New Neighbors .... FROM HELL !

967stuart

paulineb wrote: »

Im sorry for what you are going through, but really, comments about people in council housing? Get a job and live like respectable people? (and Im aware that it wasnt the OP who made those comments, but it just seems like a general theme when people in council housing take a bashing)
Do people seriously think that a job is all it takes to make people who live in dysfunction functional.

And I live in a council housing estate full of people like this. I see it every day. Some of the anti social stuff Ive been dealing with in some shape or form has been going on for years, into double figures.

Its not that easy to evict people, sometimes councils and housing associations hands are tied legally, it can take a long time to get people out.

And Im sorry, people who live in supported accommodation arent all dregs. I worked in homeless units for a very long time and yes you will get people who have had extremely dysfunctional backgrounds, no support, who may have mental health problems and addictions and every single case is different.

But Ive worked with lots of people who have turned their lives around with help and support.

And yes, its horrible when one family ruins an entire estate, because even in places where theres a high concentration of council houses, many people live quite peacefully and it only takes one or two to drag the place down.

But rather than sitting calling people dregs and scumbags, maybe you could actually take some positive action

Find out who your local anti social task force are and involve them
Contact your MP or local councillor
Involve the police, or the community police, many areas have community police
Anti social task forces can supply households with recording equipment so that you can record noise
And if this is happening after 11pm at night, call the police every time, the police have to make reports back to the council when they are called out and the housing at some point will have to take some action

I hardly think that some council tenants being there for a few weeks will drag the house value down. Also, you said the previous tenants were lovely, so instead of thinking of the worst case scenario, why worry about that until something has happened

And speaking as someone who has lived in council housing of some form and another since the day I was born, Im not a chav, I work hard. I may not have lots of money but neither do a lot of people and I also have a decent education and common sense and know how to behave as a decent tenant who doesnt cause anyone any problems

And I am very very sorry for what you are going through, because Ive had enough nuisance neighbours over the years to know exactly what its like, but labelling people as dregs and scum really saddens me and if your attitude to people who may need a halfway house is a not in my backyard one, fine.

But not everyone who needs help and support is a useless case. We could all be a few months away from redunancy or a breakdown and need a bit of support.

Ive worked with many young people with multiple issues, including addictions and mental health issues. Some very highly intelligent people who didnt have a chance in life due to family breakdowns.
Not dregs. Labelling anyone who you might not want in the same street as you is quite sad in my opinion.

I was very careful to word my post as to NOT label/tar all tenants with the same brush.

I made it clear there was a lovely family in there before.
I'm also from a council home (my dads business partner died on a holiday accident and the business fell apart and the council had to home us when the bank took our house).

I'm massively grateful to the council for housing us and we treated the house as though it was our own and got on fanatically well with the neighbors (so much so we'd have them round most weekend for BBQ's).

The people that are in there now are IMO scum and dregs.
They have no respect at all for anyone.

One of the girls boyfriends smashed a vodka bottle right out the front of a house down the round that has two little toddlers ….. it's just complete lack of respect and being scummy for the sake of it.

paulineb_2

There are plenty people with jobs who cause landlords all sorts of problems and behave like anti social tenants, same for people who buy their own property.

If someone acts like an idiot in a tenancy, it has absolutely nothing to do with whether they have a job or pay the bills and yes, it may well be that if you get a high concentration of people in the same types of circumstances, not having a job and being in the same environment, people will gravitate towards certain types of anti social behaviour.

However, the reason the area like mine has so many anti social issues, is because historically when people were evicted from other tenancies or suffered a relationship breakdown, they were dumped as it were all in the one place. About 5 years ago the area I lived in was 25 per cent full and the council had to knock large parts of it down, they then got massive grants from the government to do it up again, which was a win win for them. 25 or 30 years ago people were lining up to live here, but thats before it ended up as a dumping ground for anti social tenants, its now much fuller than that, but there is more than one housing estate in the town I live in that suffers from the same anti social issues, because if you shove a lot of people who are anti social in the same place, guess what, they are going to behave in ways that other people dont find acceptable. And in my area, community groups are trying to get people together to find some kind of community spirit, but they have a way to go.

But it exists in every type of housing there is. My mum has a council house and when she rented it almost 40 years ago, the area was known as higher rented. People paid more, the area was nicer. She bought her house about 20 years ago.

And she has had massive problems with immediate neighbours, both of them have bought their houses and they also work and always have.

If people really think that owning a house and having a job doesnt make people anti social in every sense of the word, they have never experienced living beside people who might not behave in exactly the same way that people described above do, but nonetheless are capable of making peoples lives a complete misery over a long period of time.

