Now what?!!

Gingernutty

rozmister and Paulineb have nailed it.

It's sometimes not an entire neighbourhood but one or two households and the people they attract who bring down the rest of the street/neighbourhood.

Some days it feels like they keep moving in next to me......:o

rozmister

Gingernutty wrote: »

rozmister and Paulineb have nailed it.

It's sometimes not an entire neighbourhood but one or two households and the people they attract who bring down the rest of the street/neighbourhood.

Some days it feels like they keep moving in next to me......:o

I see it all the time in the area I live in. One family moves in, they bring round their druggy/drunk mates and their wild kids and suddenly it's all gone pete tong and it's chaos constantly. I've been really lucky it's never happened to the full extreme near me but I can go one road either way and probably find you at least one household like that.

It sounds like you've been really unlucky Gingernutty with the tenants next to you because the landlords don't care who they get as long as the rent is being paid for a while. That's the worst I think because you don't even have a landlord whose on your side! I really hope you get some help with it because it's not fair on you to have to live like that. I'd keep a diary to start and go from there. Good luck xx

rozmister

paulineb wrote: »

I agree with the statement that one anti social family can create a lot of issues, but seriously do other people need to join in? Ive spoken about my experiences elsewhere. Ive been in my flat 18 years, its in a hard to let area of town and as I wasnt priority for housing I had to take somewhere here or wait years for an allocation.

I recently had a run in with a downstairs neighbour, issues caused by him. I spoke to the anti social task force who took 3 weeks to turn up at my door with a police officer in tow and then said they were reporting me, because Im waiting for a repair to my kitchen and had to clear the contents out and put them elsewhere, that meant that according to miss officious jobsworth, my home was a health hazard (its not).

Anyway, after I had finished speaking to the housing about the way she behaved, I typed them an outline of some of the things Ive had to put up with over the years (some of which they already know) and yes most of the issues came from one anti social family, but this anti social family were allowed to create merry hell, her and the kids. But because she was deemed vulnerable, she had 6 kids and couldnt cope with them, they did nothing about her.

It took 15 years for her to get a written warning for harassing me and harassing one other family so badly that they moved out.

I do appreciate my home, but believe me, it has sorely wavered in years gone by due to the fact that some tenants here got doing what they like (think partying, drug dealing, leaving the closes looking like a skip, setting fire to toys left on the landing) and no action was taken against them and people like me who are peaceful, well, we got treated exactly the same.

Im sure there are far more anti social people than just her family, in fact I know there are, but the scheme I live in is spread out enough that the people who upset you tend to be in yours, or the next block.

People shouldnt be allowed to spoil it for the majority, thats my view. But they are.

Oh and the family who made mine and other peoples lives a misery were rehoused, as I presume she would have been overcrowded, she'll be making someone elses life a misery elsewhere, the problem just moves when the family moves.

I couldn't agree more about the fact a small minority are almost allowed (although that's not technically what the rules say) to ruin it for the majority. The system at the moment places people's rights before their responsibilities when it should go hand in hand. Your responsibility is to behave in an appropriate manner and not ruin other people's lives - only if you manage this should you have a right to housing.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Dovah_diva wrote: »

I do. Me and my husband have to get up at 4.45am to get to work. Therefore, we tend to be in bed at 10pm. If our neighbours and their kids were making the sort of noise the OP has described we'd be miserable, tired and unable to function properly at work due to lack of sleep.

Personally, I think 9pm is a reasonable time to stop making a racket and impinging on your neighbours lives.

And I get in from work at around 5am, sometimes later on the weekends. So, after winding down, having something to eat, putting washing in the machine and other housework, etc, I am likely to be trying to sleep just as you get back from work and start making your own noise.


The majority of the population don't keep such hours, and it's unreasonable to expect them to do so, just on the offchance that everybody around happens to work the exact same shifts.

paulineb_2

rozmister wrote: »

I couldn't agree more about the fact a small minority are almost allowed (although that's not technically what the rules say) to ruin it for the majority. The system at the moment places people's rights before their responsibilities when it should go hand in hand. Your responsibility is to behave in an appropriate manner and not ruin other people's lives - only if you manage this should you have a right to housing.

Yes.

There was a build of houses near me about 7 years ago and they included maybe 10 homes that were housing association and to get them you had to have references and also be police checked

And that might seem a bit OTT because Im sure people do have convictions for minor things and some people also are criminal and never get caught.

