Neighbour harrasment

Comms69

princeofpounds wrote: »

Hi, very sorry to hear that it hasn’t improved.

The short answer here is to pursue both paths. Keep a diary of events, and any evidence like audio or video will be very helpful, especially if they are e.g. kicking the door. If it is at unusual times, and/or not connected with any of your own activities, that’s also important to record.

The problem here is that you fall into the grey zone now between a noise complaint and a harassment complaint.

The council should deal with noise, and the police will only be too eager to pass the buck as you have seen. To be fair, they generally get fed up ‘wasting time’ on what they consider minor arguments, and if you complain to them mainly about banging on the ceiling/floor, and talk about noise being the main issue, then of course they are going to think it’s all about noise.

You may get somewhere with environmental health, as banging isn’t normal living noise. But they are likely to be weak about it, as it may not be all that loud or persistent. If you’re lucky, they will explain to the neighbours that they have no valid complaint. I forget - the neighbours are owner-occupiers yes? Not council tenants or similar?

To get the police to actually move on the issue, you need to establish that it is proper harassment; I.e. there has been a course of action (multiple incidents) and that their behaviour is designed to intimidate. - to be fair that isnt actually the test. It's to cause alarm or distress. I would be quite alarmed to have my door kicked. Equally to have my floor bashed. This latter part is probably where the police fail to see a problem, so that’s why unusual timing and video of door kicking etc. would be very useful. Keep complaining to them as the evidence mounts up, and try to develop a relationship with your local officer so they might start to understand your individual circumstances.

If there are any insults around ‘protected characteristics’ (race, sexuality etc.) then the police should also be notified about that and will probably prompt more interest. - Unfortunately I agree it seems unless it's a 'hate' crime the police don't provide resources

Ultimately though the police will be reluctant to criminalise a situation unless they really start kicking off, so if a word from them doesn’t work (if you even get that far) then it’s time to look at a specialist lawyer to threaten, and then maybe get, an injunction. If you have the evidence it’s a fairly straightforward process, but it would cost a bit. - a civil injunction should be fairly straight forward on this. The cost is the only real factor. Courts are quite happy to hand out injunctions against anti-social behaviour.

If they really fail to help out, then it’s speak to a senior officer, make a complaint, letter to PCC and/or MP time... sometime the swueaky wheel gets the grease

Oh, and mediation - worth a try if they haven’t really been too threatening yet. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for results

I suspect if the OP went at it from the 'right' angle - IE mum with young kids feeling threatened by neighbours downstairs; as opposed to there's some noise from downstairs. - the police would be all to happy to have a word

Nj04

We are both private tenants. They have a different landlord to ours.

Agreed, I need to get the community police to visit them and if that doesn't work then a solicitor to write them a stern letter for harrasment.

Thank you!

gomer

Nj04 wrote: »

We are both private tenants. They have a different landlord to ours.

Agreed, I need to get the community police to visit them and if that doesn't work then a solicitor to write them a stern letter for harrasment.

Thank you!

Exactly that. But be ready that hostilities may fester. They may well get a tit for tat solicitors letter drawn up in return, but now things are at this level it is better not to engage them at all in person. I wouldn't even make eye contact.

You've tried the reasonable approach& they have not been receptive. You are feeling harassed & you are feeling intimidated by their behaviour, so use that to your advantage to alter the balance of power in the situation.

Just be prepared as i said, for things to potentially become more hostile. If it's any consolation i woke up everyday to food poured over my windows, rubbish dumped on my balcony & my doormat being regularly urinated on - on top of the verbal abuse & intimidation.

Nj04

I have now been asked to write to the Community Safety group for our council and they will reach out to our landlords and the tenants and talk to them. They do not have any other authority besides talking to them.
Anyone have had any luck by getting the community safety group involved? Thanks

gomer

Nj04 wrote: »

I have now been asked to write to the Community Safety group for our council and they will reach out to our landlords and the tenants and talk to them. They do not have any other authority besides talking to them.
Anyone have had any luck by getting the community safety group involved? Thanks

Check online for your community policing team. You can usually call or email your local team directly. They will work directly with the council on issues like this.

They were very easy to deal with & i had no problems getting them to attend my address. Just make it clear to them you consider the behaviour harassment and intimidated by them kicking your door & bullying you.

Have you considered the antisocial behaviour route? Their landlord should be made aware his tenants are harassing people too.

katkatmachine

OMG! Do you live in somewhere cranwich road in stamford hill? Cause that's what we've experienced with our effin neighbour!!! maybe we had the same neighbour! hahahahahaha

gomer

katkatmachine wrote: »

OMG! Do you live in somewhere cranwich road in stamford hill? Cause that's what we've experienced with our effin neighbour!!! maybe we had the same neighbour! hahahahahaha

How did you deal with the problem?

Durham_andrew

One of my neighbours complains about my disabled child making to much noise. We both have detached houses too. Some people you can never please.

katkatmachine

gomer wrote: »

How did you deal with the problem?

Just a background, our neighbours owned the flat below. At first, we tried to lessen the noise, they asked us not to flush the loo after 11pm at night as our bathroom is directly above their bedroom, so yeah sure. pretty reasonable, we are asleep by then anyway.

Then they made so many ridiculous request like asking us not sneeze in our room cause they can hear it, they asked us to hold our sneeze and suggested to do it in the bathroom. like !!!!!!! Is that even possible???? hold your sneeze then run to the bathroom and do it there? LOL :rotfl:

They also asked us not to stomp our feet hard when walking, which is silly because we are already using slippers at home and it's already quiet. They basically asked us not to walk in our own flat!

And when my friends and I had drinks at our place, she banged our door really loud twice. i thought there's a serial killer outside our door because it was really loud. We were so scared. I was already tipsy but I was so scared I was thinking of getting the knife to protect myself just in case that it was indeed a serial killer! But no! Of course it was just my effin neighbours! so we shouted at each other for a good 10 minutes. I dared her to call the police! I was fuming!!! In the end she just went back to her flat and did nothing! hahhaah booyah! We continued the party inside the flat and played the music!even louder just to spite her.

Anyway, in the end we just moved to another flat. We realised we don't need all that drama and it turned out fine because we found a nicer, bigger but cheaper flat. Our previous landlord was begging us not to leave, he even offered to lower the rent because we were good tenants, we didn't trash his place, flat was always clean, we seldom have visitors etc. But we still left.

Did we feel like we lost the battle against our neighbour? Yeah, a bit since we're the ones who left. But in the end we realised we are in a better place now and we're on the process of buying a new freehold house so it ended well for us.!

Our effin neighbours was still messaging us when we left, asking us if they were the reason why we left, and I told them yes, then we began fighting again through text! hahaha. I ended the whole thing by wishing them good luck in their lives. I told them how I felt sorry for them cause at least in our case, we are flexible and we can move to a new flat, unlike them, they are stuck! They can't move that easily since they bought the house, and they've spend thousands of pounds already to renovate it and still it's S***! And also until the ceiling is fixed they will experience same!thing over and over again with their new neighbours. wahahahahahah.

Sorry for the long post! hahahahahha

knightstyle

Have you contacted your landlord about having sound deadening underlay and carpet installed?
Hard floors in the flat above is my idea of a nightmare!