Help for old lady feeling threatened in her own home

dori2o

My Nan lives in her own little Bungalow. It's hers, lock, stock and barrel. She's been there 20 years or so. (Probably not relevant)

The house next door has been rented out for the past 5 years or so since the elder gentleman who lived there was placed into a nursing home.

There was a lot of problems with the last tennant, with noise, arguments and threats.

These people moved out approx 6 months ago and the house had been empty until 5 weeks ago.

A little old lady in a wheelchair moved in, but a couple of days later she left in a car and has not returned since.

However, there are 5 people currently living in the house, which is a 2 bed bungalow. 4 are teenagers, 2 of whom it seems have special needs and one is an older gentleman who leaves the house each moring via a 'ring and ride' bus and returns each evening.

During these 4 weeks or so they have been arguing, playing loud music til late in the evening, banging on the walls, just generally being anti social.

my Nan is 78 and has recently come out of hospital following a heart attack.

She phoned the lettings agent about the new neighbors and was verbally abused by the person on the other end of the phone.

The lettings aget kept saying that the only person living their was this olsd lady in a wheelchair. Even when my Nan tried to exxplain to them she hadn't been there for weeks they accused my nan of lying.

they said my Nan had no right to make a complaint about who lived there as it was none of her business.

We believe the house is owned by the son of the elderly gentleman who used to live there. The guy was a very good friend of my Grandads and would probably be horrified of what has become of his once beautiful home. (It really was a nive looking little bungalow. Not any more though)

Is there anything wqe can do to get (or force) the lettings agency to look more closely at the situation. We believe that this lady who should live there has either passed away, or has been taken ill and the bungalow is now being subletted.

Is it possible to force the lettings agent to provide to my Nan the name and address of the actual owner of the house?

Any advice would be appreciated.

RAS

Go to the land registry and down load the deeds. Thery will eb on-line in the morning. Costs £4 I think.

NeverEnough

Local Council could also be approached re the noise - Environmental Health department. They will ask your nan to keep a log of incidents.
The Local Policing Unit are likely to have an Anti-social behaviour team, it may be worth discussing the issues with them as well.
Also perhaps assist your nan to write to the lettings agent advising that the tenant they think is there (old lady) left weeks ago and the property is now occupied by x number of others who are causing a nuisance / noise etc.

dori2o

Thanks

Will share this information with my Nan and try to update the thread when we get more information.

googler

NeverEnough wrote: »

.....perhaps assist your nan to write to the lettings agent advising that the tenant they think is there (old lady) left weeks ago and the property is now occupied by x number of others who are causing a nuisance / noise etc.

Perhaps assist your Nan and actually go to the letting agent in person and outline this, leaving the letter at the same time?

Fire_Fox

Environmental Health regarding noise, the police or antisocial behaviour unit at the local council about antisocial behaviour. If the tenants are in contract it is difficult to evict them, the landlord needs proof that they are breaching the lease such as reports to the police or EH. Letting agents have even less powers.

barnaby-bear

dori2o wrote: »

My Nan lives in her own little Bungalow. It's hers, lock, stock and barrel. She's been there 20 years or so. (Probably not relevant)

The house next door has been rented out for the past 5 years or so since the elder gentleman who lived there was placed into a nursing home.

There was a lot of problems with the last tennant, with noise, arguments and threats.

These people moved out approx 6 months ago and the house had been empty until 5 weeks ago.

A little old lady in a wheelchair moved in, but a couple of days later she left in a car and has not returned since.

However, there are 5 people currently living in the house, which is a 2 bed bungalow. 4 are teenagers, 2 of whom it seems have special needs and one is an older gentleman who leaves the house each moring via a 'ring and ride' bus and returns each evening.

During these 4 weeks or so they have been arguing, playing loud music til late in the evening, banging on the walls, just generally being anti social.

my Nan is 78 and has recently come out of hospital following a heart attack.

She phoned the lettings agent about the new neighbors and was verbally abused by the person on the other end of the phone.

The lettings aget kept saying that the only person living their was this olsd lady in a wheelchair. Even when my Nan tried to exxplain to them she hadn't been there for weeks they accused my nan of lying.

they said my Nan had no right to make a complaint about who lived there as it was none of her business.

We believe the house is owned by the son of the elderly gentleman who used to live there. The guy was a very good friend of my Grandads and would probably be horrified of what has become of his once beautiful home. (It really was a nive looking little bungalow. Not any more though)

Is there anything wqe can do to get (or force) the lettings agency to look more closely at the situation. We believe that this lady who should live there has either passed away, or has been taken ill and the bungalow is now being subletted.

Is it possible to force the lettings agent to provide to my Nan the name and address of the actual owner of the house?

Any advice would be appreciated.

It sounds like an HMO with lots of unrelated people - these are highly regulated for fire regulation, no. of toilets - please phone the councils private letting regulation dept (may be under environmental health) and report an illegal HMO.... these are dangerous a proper HMO shouldn't be overcrowded and should have certain numbers of toilets/kitchen space/proper fire doors/alarms - landlords can get fined for these! Heavily!

G_M

As others have said:

1) anti-social behavior / threats: local police
2) noise: Environmental Health
3) Letting agents:
a) find landlord and go direct (Land Registry )
b) write to agents
c) go in (with her) and speak to manager (take photos of the occupants?)

Strapped

Why did you find it necessary to highlight the fact that two of the kids appear to have special needs?

Better_Days

Strapped wrote: »

Why did you find it necessary to highlight the fact that two of the kids appear to have special needs?

Well, they may need adaptive equipment which impacts on the fabric of the property, or adaptions may be needed to allow them to use/access parts of the property. Difficult to say without knowing the exact nature of the special needs.

Shelldean

Strapped wrote: »

Why did you find it necessary to highlight the fact that two of the kids appear to have special needs?

Maybe it's like my special needs neighbour, who whilst a lovely child who is always polite etc etc and not really a problem, has no concept of how loud she is being. It's almost like she is deaf and cant regulate her volume?
Now if my neighbour was not such a nice child then this might be a problem? So it mght be a similar case for OP?