Help with noisy neighbours can’t cope any more at our whitts end.

[MoominPig]

Long story short, we bought a new build house on a new estate 7 years ago. Large development mainly older people very much a retirement village if you will as everything you need is onsite.

Our house is end of terrace town house. The house next door was struggling to sell and for some reason got taken over by the local council as shared ownership. It went empty for a year and then got turned into a council owned house.

A woman and her children moved in. Within a few weeks the problems started. Random late night parties usually at the weekends, bottles and cans thrown over our garden and drum and base music blaring the majority of the day. Within the first month of her living here myself and a few other neighbours had complained to the council. They were sympathetic at first and wrote a letter but nothing changed.

We’re 6 years in now and just can’t cope anymore. Her children got taken away by social services last year and haven’t returned and since they have gone it’s got worse the late night parties happen 3-4 times a week until 4/5 occasionally 6am. Not ideal when we have to get up for school and DH does shift work. We’ve had our back windows put through twice, a foot through our fence panel and bottles smashed over our patio during these parties.

It’s my DCs first day back today none of us have had much sleep as they were out in the garden partying until just gone 4am.

The police are here weekly for one thing or another. A week doesn’t go past without a complaint to the council/ police with other neighbours also calling up.

The main issue we are having is environmental health won’t get involved as she is a council tenant and they have a special department for council tenant complaints. The problem is they are useless with there “we will look into it” attitude but never do.

Myself and a fair few of the neighbours just don’t know where to go from here. Constant complaints just go unanswered. We’ve done noise diary’s for months on end. Sent in recordings from our house. We just don’t know what to do?

Maybe there's a legal option via a solicitor? No experience on legal matters I'm afraid but there's lots of people on here who might be able to help. There might be a way to get them evicted because you're not able to get quiet enjoyment in your own home (not sure if that's the official term).
I'd be phoning the council three times a day, every day, and getting the neighbours to do the same until they do something to make you stop (although I realise that could backfire...)

If the council officers are no help, try your local councillors. If they can't help, try your local MP.

If they have damaged your property isnt it a criminal matter that should be prosecuted, starting with a police complaint?

OP - So it is not a shared ownership house now??

Basically with nightmare neighbours there is nothing much you can do because no one cares but be aware that if you do make a complaint, you may find it hard to sell your own house as you have to declare it.

Heartfelt sympathies OP. I really feel for you as I have been there in a similar situation.

If you have tried going 'by the book' up to now and got nowhere and it is affecting your health/sleep/life I would be ringing the council literally every 5 mins or as often as I could. Same with police. Until someone takes notice. Get as many neighbours as you can to do the same. Go to Citizens Advice, your MP, a solicitor.

The house next door was struggling to sell and for some reason got taken over by the local council as shared ownership. It went empty for a year and then got turned into a council owned house.

Really?

Never heard of that in my entire life.

The council may have a special department for complaints about their tenants but that does not absolve them from doing something about it. Speak to the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) and get them to come out and investigate the noise. The local authority has a duty to inspect its areas for statutory nuisances, to investigate any complaints made, and deal with any noise which is a statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 s79 (as amended).

If the EHO is unable to resolve the matter informally and considers that there is a noise nuisance, the authority must serve an abatement notice on the person causing the noise.

If the council fails to investigate, take it up with them using their own complaints procedure, and if that fails contact the Housing Ombudsman in England or the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

An alternative could be for you to take out a private prosecution under Section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, by applying to a magistrates' court.

Or have a look at this.

Don't put up with it a minute longer. Good luck.

Do you know which housing association? They publish tenant terms for their rent agreements. Sounds like this tenant is in breach and you have evidence to prove it.

I would quote their tenancy agreements back to them at Chief Exec level, as they can and will evict (eventually). They should also have a Neighbourhood Officer to help with this. You could also contact police and push environmental health too, especially from the harassment and criminal damage points you’ve noted.

I had to deal with this once and it was horrible, but resolved in the end.

Write to your local MP?

You have my heartfelt sympathy, we moved last year due to bad neighbours.

Is it council owned or a housing association?

A friend of mine had an exact same situation to you, including drug taking in the garden, bonfires etc.

She was told to ring the police immediately when there was noise through night or other antisocial behaviour and to report to the housing association the next day.

Every.single.time.

It was a pain in the ass but she persevered and within 6months the tenants had been evicted.

The house next door was struggling to sell and for some reason got taken over by the local council as shared ownership. It went empty for a year and then got turned into a council owned house
I don't think it sounds as if it was ever a shared ownership house.

I would think that the developer couldn't sell it as a normal home so tried to sell it shared ownership.

Many houses are rented or bought by the council to house difficult tenants.

The OP needs to check the Land Registry to see who actually owns the house.

