yuou may be able to gt control of the situation. As for trying to tell on her i think others are correct, you dont know enough and if she has MS then she will have good days and bad(i know my mum suffered from it)
But as you say maybe it just helped having a rant.

Jowo_2

I say, don't confuse her anti-social behaviour with her disability. She may be boorish and unbearable as a neighbour, the type that you'd figure would rip off the public purse at the blink of an eye. However, MS is a serious and progressive illness, where people do have periods of remissions and relapses. Many people wrongly assume that a person has to be virtually bedbound and unable to walk to claim DLA but this is not the case - a person can have care or mobility needs.

Two people I know with the condition are fully mobile but suffer dreadfully in many ways, such as fatigue, dizziness and terrible reactions to quite simple illnesses because their immune system is weak. One cannot work because his attacks are frequent and because employers shun him because of his unpredictable health. Another can work but her employer is pressurising her to leave because she cannot cope with the workload as the job requires long hours, the employer doesn't want to offer it part time, and my friend has frequent bouts of exhaustion.

So I recommend that you look up the symptoms of MS and the grounds for claiming DLA to understand better why it could well be a fully legitimate claim. And don't take any nonsense about the noise - contact the local council environmental health dept if she doesn't modify her behaviour.

smithyjules

Thank you all for your replies. I think my rant about earning whilst claiming is over, if I knew all the details and was absolutely sure she was making a fraudulent claim then I would do the right thing and report her. As others have stated though, I really don't know all the details or about the extent of her illness and so it wouldn't be fair of me.

The noise and attitude is a different matter though!She actually lives 2 doors down to me so I feel sorry for the family in-between who have 2 young children too. Apparently they we friends until recently and fell out over the noise waking the baby and them at all hours. This girl has got a full surround sound system up in the loft as well as in the living room so it must be worse for them.

Think I will make a second, polite request that she turns it down for the sake of the children next time and if that doesn't appeal to her better nature then I'll have a chat with the council.

thanks again for your kind thoughtful replies!

C_Mababejive

I can appreciate the OPs annoyance and concerns but it seems to me that the core issues here are envy and disrespect. OP may be envious of neighbours seemingly relaxed and enjoyable lifestyle and also resents the disrespectful behaviour of her neighbours.

Because of this,OP wants to punish or strike back

Its important to drill down to root causes and identify the real issues

Vaila

hmm, i think the noise issue isnot relevant to the original post, she may be recieving dla but that does not stop her from working , honestly i just think that the op does not like their neighbour !

smithyjules

C_Mababejive - I can appreciate why you might think that but I really enjoy my job and I have a relaxed and enjoyable lifestyle myself with my husband and two children (apart from the 5 o'clock starts with my 17week old DS!). It does upset and irritate me when people commit benefit fraud and flaunt it which was what i thought was happening.

arran m - you are right about the noise not being relevant, having had a number of disturbed nights and days from her inconsideration getting the Avon book through the letterbox just flipped a switch in my head that said "is this right?" which is why i posted. I questioned whether someone who has no respect for others could have respect for the system.

Again i appologise for being flippant about a serious subject but i genuinely thought there may be fraud going on. I now realise my opinion is probably misinformed.So thank you to those who have given neutral constructive replies.