To think all anti-social tenants should be rehoused together far away from decent, respectful tenants?

[TsMumma]

I live in a small block of council flats. My downstair neighbour has been a nightmare ever since he moved in almost five years ago. To give a few examples of his actions...

His cooker was confiscated because he continuously left the gas on and we all had to get evacuated in the middle of the night.

He has loud parties almost every weekend (from around Fri night to Sun night).

The first time I politely asked him to quieten down, he pinned me against the wall while i was holding my (then) newborn dd.

He has made threats towards me ever since.

Whenever i come in and out of the building, he stands at his front door (he lives on the ground floor so i have to pass his house to get up to mine) with a knife and stares at me.

He drinks and smokes drugs all day which wafts up into my home through the crappy floor. And he leaves his glass bottles in the corridor/close which the other neighbours have to clear away.

I phoned the anti-social people after i realised i couldn't risk confronting him myself anymore, and they've been great. We've had an ongoing case now for just over four years.

Yesterday, i called them to come out and witness noise as his music was blaring yet again. But he has gotten sly with this and usually sees the council people coming, so turns it down until they leave (which is why it's taken so long to 'catch' him), but yesterday he kept it on and the noise team recorded it. They brought police officers out with them as last time they went to his door, he was very agressive.

I waited upstairs and listened to what was going on. The police ended up barging in through his door after knocking for ten minutes. He was issued with his final warning from the anti-social team. So if he does anything else within the next six months and they catch him/witness it, he will get taken to court to be evicted.

However, I've been at this stage before. So I don't hold up much hope. The anti-social team are just too slow to respond to my call outs. And the local police aren't much better. Last week i waited four hours on them coming out (I phoned at midnight) and by the time they came out, he'd turned his music off (at around 3am).

I think it's completely unfair that someone like this man is allowed to live in a lovely block of flats with decent, respectful neighbours when he treats them like shit.

Unless you've experienced a terrible neighbour before, I don't think you'll understand just how it can affect someone. It's really started to make me anxious. I'm jumping at the slightest noise from him. I can hardly sleep on his 'quiet' nights because I'm expecting something to happen. It's just awful.

IMO, all people like him should be housed together. That way they can play their music, take their drugs, be abusive in one giant party.

I can't even relax in my own home. I can't afford private renting, and the council won't rehouse me so i'm going to have to put up with this guy for the forseeable future.

Humph.

[Whitecherry]

Environmental health can install 'listening equipment'

You switch it on to record when the noise starts and then they use the tape to see how loud it actually is. Effective

[Whitecherry]

Also, you need to have other people complaining too

[Quadrangle]

Yes that would be good. If they can dish it out they should be able to take it too. Will never happen of course, so i hope you manange to get him evicted through the proper channels, or that you are able to move out.

[EmBOOsa]

We had neighbours like that, it really does make life a misery. I really hope that something can be done for you.

[BettyandDon]

Poor you. I thought our neighbours were bad, but they are nothing like yours. Could you put pressure on the HA to move you? In addition to making the complaints? Maybe a trip to the GP to have put down in writing the effect it is having on you. I also think they take more notice the larger the number of people complain. Before we moved in here, our house owner and the other tenants all got together to complain, the family had 1 'strike' against them but nothing has happened since. I really feel for you.

[Goldenbear]

How terrible, no wonder your anxious. Can you get together collectively, be a proactive, tactical in getting rid? Also, what happened after he pinned you up against a wall, did you tell the police? Isn't this common assault?

[WorraLiberty]

Are you the only one complaining?

I've experienced this sort of thing before and it's a nightmare.

Housing them all together would be impossible though.

[TantrumsAndBalloons]

Is there any other neighbours that would kind of "join in" for want of a better word and complain?
Maybe if everyone in the block was calling the police, the council etc it might help?

I feel for you though, I can't even begin to imagine how awful that is and why it's taking so long to act.
How can you have an aggressive man standing watching you with a knife every time you go in and out?
That's horrific.

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

We can but dream, OP. Perhaps earmark Canvey Island as the holding pen. MY sympathies, having to live with anti-social arseholes is soul destroying. Do everything in your power to get him evicted.

[Goldenbear]

Yes can you get all the neighbours together and literally bombard the council with complaints until it is dealt with. When the man holds the knife, is he saying anything?

[maddening]

Yanbu - win win they get to behave as they want to without pissing people off and normal folk get to live in peace

[Noqontrol]

What did Canvey Island do to deserve to be the holding pen?

Its a nice dream op, shite neighbours are just, well, shite. I've been there several times. It takes over your life sometimes.

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

Nothing really, Nqontrol, it's just somewhere that my parents would drag me as a child claiming it to be a day out. There is bugger all there, not even a nice beach, just a humungous concrete sea wall. Apologies to Canvey Island dwellers, but it would be asy to barricade

[TsMumma]

Thanks, everyone.