It was a pain in the ass but she persevered and within 6months the tenants had been evicted
Your friend was unbelievably lucky.

There are many people living with horrendous neighbours who never get any action taken.

I used to administrate a nightmare neighbours website and I had to walk away from it because of the awful stories of lives being ruined and no-one caring.

Sounds like this tenant is in breach and you have evidence to prove it
Even if a tenant is in breach, the HA don't have to take action.

Nightmare.

We had this and couldn't get the council to care at all. They said they couldn't act unless they witnessed the noise but they could only come and investigate if we rang them when it was happening. It took at least an hour of trying to get through to them on the 'noise line', then once logged they would turn up 2-3 hours later when usually the party was winding down. The one time they arrived in time to witness and they said it wasn't loud enough to lodge a complaint (at 2am the bass was literally shaking the building).

We ended up renting our place out and moving across town to avoid the stress of fighting it. Hope you manage to sort something.

Thank you so much for your responses and suggestions we hadn’t even considered.

The house next door is Council owned rather than housing association. Definitely, as we originally were trying to deal with Environmental Health, as soon as the address was given they said you need to go through to a different complaints department for council tenants. The problem is it’s a general complaints rather than noise pollution team.

I didn’t explain that well I think what happened was the house builder sold it off too the local council. A few of the shared ownership properties these were marked on the development maps got taken over as council owned aswell instead of shared ownership.

Abatement order, that’s the one we have been pushing for years. I know the warning letter got issued the first one but nothing has happened since. It’s just been “looked into”

They don’t have a out of hours contact as we can’t deal with environmental health so they can’t come and listen themselves when parties are in full swing.

We and other neighbours have called the police when the crimes have taken place but there was a lack of evidence. We do have CCTV up now tho.

I didn’t state in my OP as it didn’t seem relevant but we have tried renting the house out. Twice two different lots of tenants. Both 6 month contacts and the first ones lasted 2 months before asking to break the contract the second lot lasted less than 6 weeks. We agreed to break the contract as quite frankly we didn’t blame them for wanting to leave. The houses were / are expensive and so was the rent I just couldn’t do it to innocent people. So we had no choice but to move back in.

Selling is also out due to having to declare everything it’s a nightmare but also a shame as we love it here.

If you have legal cover with your home or car insurance, I would contact them and ask for advice. I would also obtain a copy of next doors deeds from land registry, you can do this online and have them emailed to you for about £3.00 to check if there are any clauses or covenants about the behavior of the owner in respect to other properties. Or a general clause saying that they must not cause a nuisance to neighbours. If there is, I would make an appointment with someone from the council's housing department and lay it on the line that they need to get their tenants to behave or evict them as they are acting in breach of the terms of the deeds. Be firm, but fair, they will then know that they will have to take your complaint seriously and resolve the situation.

If it is council let them i’d Go straight to your local town/district councillor for support and failing that your MP. Make a noise with them.

You need to be persistent with environmental health & you need to not be the only one complaining.

Get together with your neighbours and start compiling noise diaries. Fill them in every time you are disturbed. Once you have decent evidence get back to EH. If they fob you off again insist that they deal with it since it's their responsibility.

If all else fails, there is nothing the council can do that you & your neighbours can't. In other words, you can take them before a judge yourself. It doesn't cost too much & you'll need evidence.

You poor thing. Nightmare.

In terms of how to cope in the here and now, noise cancelling headphones & rain sounds on YouTube have saved my sanity more than once.

The annoying thing is, when they get kicked out, they become some other neighbours' problem! And if they get the kids back. the council feels duty bound to house them because of the kids.

I feel so sorry for you. It must be really awful.

I flat share in housing assoc but am lucky that noise is kept to a minimum, even though there are whole families on some floors.

You need to be on the phone to all relevant council departments every day multiple times a day. Make a nuisance of yourself. It’s the only way you will get the council to do anything. Ramp up contacting councillors, community councillors, local MPs etc

Phone the police every single time they are noisy after 11pm and get all your neighbours to do all of the above too

Make the council and police aware of what’s happening every single time

At one point we thought about hiring a security guard for our house, very dodgy neighbours. Every Saturday night there was parties, drug dealing etc damage to our property, a security guard on your door might make them think twice

Maybe frighten them a little bit. Have you got any scary relatives ?

Also ring the police EVERY time a party starts up. Right at the beginning.

I sympathise with you so much as I had this for five years and it was driving me mad.

Two weeks ago, the nightmare neighbours moved out and it has been amazing ever since

Similar happened to us
The shared ownership houses that according to the developers were for “ nurses or similar” wouldn’t sell so were leased to a HA who housed problem families there and even used one as a safe house for a while.
It was a bloody nightmare and we ended up moving, luckily we part exchanged with another developer to a bigger house so we didn’t lose any money but we didn’t make any either
I really feel for you