How can I sabotage my neighbours life..?

[PurpleDahlia]

Drastic title I know but I'm desperate, tired and hormonal.

Long story short, I live in a HA house, middle house in a block of three. Neighbours to my left are fab, no problem with them. Neighbours to the right...neighbours from hell.

Had ongoing noise/music/antisocial issues. Mum with two teen daughters aged 16 and 18. I've posted about this before. Mum is never there (stays with boyfriend) girls are left to their own devices. They sleep all day and party all night while getting high and drunk.

Lots of tooing and froing, the HA are going to be issuing a legal written notice in the New Year and the plan is to get them evicted.

Mum has been pre warned about this notice and has done fuck all. Girls have friends/boyfriends round. DH and I have decided to not knock on doors anymore because their ignore us or shout abuse so have a noise recording app that we record everything on which gets sent to HA for evidence. I am also doing the same with environmental health.

This is what I have done so far in order to get the noise stopped:

Sent neighbours a letter
Knocked on the neighbours door and spoke with mum- she said she would get the girls to stop music at 10:30 every night 🙄🙄🙄 that's never happened and now parks her car away from the house on the rear occasion she does come home to avoid us
Raised case with HA
Raised case with EH
Called police when noise starts, get redirected to EH. My LA do not have response officers to come out and shut parties down (no provision just log sheets)
Called children's services, they say to contact police not a SS matter
Called the colleges they are supposed to be attending to raise a safeguarding concern to find out both girls have dropped out, so girls are going nothing all day
Reported mum for benefit fraud as I have found out she is staying with boyfriend
Mum has blocked me on her phone, WhatsApp and Facebook so I've no way of contacting her.

I am 37 weeks pregnant with a DS who is 5, luckily he isn't disturbed. DH and I are miserable and extremely stressed, the thought of having a newborn into this situation is causing our anxiety levels to rise as you can imagine.

I've used every resource I can think of, please wise MN, give me your ideas of what you would do to make this music stop.

Sorry my short story is not that short!!!

I'm sure their mum is there sometimes but of course the teenagers are going to party when she isn't, that's normal.

I just thank goodness I've never had to accept social housing, there are so many nightmares about it on MN and it doesn't seem to be a very secure environment for children. It's not all that easy to move when you have your own house, there are often disappointments and setbacks, but at least it is achievable so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

yorkshireteaspoonie
Fast forward ten years... she now works for the same company and I've recently had to be in meetings with her and listen to her talk and be all 'professional' I HATE her as much now as I did then and can't even look at her. I'd still love vengeance!!
.......
That is horrible. Ten years on the woman has matured, is professional and I don't see why you can't recognise that. Hate is an ugly emotion.

Could you get the housing association to sound proof your side of the wall?

I mean I don’t know what it involves and obvs better to get it done properly but I wonder if it is an alternative to moving?

You can take you own legal action under the environmental protection act. Not as difficult as it sounds, with the added bonus that the burden of proof is lower. The LA EH dept can also serve legal notices and prosecute for non compliance. They can also seize noise making equipment. You just have to keep on with the process.

living with noise is hard.

Managed to get a few more hours sleep. I have made lots of recordings of noise/music/banging/shouting which finally stopped at 4am.

It's horrible living here but I do love this house. It's a shame because these houses aren't classed as 'social housing' more along the lines of affordable rent. I live in a new build development integrated with affordable housing and owner occupiers.

All of the other neighbours, including the other HA tenants are absolutely lovely, hard working families who are respectful. We just got very unlucky.

I had no idea you could take legal action yourself, that is great advice and I'm going to start looking into this and have found a helpline to help get the process started which I will try and call today.

Contact your local councillor, there should be a cabinet member for housing who will have contacts at the relevant HAs, the council will also have a housing officer who might be able to give you advice. Sadly not all HAs are born equal and some need a kick to get them to work - a message from the cabinet should do just that.

Could you phone the HA and EH today and just explain the situation is not getting any better. Ask them exactly what action both are taking and time scales. I often find if a customer knows exactly what is happening and when it can make them feel better like the ends in sight.

I've had a call from the ASB team from the local police station today following me calling them up at the weekend. They are adding my neighbour's house to their rounds every evening and if they hear music they will knock on the door and intervene and will also report this back to the HA to build a case for court.

I've raised a case with EH and will try and contact them today to get a better update of what they can do especially over the Xmas period.

The HA also called me today and confirmed my recordings I carried out over the weekend are loud enough to use as evidence to build a case for court. They informed me they are serving a legal written notice in the new year (aren't allowed to give me the actual date this will be served) as a priority and they have written to my neighbour to notify her of the intentions both by post and email. The written notice is valid for 12 months and if they breech their tenancy even once with loud music/asb and I can record it they will proceed with a court possession order for eviction.

So some positive conversations with different services and feel like I'm being listened to a little better. Hopefully it's all a step in the right direction.

Thanks again for your advice

Surely if she isn't living there then she has abandoned the property and is in breach of her tenancy. We all know how scarce affordable housing is and she is depriving another family of a home, I'm surprised the HA aren't doing more tbh.

OP you did everything you could.
Well done.

Keep recording everything, collecting evidence until they will be evicted. Remember this too shall pass.

Standard volume awful music from your side at 7am when you know they will be trying to sleep. Even if you go out leave it on. Suggestions to include Cliff Richard or ABBA maybe?
Lots of hovering along the skirting boards also at 7 am. Washing machine /drier at 7 am.
And sing along op!! Good for stress!!