How do I check out the neighbours before buying?

googler

How do the current residents get to check you out?

baloooo2

Googler - fair point. But I'm sure everybody wants to live next door to us - we have 17 children and they all play the drums. Badly.

hazyjo

baloooo2 wrote: »

Googler - fair point. But I'm sure everybody wants to live next door to us - we have 17 children and they all play the drums. Badly.

Ah, but do you have a trampoline in the garden?!

Jx

bouicca21

I've similarly been looking at ex council houses. Round here it is very difficult to get a council house to rent unless the prospective tenant has multiple problems. I shouldn't have been surprised therefore to discover that most of the estate in question is still rented - the sort of people who get moved in to these houses simply can't afford to take advantage of right to buy. I checked out the tenants association, who handily put the minutes of their discussions with the council on the web. This revealed a long running battle over low level crime/nuisance - vandalism, litter, and noise. I'm still not sure whether this is a generational thing - that maybe the peope who run the tenants association are older, quieter and intolerant of problems that appear to be associated with the presence of teenagers; maybe the teenagers really are particularly badly behaved; maybe the demography of the estate is skewed so that there are more teenagers per square foot than elsewhere. I don't see that I can find out without walking round the area on several Friday and Saturday nights.

I_have_spoken

Ah, but do you have a trampoline in the garden?!

Trampoline is for them posh folks. I just let Tyler and Chardonnay jump on the two mattresses we threw into the garden!

Thanks for any thoughts

Walk away

JimmyTheWig

Taking a dog for a walk would be a good way of being in the area without looking like you're a nutter. If you haven't got one could you borrow one, or go with a friend who has one?
Or, if you're fit enough, put your trainers on and go for a jog around the local streets.

Fraise

The local mini cab office normally knows if an estate is a problem one, and very often refuse to go there, so try ringing them. Also the local milkman (if there is one), and local pizza delivery can give you insight too.

moremore

The council will be getting a lot of service charges and do not deliver any kind of services for the money they take. It will be the council fault that the buildings and the contiguous areas are neglected.

Building_Surveyor

Go at night, Stand outside their front window breathing heavy against the glass, and if they notice you just wave! :-)

bagpussbear

DaftyDuck wrote: »

Find the local PCSO... they normally know more about low-level incidents than the local bobby.

I would definitely agree with this, in fact they would be my first port of call when we move house eventually.

Our house backs onto a council estate, and we've had some problems with some of the people living there, had to get the local PCSO involved, which put a stop to one of the problems at least - he was a wealth of information about my street and the area.

Trouble is with the estates is that although most of the people who live there are decent people , you can get a minority who don't give a damn about others and they can make your environment uncomfortable.

Pros are you can get more space/house for your money.

If I knew then, what I know now I would not have bought my house, and look forward to the time we can move. Sorry OP, I am biased in my opinion because of my personal experience I realise!

So speak to your PCSO, check out the area fri/sat night, in fact half term is coming up isn't it, see if you get lots of kids out at night during that time.

btw, I am a born and bred south londoner (moved up north last year)- may I ask which area the estate is on?