I also certainly dont think its a good idea to house people with exactly the same living circumstances all in the one place, but thats what councils do. They are only concerned with whether people will pay the rent (or have it paid by housing benefit) and you can have all the good neighbour agreements in the world written into your tenancy agreement, but it can often not be worth the paper its printed on.

And as has been said above, these people who are causing the nuisance to you at the moment arent even council house tenants are they? They own their own home. They probably work. But they are still nuisance tenants.

And if people think I dont have a clue what Im talking about. Ive spent time on anti depressants and sleeping pills due to the actions of one neighbour. I live beside someone who is in her mid 30s and has no concept of noise and its completely anti social. Her ex partner was housed across the landing from her and that was a complete nightmare as they were having screaming rows at 2am that went onto the landing and carried on for hours.

Ive been late for work, when I was working full time (Im now self employed), because of all night parties going on. The house opposite me was used as a giro drop for years, the woman who lives in it lives with her partner somewhere else in the block and people had keys cut and half the scheme used to go in and party there.

I know exactly what anti social nuisance is and how badly it affects your life, Ive absolutely been there.

But its not living in council housing that makes people act like that. If it were, Id have grown up a "chav" as people put it with no regard for anyone or anyone else. So would my brother. Sometimes its the environment you grow up in. If that is all people see, day in day out and their kids grow up in dysfunction, guess what, they might live the way they know. Poverty, social exclusion, lack of education, lack of support within a family, having a family who dont give a toss about you and what you do.

And personally, Id hate to live like that myself. But I grew up in a family where although we didnt have much money and shock horror we lived in a council house, we were encouraged to go to university and do something with our lives and we did.

I ended up here because I dont have kids, Im not priority for council housing, I live on my own and although I worked in a sector where I did ok for myself, the work wasnt well paid and the jobs werent very often secure. And I couldnt afford to buy a flat.

And sometimes, when I was working in projects where people were dealing with issues and coming home to chaos, I was totally and utterly sick of it. I was threatened by a neighbours friend who said she was going to burn my flat down, because I had reported that person to the council (I hadnt, she was evicted for rent arrears, nothing to do with me) and when I called police, they told me they could do nothing unless I was physically harmed.

There is no magic wand that will wave and make all anti social issues go away. Sometimes, particularly when people have kids, people can be as anti social as they like and they still wont get evicted because a council doesnt want to make someone homeless, particularly children.

And its not easy evicting people for rent arrears either. But rather than making comments about people getting a government funded holiday or courses, or concerning yourself with whether the council have put up curtains and put dish cloths in a council house, try and do something about this situation so that theres a positive outcome for yourselves.

No one deserves to live with anti social noise and nuisance. But rather than working yourself up about who might end up in there after you, or whether its going to turn into a halfway house, start opening some dialogue with police and other people who might be able to do something about this.

And what happened when I challenged someone whose child physically assaulted me, I was told by the police if I didnt have witnesses and if the childs parent and a friend of hers said that Id been creating the nuisance, Id be the one facing charges.

So anything that might get you on the other end of a police charge, Im sure you dont need me to tell you, dont do it.

battleborn

paulineb wrote: »

There are plenty people with jobs who cause landlords all sorts of problems and behave like anti social tenants, same for people who buy their own property.

If someone acts like an idiot in a tenancy, it has absolutely nothing to do with whether they have a job or pay the bills and yes, it may well be that if you get a high concentration of people in the same types of circumstances, not having a job and being in the same environment, people will gravitate towards certain types of anti social behaviour.

However, the reason the area like mine has so many anti social issues, is because historically when people were evicted from other tenancies or suffered a relationship breakdown, they were dumped as it were all in the one place. About 5 years ago the area I lived in was 25 per cent full and the council had to knock large parts of it down, they then got massive grants from the government to do it up again, which was a win win for them. 25 or 30 years ago people were lining up to live here, but thats before it ended up as a dumping ground for anti social tenants, its now much fuller than that, but there is more than one housing estate in the town I live in that suffers from the same anti social issues, because if you shove a lot of people who are anti social in the same place, guess what, they are going to behave in ways that other people dont find acceptable. And in my area, community groups are trying to get people together to find some kind of community spirit, but they have a way to go.

But it exists in every type of housing there is. My mum has a council house and when she rented it almost 40 years ago, the area was known as higher rented. People paid more, the area was nicer. She bought her house about 20 years ago.

And she has had massive problems with immediate neighbours, both of them have bought their houses and they also work and always have.

If people really think that owning a house and having a job doesnt make people anti social in every sense of the word, they have never experienced living beside people who might not behave in exactly the same way that people described above do, but nonetheless are capable of making peoples lives a complete misery over a long period of time.