Yes. Unfortunately because of the way the flats are lined up it's only me it's really affecting. No one lives at either side of him, or below him. The only flat connected to his mine (I live directly above him on the first floor).

Whenever he started making noise though, and it wasn't too late, i used to go into my neighbour and ask them to come and witness it. Which they did a few times and complained on my behalf. But the anti-social team said this is no use. As it's affecting my house, my witnesses have to be professional and not living in the building themselves.

They complained about the gas cooker though and I think that's why it was finally confiscated and replaced with an electric one.

Fortunately I'm at work most days but I dread coming home, or staying at home on my days off. It's just really annoys me he's allowed to live there when there's probably lots of people waiting on a council flat, such as elderly folk wanting a ground floor home etc.

I love where I live. I'm right next door to dd's school. I live next to the town centre/supermarkets etc. I'm on a main road so on the major bus routes. I spent a fortune decorating when i moved in. I really don't want to move, and don't see why i should have to when it's this idiot in the wrong.

I'm just terribly fed up with it all. My neighbours know his parents and spoke to them about his behaviour. But they were in complete denial 'Oh no, not my boy', but his aunt 'discreetly' told them his parents threw him out because they couldn't cope with him!

[bamboobutton]

We had a neighbour like him, i would fantasise about beating him to death with his loud speakers in time to the beat of his music.

Luckily we could move but the effects from his noise lasted years with Dh and I feeling anxious every time we heard music nearby, dreading it would be an all night party.

I like the idea of a bad tentents gulag.

[Hullygully]

Absolutely agree.

I have lived in flats where one person made 300 other people's lives an unspeakable misery.

Find an island and lump them on it all together.

[FrothyOM]

They will evict him. Eventually.

But you and the other neighbours will have to complain and complain to make them do it.

You have my sympathy OP.

[Noqontrol]

I love the beach at canvey. Its great for little kids, and almost empty. Probably because people think its a dump . but its not. Probably not much there for older kids though, apart from the funfair.

[Noqontrol]

When I had neighbours like that, I used to turn my speakers towards their wall, turn the music up full blast and then go out. They did start to keep the noise down after doing that a few times.

[TsMumma]

Aw, wish I could do that Noqontrol, but I have neighbours above and at either side of me. Don't think they'd be pleased.

Thanks everyone for the support. I've tried talking to my mum about it before and she thinks i should just get over it, and gives me funny looks when i telll her it's starting to make anxious.

Lucky her living in a semi-detached house with quiet, perfect, elderly neighbours.

[therewearethen]

I sympathise, we had a group of around 8 polish fella's move in next door (terraced housing and a 2 or 3 bed house) and the noise they'd make was beyond! And before anyone says I'm being racist/anti polish, I added this bit as they didn't speak any english and the police had trouble trying to convey the nuisance they were causing.

They also had a fond habit of driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without insurance.

It drives you insane! Not being able to sleep is a killer! On one occasion the neighbours on the opposite side of the road had rung the police and they came to speak to us. They told us to keep records of dates and times and types of noise (sure you already know this) and they also said that environmental health would come out and fit noise detectors as someone up thread said.

I live in a housing association property and there's a website I was registered on to swap with other people in housing association and council properties. I'm in Wales so it may not apply to where you are but it maybe worth registering with them if you really want to move.

www.homeswapper.co.uk/

Good luck x

[Whitecherry]

So env health not an option for you then?

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

THERE'S A FUNFAIR?!?!

[Quadrangle]

Whitecherry's suggestion of Environmental health installing 'listening equipment' sounds like a good one. Do you think you'll try that?

[LadyGnome]

I agree with whitecherry ask for listening equipment to be put in to record the level of noise.

We had neighbours (flat below in a HA property) who would play music so loudly that our windows and floor would vibrate. They also were dealing drugs and smoking weed and drinking in the communal areas.

I only found out about the option of listening equipment when I made a complaint about the HA lack of action to their management.

What I decided to do was to make myself as much of a nuisence to the HA as the neighbours were being to us. I sent them almost daily emails detailing the problems backed up with photographs where possible (e.g. if he is leaving bottles in communal areas photograph them and as the HA what they are going to do about this Health and Safety issue). Call the Environmental Health about noise each time and keep a diary. Each time you have to call the EH about noise follow up with an email to your Housing Officer the next day. This also acted as a diary system as I would start a draft email with the first problem of the day and sometimes enough would happen in one day to justify sending the email and other times it would take a couple of days to fill an email but it meant I had a record of everything I had reported to the HA and when I reported it.

Eventually they started to take action, the police raided the property and they were put on notice that their tenancy would be demoted from assured to assured shorthold (i.e. they would lose their security of tenure). The behaviour did calm down and we were given higher priority for a move which suited us.

Housing Officers are probably trying to deal with a dozen problems at any one time so you need to keep your issue in the forefront of their mind, hence the regular contact.