But, the area I live in used to be very sought after, then it became a dumping ground for every anti social tenant around, get evicted and you come to where I live

Ended up with flats being bulldozed, people being decanted because so many people left. And then the scheme filled up again.
But when those flats were bulldozed, guess what, the housing dept got grants from the scottish govt, a tidy sum.

Housing departments have a responsibility, they have a responsibility to other tenants, because when I first spoke to an anti social task force officer, over 10 years ago about this woman, they told me they had a file on her an inch thick and she had been evicted from several tenancies.

I like to think of myself as someone who tries not to judge people too much, but surely theres a case for so many cases of bad behaviour and you are out? But the thing is, housing depts dont want to make people with kids homeless, I truly get that.

Id like someone who works in housing, if you are reading this thread, to post and say what you do for tenants who are suffering due to peoples poor behaviour.

In my area, its next to nothing. In fact, the anti social task officer and the community police officer who turned up at my house, 3 and a half weeks after an incident, spoke to me like I was the dirt off their shoe, probably because they look down on people who live in poor areas.

There are lots of Polish families in my block now, they keep themselves to themselves, they are pleasant, but I have two males in the flat below me and in the last 12 months there have been 3 incidents, two which could have escalated into violence towards me and the housing and the polices response to that was

I dont look vulnerable to them. And Im not being targeted because Im a single female.

The worse you behave, the easier your life is, nothing will convince me otherwise, seeing what neighbours of mine have got away with over the years.

KxMx

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

And I get in from work at around 5am, sometimes later on the weekends. So, after winding down, having something to eat, putting washing in the machine and other housework, etc, I am likely to be trying to sleep just as you get back from work and start making your own noise.


The majority of the population don't keep such hours, and it's unreasonable to expect them to do so, just on the offchance that everybody around happens to work the exact same shifts.

I actually see both sides here... working unusual hours does mean you can't reasonably expect people to be quiet when it's a time most make noise.

I often nap during the day and never expect my neighbours to be keeping quiet because at that time noise is the norm.

Equally, I don't think wishing for a 9pm noise cut off is that unreasonable. I personally think anything after 10pm is walking the line of being a nuisance.

katiejones

FBaby wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, what do YOU do during all this time? I assume they are not home alone? I know that kids can't be entertained all day long for 6 weeks, but surely holidays is about spending time together as a family? It does sometimes feel that the street becomes the local park for some families, just without having to get there and actually do look after the children or actually play with them.

Hi, sorry to have not responded earlier. I work 5.30am - 1.30pm. My days off are Sunday and Tuesday. Hubby is househusband. DS wakes around 8ish when on holidays, but not allowed out to play before 9am. DS wakes around 10ish (11 year old girl - lazy trout lol). When I get home we have catch-up time and then they can go back out. Sundays we visit grandparents. Tuesdays in the holidays we go to different country parks (northamptonshire). xx

rozmister

paulineb wrote: »

Yes.

There was a build of houses near me about 7 years ago and they included maybe 10 homes that were housing association and to get them you had to have references and also be police checked

And that might seem a bit OTT because Im sure people do have convictions for minor things and some people also are criminal and never get caught.

But, the area I live in used to be very sought after, then it became a dumping ground for every anti social tenant around, get evicted and you come to where I live

Ended up with flats being bulldozed, people being decanted because so many people left. And then the scheme filled up again.
But when those flats were bulldozed, guess what, the housing dept got grants from the scottish govt, a tidy sum.

Housing departments have a responsibility, they have a responsibility to other tenants, because when I first spoke to an anti social task force officer, over 10 years ago about this woman, they told me they had a file on her an inch thick and she had been evicted from several tenancies.

I like to think of myself as someone who tries not to judge people too much, but surely theres a case for so many cases of bad behaviour and you are out? But the thing is, housing depts dont want to make people with kids homeless, I truly get that.

Id like someone who works in housing, if you are reading this thread, to post and say what you do for tenants who are suffering due to peoples poor behaviour.

In my area, its next to nothing. In fact, the anti social task officer and the community police officer who turned up at my house, 3 and a half weeks after an incident, spoke to me like I was the dirt off their shoe, probably because they look down on people who live in poor areas.

There are lots of Polish families in my block now, they keep themselves to themselves, they are pleasant, but I have two males in the flat below me and in the last 12 months there have been 3 incidents, two which could have escalated into violence towards me and the housing and the polices response to that was

I dont look vulnerable to them. And Im not being targeted because Im a single female.

The worse you behave, the easier your life is, nothing will convince me otherwise, seeing what neighbours of mine have got away with over the years.

