To actually HATE my downstairs neighbours?!

[flamingnora]

I know hate is a strong word but I am at my wit's end & may well need either a glass of wine and some sympathy or a sense of perspective - you decide! My neighbours have always been a royal pain in the arse - loud, thoughtless, throwing unspeakably loud parties in their flat without telling us etc etc. More worryingly, they have a serious mice infestation problem which I have had to report to the council (they are council tenants). The pest control officer that I spoke to told me that the sitation was very serious (she'd removed 2 mice nests from under their bath) - nice! I have complained to the council about them (thus massively impacting on my prospect of ever selling my flat!) on the grounds that they are living in horribly overcrowded conditions - 2 adults & 2 kids in a one bed flat so the noise and the vermin is not entirely surprising. I was told that it was up to my neighbours to ask to be moved & that this was not something the council could discuss with me. To my horror I have just found out that my neighbour has had yet another baby! There are now 2 kids, a new born & 2 adults living in a mice infested one bed flat immediately beneath me. I can't believe anyone would choose to live like this and can't believe I am having to live with it through no fault of my own! We are also crammed into a one bed flat with a baby so will be moving at some point & will have to rent out the flat so we can rent somewhere with more space - who the hell is going to rent from me with the flat from hell downstairs?! URGH! I think the worse thing i that I feel powerless to do anything. Is there anything I can do - other than move out and rent my flat to a deaf person with no sense of smell?!

[marcolini]

Could you get a cat?

[spicemonster]

You can complain about the mice to the council and also about the noise. I thought councils had to ensure their tenants were behaving alright?

I sympathise - my neighbours upstairs drive me potty but I don't complain because I don't want to have anything official on record. Crap isn't it?

[flamingnora]

marcolini - I've got 2 cats! I am pretty sure I am mice-free but the council come along sporadically, put poison down & then the stench of mice corpses lingers for weeks & is bloody awful! The real issue is that they leave crap lying around everywhere (their garden is party time for rodents!) so mice will keep coming back.
spicemonster - I have already complained about the noise to the council. They wrote to my neighbour which had an impact for about a week. Very annoyingly, the last time the council pest control team came over my neighbour turned them away as it was "inconvenient". How the hell does that work?!

[babyignoramus]

You need to keep on at the council about it - it can be a lengthy process but if you keep diary sheets of all the nuisance and keep complaining they will eventually take eviction action. The problem is that the council will do all they can not to make families with young children homeless so you need to ensure they are aware of the seriousness of the situation, and you can only do that by making a complaint everytime something happens!

As for the mice - that is outrageous - perhaps you need to find out who the top person is in the council and write directly to them - or write to your MP and they can write to the council on your behalf.

[quint]

You just have to keep\onto the council.

in the past i have contacted the noise abatement people from the council - several times in one night, if they's have come out one more time they would have confiscated the equipment. they were alos tennants and had a letter from the council threatening them with eviction. All has quietened down so must have worked.

Don't give up kee complaining- the council have a duty to you as well as their tennants, though they could well make themselves homeless.

Good luck

[Nekabu]

flamingnora, I hate to say this but mice don't smell much when they die. I don't know if they start to smell if there are loads of them but I don't think so, not enough for the upstairs neighbour to notice anyway . The rodents that do really stink when they turn their paws up are rats ...