Nuisance neighbour.. end of my tether!

LittleK1989

Hi guys,

hopefully someone can stop me & my boyfriend from going grey before our time, im not sure if this is the right place/forum but im desperate..

We have been living in our flat for just over a year. It is a converted house into 5 flats. We used to live upstairs at number 3, but moved down to number 4 in march when the lady downstairs moved out as it had a wonderful large garden, and a generally bigger place at an extra £100 a month.

Perfect... we thought. :mad:

Every single night, from roughly 7pm through to way past the time we go to bed (after midnight) our neighbour next door constantly plays loud music. When i say loud, i mean it shakes our walls and unless we have the TV on in the livingroom, we could NEVER relax and would hear it word for word. Not good after a long, hard days work when i shouldnt have to put the tv on!

We have complained on numerous, NUMEROUS occasions to the landlord, had him over who himself has agreed he wouldnt put up with it so why should we.

The house next door is home to people who have 'learning difficulties'. The gentleman not only plays his music, he screams obcenities, bangs on the wall at us, and has admitted to one of our upstairs neighbours that the puts the speaker up against the wall to purposley get on our nerves, as we have complained to the landlord about him. He is very mentally unstable, hense why we have complained to the landlord and not directly to him. Also one of our other neighbours (on the other side next to him) has a 5 year old daughter who when she goes up the fence, lets just say he doesnt say nice things.

I have asked my neighbour what is going on, they have told us that they have been to the landlord on the property and they basically werent interested, and they are having to take a longer more formal route, but to keep putting down in email format what is happening.

My issue is that they have talked about this longer, more formal route, for over 4 weeks, and this has been going on in total since we moved in in March.

What should I do? Am i entitled to with-hold my rent? Should i go above the landlord and go to the police/council? Im really at the end of my tether...

any advice would be appreciated

thanks all.

tanith

First thing is start a diary and record everything.. that should help if the council/police get involved... sorry thats not a lot of help but I'm others will be along with good advice..

BitterAndTwisted

NO! You cannot withhold your rent. Contact your Local Authority's Noise-Nuisance people. There is no quick-fix for issues like this and my advice to you would be to move as soon as you can.

LittleK1989

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

NO! You cannot withhold your rent. Contact your Local Authority's Noise-Nuisance people. There is no quick-fix for issues like this and my advice to you would be to move as soon as you can.

Thanks - I wasnt planning on withholding the rent, just wondered if i was well within my rights to do so. Clearly not! Im not sure who my 'Local Authority Noice-Nuisance people' are lol? But cheers anyway..

LittleK1989

tanith wrote: »

First thing is start a diary and record everything.. that should help if the council/police get involved... sorry thats not a lot of help but I'm others will be along with good advice..

Will do, thanks

BitterAndTwisted

LittleK1989 wrote: »

I'm not sure who my 'Local Authority Noise-Nuisance people' are.

All Local Authorities have a policy about Anti-Social Behaviour and most probably have a unit or department dedicated to such issues. Google your LA and have a look on their website.

Lance

LittleK1989 wrote: »

Im not sure who my 'Local Authority Noice-Nuisance people' are lol? But cheers anyway..

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/publichealth

LittleCharlie

Call Environmental Health, they will be able to advise on the services most appropriate to you.

dcems

maybe find out if the neighbour has a support worker if he has learning difficulties. maybe get them involved. otherwise its enviromental health who will send you diary sheets to complete first of all, its a long drawn out process im afraid.
if you can, count your losses and try and move.

KateLiana27

Be incredibly thankful you are renting and not owning this place. Is there a reason you can't move out and find somewhere else? (other than the obvious inconvenience).

In your position, I'd tell the landlord he has two weeks to sort out the problem or you will sadly have no choice but to give notice to move out. And then do it.

ceridwen

Well - I certainly think it would be politic to say to the landlord "Which would you rather have as tenants? Someone like us - decent/normal/look after the place/always pay our rent on time/etc/etc OR him".

Point out to the landlord that if you feel pushed into leaving because of that neighbour - then he will have the hassle and expense of re-letting your flat to someone else. He might then find that he had to re-let it shortly after to another person again (ie because they'd got fed up of nuisance neighbour too and left). Emphasise to the landlord that he can choose between either ONE short sharp action (ie of giving notice to the nuisance neighbour) or having to replace the tenants in your flat at regular intervals (ie because of a succession of people being driven away by that nuisance neighbour).

If I were the landlord - I would see the business sense of getting shot of the "nuisance" and not having any further problems or expenses thereafter. I would certainly prefer that to thinking "Agh! I have to keep re-letting that next door flat and its taking me time and hassle and costing me money every time".

Just put yourself in the landlords shoes - he just wants an easy life and as much rent money as possible and then you can say that the best course of action is to tell him that keeping yourselves as a tenant is the "easy way out" of this problem for him.;)