Police checks for social housing is unfortunately not the norm. We had a particularly troublesome tenant (can't go into too much detail obv.) who got social housing and HB and then absconded whilst keeping HB that was being paid directly to them. They were a truly nasty piece of work who made serious threats to the vulnerable people living in the same scheme as them and to housing staff. When they came to be evicted it turned out that this is how they make their living but we were not allowed to see their criminal convictions until we were preparing a case against them. They had various aliases and had done from Scotland down to Cornwall with their little scam. There should be a register, just like the sex offenders register, and if you are on there you won't be housed in publicly funded housing. An anti-social tenant register!

Where I work we don't see a lot of anti-social behaviour because of the client group. The few times we've had it we have attended meeting with local residents, with the police, anti-social behaviour officers, given tenants warnings, evicted them or rehoused them in accommodation more suitable to their needs (where anti-social behaviour is a product of their environment). I can't speak for what everybody else does but I can tell you that I have never seen or heard of a case that has run as long as yours did, that's truly appalling. What happens varies greatly depending on the area you live in like you said. I'm not sure that my answer will really provide you with comfort though and I'm pretty sure we aren't based anywhere near you either.

Gingernutty

Well things are no better. :mad:

I came across the children baiting some dogs who were in a neighbouring house. They were running up to the front window, banging on the glass and the dogs were going crazy.

Of course, should the dogs ever get hold of one of the childrens' arms or faces, it'll be the dog owner's fault, you'll see.

I went out one afternoon to find an adult woman playing with a boy. She was encouraging the boy to kick the football at her from across the street, with my house effectively the goalposts behind her and her drink on my windowsill as if it were her bar. :mad:

She was telling him to be careful of her drink. :eek:

Music was blaring out the front door. What's worse is the fact there is no need for it. There's a small recreation area/park just behind our road. She could have taken him there and he could have kicked the ball about to his heart's content.

All it would take is for one of a number of adults I've seen around the two houses to pack a few snacks and bring them down to the recreation area. It's not five minutes away.

There was a party for one of the children on Bank Holiday Saturday night. It went on for most of the day with the loud music getting louder as I left for a night shift at about 20:30.

As I left, there was rubbish on my doorstep (bottles and snack packets), there were adults openly smoking cannabis in the street and I came home to footprints on my windowsill, litter scattered about and food mashed into the pavement.

The rats are the size of rabbits round here and the food attracts ants and wasps. Just for laughs, I'm allergic to wasp stings.

I'm sweeping and washing down the pavement outside my house and cleaning the windowsill on a daily basis now.

A household they're friendly with further down the road, had, at that point, filled one rubbish sack but had no space in their bin for it.

They put the rubbish sack on the ground by the bin and yesterday morning, as I was coming home from the last of four consecutive night shifts, the sack has been shredded by cats/rats/whatever scattering the food loaded rubbish up and down the pavement.

By yesterday evening, they had filled a stack of bin bags with yet more rubbish but there was no spare bin space.

The bin men came today and that household have found out the hard way that if it's not in the bin, the bin men don't pick it up. The extra bin bags are still there - piled so high up in the bin that the lid won't close.

The music from next door was so loud yesterday, that even with the ear plugs it was pointless trying to sleep.

I sawed up bits of an old desk to fit them into the bin, swept and cleaned up, did three loads of laundry, put away all my dry clothes, polished some shoes and listened to music (really loud) before going to bed at around 6pm. I'd been awake for about 24 hours at that point.

The noise hadn't relented, I was just so tired I was delirious. They were singing along to 'Many Rivers to Cross' at that point.

Even on my days/nights off, the noise from next door is relentless. From screaming arguments to the TV going at two in the morning.

I know my house isn't much to look at - it's a building site. Due to my father's illness and subsequent death, money has been tight and any plans to do it up are currently on hold, but I still live here and I'd like to try to prevent it becoming an even bigger tip in the meantime.

The lack of respect the adults show for their surroundings is being picked up by the children - on top of everything else, it's depressing and it's doing my head in.

I wrote an email to the housing officer in charge and she's passed it on to the local housing officer - okay, whatever.

I'm not going to hold my breath.

I'm starting a new evening job tonight and I'm supplementing the part time job with a few night shifts - I've got two this week.

By Saturday, I'll be staggering. I am fed up.

Norma_Desmond

Enough's enough now. :mad:

EVERY time these morons make an unacceptable noise - call the police.

Every time they trespass - call the police.

And littering is an offence; if you haven't already called Environmental Health about the rats stemming from their mess, then do so now - and if you've seen 5 rats, tell them you've seen a dozen.

I so feel for you.