Halfway house nextdoor's drug paraphernalia

squids

Hello, we have an abstinence based block of housing for substance abusers who are in rehab backing onto our garden. As you can imagine we have had lots of trouble with them in the past with lots of rubbish and noise and overlooking windows disturbing the use of our garden and our home.

We've complained to them in the past over a number of issues but have had little to no action from them.

Recently I have been trying to clear up our garden so that it could potentially be suitable for kids one day. Whilst clearing several bags of rubbish including beer cans and condoms I found alot of drug paraphernalia. Mostly foil wraps with burn marks but some circular metal cap like containers for burning some sort of drug.

Now, I've talked to a friend from the council and she suggests getting an ASBO and says the police will ask us to keep a diary but in my opinion surely we already have enough evidence that this place is a danger to our health. We and especially kids cannot use our garden whilst there is the risk of us coming into contact with used drug paraphernalia.

We just don't know where to start with who to contact to present this evidence to. Do we go directly to the police, or the council? I've tried to find if there is a governing body for dry houses but it doesn't seem there is and regulation is loose.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Rosemary7391

Do they have a garden? I can't help but feel like the only way to stop this, bar moving, is with a physical barrier that they can't easily chuck stuff over. Otherwise you'll always have to check.

squids

Hiya, the flats back straight onto our garden, there is a small slanted roofed single floor section running partially along the boundary.

One option was to put enough pressure on them to get the windows sealed shut and frost the remaining ones. We also recently had someone stick their arm out of their window and take a picture of my wife with their phone whilst she was sitting at a desk in our bedroom.

A massive trellis to make a barrier against the four floor building seems overkill

Rosemary7391

squids wrote: »

Hiya, the flats back straight onto our garden, there is a small slanted roofed single floor section running partially along the boundary.

One option was to put enough pressure on them to get the windows sealed shut and frost the remaining ones. We also recently had someone stick their arm out of their window and take a picture of my wife with their phone whilst she was sitting at a desk in our bedroom.

A massive trellis to make a barrier against the four floor building seems overkill

That's annoying. I doubt they'd be willing to seal the windows shut, but with a place like that, they're likely to have a fairly steady flow of new people in/out, so any action against an individual is like trying to stop the tide - they'll move on before you get anywhere and you'll need to start again. Anything you do will need to be directed at the organisation but I don't know what that could be, and they don't seem to be very helpful from what you've said anyway.

davidmcn

Who is the landlord? (I have a suspicion this might end up as the council getting an ASBO against itself!).

squids

It's a large private housing association, forgive me but I don't want to risk posting the landlord's name.

AdrianC

Given that this is a halfway house requiring abstinence, you're going to struggle to say that its existence is an inherent hazard.

A far more productive way forward would be to work with the management of the building, because if they can identify whose junk it is, they'll be out of there and back into more secure rehab (or prison, or wherever they've come from to here) in VERY short order.

No hope of an ASBO, because you don't know whose stuff it is. You don't even really KNOW that it's a resident's.

There's one thing you didn't mention... Who was there first? Did you move in next door to the halfway-house, or did it open next to you?

squids

We were there first since the early 80s so preceded their arrival by 20 years, the planning application was for conversion to housing around 2002, I'm not quite sure when exactly it became a halfway house.

We can prove they obviously aren't enforcing the abstinence and can't adequately enforce it due to the volume of stuff we found beneath multiple different tenants windows, that's why inherently hazardous to our health

We've tried talking to them on a few occasions, there was a tenant who seemed to discard all of his rubbish out of his back window and some into our garden. We complained but they let it happen for so long it destroyed the roof of another bordering property and they had to have it re-tiled.

I do understand the need for these places and think they must be doing alot of good. This is why we have been very patient up until now but there may be children in the house soon and this recent discovery of dangerous drug wrappers is too much.

As there are four floors of windows we have no real way of knowing which one tenant is throwing stuff out. If they do find out who it is, the replacement is likely to throw stuff out as well as so many have.

danslenoir

Are you planning to move any time soon?

Just in case you are, you might want to think about what you would have to declare in a property information form to potential buyers (and how this might discourage them from buying your house) around disputes with neighbours, before taking any action.

upoiupou

Have you talked to your local councillor (rather than friend from the council)? They usually have surgeries.

For various reasons, including danslenoir's point about having to declare disputes in any future house sale, it's good to keep your approach as low key as possible. Otherwise, I'd be suggesting getting the local paper involved!

You say you're not sure when it became a halfway house. Your councillor should know or be able to find out the history of this, and whether there are any conditions or safeguards in place around the arrangement. They may be able to help you in some ways, for example there may be some pressure they can bring to bear on the managers. It's worth a chat to see.