I also certainly dont think its a good idea to house people with exactly the same living circumstances all in the one place, but thats what councils do. They are only concerned with whether people will pay the rent (or have it paid by housing benefit) and you can have all the good neighbour agreements in the world written into your tenancy agreement, but it can often not be worth the paper its printed on.

And as has been said above, these people who are causing the nuisance to you at the moment arent even council house tenants are they? They own their own home. They probably work. But they are still nuisance tenants.

And if people think I dont have a clue what Im talking about. Ive spent time on anti depressants and sleeping pills due to the actions of one neighbour. I live beside someone who is in her mid 30s and has no concept of noise and its completely anti social. Her ex partner was housed across the landing from her and that was a complete nightmare as they were having screaming rows at 2am that went onto the landing and carried on for hours.

Ive been late for work, when I was working full time (Im now self employed), because of all night parties going on. The house opposite me was used as a giro drop for years, the woman who lives in it lives with her partner somewhere else in the block and people had keys cut and half the scheme used to go in and party there.

I know exactly what anti social nuisance is and how badly it affects your life, Ive absolutely been there.

But its not living in council housing that makes people act like that. If it were, Id have grown up a "chav" as people put it with no regard for anyone or anyone else. So would my brother. Sometimes its the environment you grow up in. If that is all people see, day in day out and their kids grow up in dysfunction, guess what, they might live the way they know. Poverty, social exclusion, lack of education, lack of support within a family, having a family who dont give a toss about you and what you do.

And personally, Id hate to live like that myself. But I grew up in a family where although we didnt have much money and shock horror we lived in a council house, we were encouraged to go to university and do something with our lives and we did.

I ended up here because I dont have kids, Im not priority for council housing, I live on my own and although I worked in a sector where I did ok for myself, the work wasnt well paid and the jobs werent very often secure. And I couldnt afford to buy a flat.

And sometimes, when I was working in projects where people were dealing with issues and coming home to chaos, I was totally and utterly sick of it. I was threatened by a neighbours friend who said she was going to burn my flat down, because I had reported that person to the council (I hadnt, she was evicted for rent arrears, nothing to do with me) and when I called police, they told me they could do nothing unless I was physically harmed.

There is no magic wand that will wave and make all anti social issues go away. Sometimes, particularly when people have kids, people can be as anti social as they like and they still wont get evicted because a council doesnt want to make someone homeless, particularly children.

And its not easy evicting people for rent arrears either. But rather than making comments about people getting a government funded holiday or courses, or concerning yourself with whether the council have put up curtains and put dish cloths in a council house, try and do something about this situation so that theres a positive outcome for yourselves.

No one deserves to live with anti social noise and nuisance. But rather than working yourself up about who might end up in there after you, or whether its going to turn into a halfway house, start opening some dialogue with police and other people who might be able to do something about this.

And what happened when I challenged someone whose child physically assaulted me, I was told by the police if I didnt have witnesses and if the childs parent and a friend of hers said that Id been creating the nuisance, Id be the one facing charges.

So anything that might get you on the other end of a police charge, Im sure you dont need me to tell you, dont do it.

Keep it short if possible

aileth

As someone who has lived with a quality d*ck of a neighbour, who was a student with a part time job, I feel for you.

When they had parties, they would leave half-full wine bottles in the garden of a neighbour across, who had two children with fairly severe learning disabilities, and she had to go out and sweep the garden when there'd been a party otherwise they would pick up the wine and start drinking/playing with it. They only did it to her house.

I managed to get the noise team round, which consisted of a Council bloke and a Copper, who scared the living daylights out of them. Haven't had anything since, apart from them arriving home at 3-4 a.m. in the morning after being out on the town, kicking our door to wake us up, then banging, slamming and doing everything possible to taunt us, but I'd rather they did that than have their parties at home!

pulliptears

battleborn wrote: »

Keep it short if possible

Why? Do you struggle to understand more than one paragraph at a time?
:rotfl::rotfl:

Alpha58

Just as an aside - the quality of an individual has nothing to do with whether they are home-owners or not. I went to school in the middle of a vast council estate (although I didn't live there) and it was generally characterised by beautifully kept front gardens and well-behaved kids. Yes, there may be problems with some less-desirables in social housing but this is more an indictment of a system which, although geared up to ensuring that those who find themselves in distress will no be homeless, also sweeps up those with less will to be responsible neighbours and tenants. The fact that "chavs" are moved into such housing is actually a reflection on the quality of both our social security system (writ large) and our society as a whole.

I have always been in the fortunate position of being an owner rather than a tenant and, believe me, I have had neighbours who I would cross the road to avoid!

Luckily, I now live in a very small road with only two neighbours and they are absolutely wonderful. But that is about them as people, not their financial or social status.