Nightmare Neighbour- what can I do??

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wolvesjim said:

Thank you all for your responses. In answer to some Qs...
- yes, we have the same landlord and agency and therefore she will have an identical contract
- I am keeping a record and I have some voice recordings of her screaming her head off, including (useful) screaming her own full name out (haha)... more will follow.
- I am tempted and prepared to out her criminality if I have to but I kind of felt that as she has breached her contract (it requires polite and respectful behaviour) and the two other paying tenants are threatening to leave, that would impel the landlord to remove her without having to make an enemy with erratic behaviour who knows where I live. Is this not realistic?

What do you expect LL/LA is going to do, serve s21 notice to evict them are you going to pay for All LL/LA costs to evict them ?

LL/LA could easily serve you a s21 notice after 6 months.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/eviction/section_21_eviction

Could all just backfire on you.

princeofpounds

OK thanks - so if you all share the same LL, then it may be worth complaining to them. If both you and the other tenant complain at the same time it will be more powerful - the LL will face two voids rather than just one if they terminate the tenancy of the noisy tenant. You will have to decide if just speaking to her is worth trying, or if it really is a 'her or us' situation.

However, given the Covid rules and delays the LL will not be able to evict the noisy tenant until the second half of next year most likely, even if they wanted to. So you may resolve the situation earlier by leaving under your own steam anyway.

Jeepers_Creepers

zagubov said:

wolvesjim said:

I moved into a town centre flat a month ago in our quiet little area and I've already witnessed the police being called to sort out the neighbour below me 3 times.

She hasn't been arrested but spoken to sternly each time. She's a nice enough person until she has a drink and then becomes a loud and abusive nightmare, most recently conducting an hour's long altercation out of the window into the street before assaulting her adversary.

I could expand on some more prosecutable offences but to be honest I have a certain degree of pity for her. Suffice to say the police would be interested to add to the file they no doubt already have on her.

The bottom line is I, and my neighbour who has been dealing with this longer than I have, need her to leave for the sake of our sanity. We've resolved to formally complain to the letting agency and declare our desire to leave unless the situation is resolved. We'd like to know what their position is.

Clearly in our view she has breached a number of lower level Quiet Enjoyment and Narcotics parts of our contract, not to mention the law itself and we feel that's grounds for removal from the premises. Is that the case?

The contract mentions the Landlord And Tenancy Act and the Law Of Property Act, amongst others. Are these on our side? We hope the agency feel they have a duty to act and are empowered to end this debacle ASAP? Is this the case?

Thank you in advance.

Just paragraphing it so more posters will read and answer it.

(lol!) :-)

Comms69

wolvesjim said:

Thank you all for your responses. In answer to some Qs...
- yes, we have the same landlord and agency and therefore she will have an identical contract - You cannot possibly know that for sure 
- I am keeping a record and I have some voice recordings of her screaming her head off, including (useful) screaming her own full name out (haha)... more will follow. - Irrelevant 
- I am tempted and prepared to out her criminality if I have to but I kind of felt that as she has breached her contract (it requires polite and respectful behaviour) and the two other paying tenants are threatening to leave, that would impel the landlord to remove her without having to make an enemy with erratic behaviour who knows where I live. Is this not realistic? - There are no evictions until 2022

Just move   

Jeepers_Creepers

wolvesjim said:

Thank you all for your responses. In answer to some Qs...
- yes, we have the same landlord and agency and therefore she will have an identical contract
- I am keeping a record and I have some voice recordings of her screaming her head off, including (useful) screaming her own full name out (haha)... more will follow.
- I am tempted and prepared to out her criminality if I have to but I kind of felt that as she has breached her contract (it requires polite and respectful behaviour) and the two other paying tenants are threatening to leave, that would impel the landlord to remove her without having to make an enemy with erratic behaviour who knows where I live. Is this not realistic?

That is surely realistic, as the LL would not only lose 2 good tenants now but would almost certainly continue to have disgruntled replacements afterwards. 

I admire your sympathy and your willingness/hope to resolve this in another way if it's possible. Could I suggest a double-barrelled approach; if you can, do speak to this poor woman (who must be in a hell of an emotional state) and be frank and honest - you sympathise and would like to see if there's anything you can do to help, BUT her behaviour is causing you and other flat dwellers real concern as you fear someone is going to be hurt. You, and others, are finding this very stressful and increasingly intolerable. Add that she must be risking being evicted as her behaviour breaches the terms of her lease. See how responsive she is to this.

And the other barrel is to record every single incident, and to involve the police every single time it's remotely justified (if there's another party involved in the screaming/ranting, add that you fear it might become 'physical' as it has/nearly-has done in the past). The pressure needs to build on her from both sides - you have asked her to try and sort it, and the police will be there to reinforce it if she doesn't. 

And also worth telling the LL as a letter from them might also help to focus her mind - "continued breaches will force me to blah blah..."

Move? That's up to you, but why the hell should you? Yes this will likely drag on due to the current situation, but it ain't going to go away on its own so needs as much multi-angled pressure being brought to bear as is possible. 

By a miracle she might get her act together; you say she behaves relatively normal when sober? 

Polite but firm. Smile and say hello every time. But make it clear how much your life is being disrupted and made stressful. See if other tenants can use the same approach.

wolvesjim

princeofpounds and Jeepers_Creepers in particular, superb replies, I thank you for your time and consideration. Jeepers, your approach is excellent and I will likely undertake it. To approach things from the other side, can anyone advise the likelihood and ease of the agency accepting this as grounds for me to move out? I haven't scoured the contract but what should I be looking for to allow me to do so? My deposit is in the Deposit Protection Scheme. Is that likely to work in my favour or not? 

Jeepers_Creepers

Sorry, Jim - I don't know the technicalities of tenancy contracts. 

yksi

I just want to say how much I empathise. Beside me is a neighbour from hell, and the noise, the smell and the illegal goings on are driving me around the twist. Fortunately, I am not the only one irritated and as others have suggested, complaints from multiple neighbours to our shared landlord are definitely being heard. My landlord has told me they don't want to lose me, and will be asking the neighbour to leave. People have mentioned S21s and long notice periods here, but for serious breaches it can be an S8 and a much shorter time frame, and it might even be that when presented with all the evidence that your neighbour has the decency to sort herself out, or vacate rather than argue and hang around. I have my fingers crossed for you.

[Deleted User]

How long do you have left on your contract?

I know she's yelling, and obviously that creates noise disturbance but can't you just put headphones on, close your windows and ignore it until you can move out? Presumably its not happening 24/7?  With the delays in eviction, even with records and consistent complaints, eviction is going to be at least a year away.  Occasionally the police will remove a tenant who is doing extreme asbo/criminal behaviour and prevent them going back, but this is rare.

I lived in a sink estate and unfortunately over a passageway where asbo type behaviour used to happen.., had to just ignore it as wasn't able to move.  The only really disturbing thing was when someone decided to destroy a garage yards away and below our property., but that was just the once.  Normally it was drunken arguments (and always in the middle of the night).  It didn't threaten us so we just learned to ignore it.  Would have been nice if we hadn't had to but you do what you have to. I couldn't stop the behaviour so I had to not allow it to stress me and the children.