Council property boarded windows

Baldytyke88

I own my own ex-council house and recently there are a few houses with some of their windows boarded up.

Drug users/dealers rent these houses from the council. One house has overgrowth hedges at the back, so the neighbour cut the hedge.

I don't recall houses with boarded-up windows 5 years ago, is it more people using drugs? People on the estate have complained.

I guess if a tenant breaks a window, they want the tenant to pay for it to be fixed. Can anything be done to improve the estate?

FreeBear

Baldytyke88 said:

I own my own ex-council house and recently there are a few houses with some of their windows boarded up.

Drug users/dealers rent these houses from the council. One house has overgrowth hedges at the back, so the neighbour cut the hedge.

I don't recall houses with boarded-up windows 5 years ago, is it more people using drugs? People on the estate have complained.

I guess if a tenant breaks a window, they want the tenant to pay for it to be fixed. Can anything be done to improve the estate?

Short of buying up the run down properties, evicting the troublesome tenants, and gentrifying the area, not much you can do. And improving the area needs a long term plan that could take 15-25 years to see it through. But for an area like Ashington, maybe a 100 year plan is needed (along with a lot of decent jobs for the locals).

elsien

I used to live in a council flat with a boarded up window. It was in a “hard to let” area, council really didn’t care, the  window was broken when I moved in and it was broken when I moved out 18 months later. Never got round to repeatedly chasing with the council.

FYI, not a dealer or a junkie. 

gwynlas

You need to contact your local councillor as a means of putting pressure on the council to properly manage their resources. There will be plenty of people on the waiting list for family homes who would be grateful to be adequately housed.
Windows rarely get broken by pure accident so it looks as though anti social behaviour is rife which is a police matter which again could be addressed by local councillor/MP

RAS

I'd get together with a few neighbours and arrange to meet the local councillor(s) when they hold a surgery, in the first instance. Stay focused on the one issue.

elsien

Also to add overgrown hedges do not equate to drug dealing or using. Some perfectly upstanding citizens hate gardening and don't really care what their hedge looks like.
Or as in the house opposite mine, the person who lives there is disabled and struggles to find the money for a gardener - neighbour did it for them last time.
I live in a non-council run down area and yes it's a pain sometimes so I attend local community meetings to push for action.

But there are a lot of unevidenced presumptions in that first post plus an element of owner snobbery. 

Maahes

Baldytyke88 said:

Drug users/dealers rent these houses from the council.

As a former Probation Officer who spent two years supervising Class A drug addicts, my sympathy is very much with them. I will agree though that they tend not to be very house proud

Baldytyke88

Maahes said:

As a former Probation Officer who spent two years supervising Class A drug addicts, my sympathy is very much with them. I will agree though that they tend not to be very house proud

I believe one of the houses is now vacant, I believe she has a partner who lives locally. Although she was in the papers a few years ago for being assaulted by her then partner.

A woman asked me to make inquiries about a flat that was being let to a man, who she claimed didn't live there, but he had a partner locally.

I walk my dog and so people talk to me. This flat appears empty. On their website, it states that they can only leave their flat empty for 8 weeks.

I am sure that is extended with a good reason.