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Nj04
Posts: 20 Forumite
Hello,
I have posted on here before as a few months ago, my family and I, including two small children moved into a flat with wooden floors. Our downstairs neighbour complained about the noise they can hear when we walk and when the kids play or drop something. They complained via the landlord, with letters, by coming to the door and worst of all, by banging on their ceiling. The lady even got agressesive by coming to our door at 7pm and even kicked our door, just because we were tidying up the toys in the kids room! At that point I had to call the police due to the agressession of this lady. Since then we changed our slippers and placed rugs everywhere to absorb the noise.
The neighbours and landlords, theirs and ours have been notified of the rugs. But the banging on the ceiling continues from below. So much so, that our kids are getting scared. The banging can be at anytime, daytimes or evenings! I think this has got personal now.
Our landlord is not doing anything about it therefore what can we do? Should I go back to the police or is the council a better idea? Many thanks
I have posted on here before as a few months ago, my family and I, including two small children moved into a flat with wooden floors. Our downstairs neighbour complained about the noise they can hear when we walk and when the kids play or drop something. They complained via the landlord, with letters, by coming to the door and worst of all, by banging on their ceiling. The lady even got agressesive by coming to our door at 7pm and even kicked our door, just because we were tidying up the toys in the kids room! At that point I had to call the police due to the agressession of this lady. Since then we changed our slippers and placed rugs everywhere to absorb the noise.
The neighbours and landlords, theirs and ours have been notified of the rugs. But the banging on the ceiling continues from below. So much so, that our kids are getting scared. The banging can be at anytime, daytimes or evenings! I think this has got personal now.
Our landlord is not doing anything about it therefore what can we do? Should I go back to the police or is the council a better idea? Many thanks
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Comments
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Follow the advice from CaB here...
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/housing/problems-where-you-live/if-your-neighbour-is-complaining-about-you/
Sorry to read your story,, good luck!0 -
Hello,
I have posted on here before as a few months ago, my family and I, including two small children moved into a flat with wooden floors. Our downstairs neighbour complained about the noise they can hear when we walk and when the kids play or drop something. They complained via the landlord, with letters, by coming to the door and worst of all, by banging on their ceiling. The lady even got agressesive by coming to our door at 7pm and even kicked our door, just because we were tidying up the toys in the kids room! At that point I had to call the police due to the agressession of this lady. Since then we changed our slippers and placed rugs everywhere to absorb the noise.
The neighbours and landlords, theirs and ours have been notified of the rugs. But the banging on the ceiling continues from below. So much so, that our kids are getting scared. The banging can be at anytime, daytimes or evenings! I think this has got personal now.
Our landlord is not doing anything about it therefore what can we do? Should I go back to the police or is the council a better idea? Many thanks
So you don't like the banging sounds coming from downstairs and the neighbour doesn't like the banging noises coming from upstairs...:think:
How about trying mediation with your neighbour to see if you can find some common ground?0 -
You have taken the advice in the earlier thread, so I agree with mediation.If you feel this is harassment, maybe your local PSCO might be usefully involved as well.0
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Just contact the police. (im pretty sure I said this last time)0
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Neighbour disputes rarely end well.
As I said in your last topic, consider moving and next time pick your accommodation more wisely. A ground floor flat for example would be more suitable with children.0 -
We are on the ground floor therefore these neighbours are on the basement. Our upstairs neighbours have children and we constantly hear them but understand what it is like to have children. The downstairs neighbours also have children but are not very understanding.
I have contacted the police who advised me to contact our councils environmental health officer. Thanks everyone for responding.0 -
There's no reason you cannot ask the community police to pay them a visit in person and speak to them regarding harassment. Definitely complain to the local authority too, but from personal experience in this, be prepared that your relationship with the neighbours will very likely break down much further from this point onwards and potentially get a lot worse until one of you moves.
I was lucky in that the neighbour who harassed me first went to prison on unrelated matters which gave me a reprieve, then returned to resume harassing me until he got evicted for not paying the rent after which i decided the risk of a repeat was too great in a block like that & moved myself.
You may have to sit this out til the contract ends, but please please be much more careful where you move next. Make sure it is a property where issues like this will not arise again.0 -
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. 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.
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.
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 results0 -
It does sound in this case the harassment takes the form of trying to intimidate the op, in which case i would probably use that as a lever with the community police to pay a visit & have a quiet word.
Obviously that's going to cause even more ill feelings from downstairs so op needs to prepare for things to ramp up in the nasty stakes with them. It probably isn't going to end well eitherway, but saying nothing to the authorities is no longer an option here now that they are using intimidation tactics.
In my case there was always the threat of violence because my harasser had a catalogue of convictions for violent offences, so it was very difficult to get police involved because that would have been like a red rag to a bull.
In this case there doesn't seem to be an immediate threat of violence, rather intimidation as a means to control the ops movements in their home. I'd still be looking at having the community police pay a visit & 'educate' the neighbours about harassment or get a solicitor to do it with a stern letter before action instead.0 -
We are on the ground floor therefore these neighbours are on the basement. Our upstairs neighbours have children and we constantly hear them but understand what it is like to have children. The downstairs neighbours also have children but are not very understanding.
I have contacted the police who advised me to contact our councils environmental health officer. Thanks everyone for responding.
You reported 'noise', that's not it. report harassment instead.0
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