to be pissed off at people's attitude towards "poor people"?

[WriterofDreams]

We are in the process of buying a house and of course we've been chatting about it with a few people. I'm from Ireland and I haven't lived here long so people don't know me that well. I've lost count of the number of times that people have warned me off different areas because "it's near a council estate" or "they are ex-council houses." What they don't realise is that I grew up on a council estate and my family was quite poor. The way they warn me you would think people in council or ex-council houses have a contagious disease (perhaps called "poverty"??) and that they should be avoided at all costs. Naturally this makes me feel like shit, as though if they knew where I came from they wouldn't consider me good enough.

The reason it really surprises me is that living in a council estate isn't a source of shame where I'm from. I went to school with people whose parents were millionaires, people whose parents were professionals and people who were from council estates like me. People don't tend to be segregated according to how much money they have.

As it turns out we're in the process of buying a very nice ex council house that is about twice the size of the houses in "better" areas and costs less than half the price. So I'm happy about that :) but disappointed that my "friends" clearly don't think the area I'll be living in is suitable for them :(

Is this just a southern thing?

When did council houses become a form of benefits for goodness sake? I grew up on a council estate in the 70's and 80's, with a host of good, hardworking people. None of them would have considered for a moment they were on benefits!

Having said that, you wouldn't be able to rent one of those homes now, Maggie sold them all off for a pittance.

As for rents below the going rate, I pay less mortgage than my friend pays rent on a two bed flat with mould growing up the walls.

I would rather live in a small private house than a large council house. Id worry about having problems reselling it. I also wouldnt feel as safe because of the higher crime rates. In streets i know where most of the homes are still rented people dont take as much care of their gardens/ windows as the streets where they have all been bought and that kind of thing drags a whole area down.

But, my only experience is of the most deprived estates in the uk. I think it might be different in places like london where the council estates are smaller and identifiable.

Market rate for renting not mortgages!
It would cost me 3 times my mortgage to rent my house, and I live in a 2up 2down terrace!

The majority of people living on council estates are hard working decent people - but unfortunately estates suffer from an 'image problem' due to drugs/benefit culture/sun readers/ etc.
if you watch 'neighbours from hell' it's usually about council estates.
I don't know if it's always been this way? - what I do know is the design of a lot of the estates thrown up in 60's were appalling and really didn't help.
Communities were lost.

"So it's all about appearances then?"

Who seriously thinks it's snobbish to prefer living in a neighbourhood where people mow their lawns and take care of their property? Are you serious?

What kind of bonkers relativism is that? Of course most normal people want neighbours who take care of their property. Who wants to live in a dandelion and nettle infested jungle of cracked concrete and dumped rubbish and shopping trolleys? Anyone who claims that for egalitarian, non-snobbish reasons they don't care about this is mad as a sack of ferrets.

Aside from anything else, if people take care of the property, it's a pretty safe indicator of a stable community. There are countless benefits to having a stable community - people get to know their neighbours, come to rely on each other, there's less likely to be problems with fly-by-night crime and antisocial behaviour.

For example my mum's neighbourhood in Reading has become largely a student ghetto. There's no point complaining about rubbish dumped, or loud music or people yelling in the street at night, as they're all renting and can - and do - move again at the drop of a hat. Plus the landlords and letting agencies don't take care of the properties, the streets start to look shabby, etc etc.

That's not snobbery, that's my sixty-something-year-old mother wanting to feel safe.

yes ,but I think you will find that a lot of council estates have more of a community spirit than semi detached land

A family shut away on the 15th floor in a little box is not going to feel part of a community - it's isolation of the worst kind and leads to depression in some cases -

I agree about the high rise flats ,awful things ,but where I live most of the high rises have been demolished

It's snobbish to suggest that people who live in council estates don't mow their lawns. My neighbours, either side, employ a gardener!

I do wonder if some of you berating council estates have actually been anywhere near one? I'm aware there are some shit places to live, some of them council estates, but it's not all like that. It's the generalisation that irritates me.

I'm not disputing any of those things. I'm just disputing the idea that it's snobbish and hence somehow bad to want to live somewhere where people take care of their environment. I know some environments lend themselves to prettifying better than others, but the point is the effort. I wouldn't want to live somewhere where the majority of other residents couldn't see any point in making an effort, and I don't think that's bad or unreasonable.

My grandfather lives next to a rough housing estate. He and his neighbors are frequently burgled and their cars broken into. The police say it's from the local estate and they openly admit that there is little they can do.

Based on that experience alone (and I didn't grow up knowing people who lived on housing estates) I would probably have the same response as your friends.

Rationally I understand not all estates are full of thieves of course.

Most of my neighbours do make an effort ,the council cut all the grass verges and tend to the trees etc

Its not like bloody shameless really

'and I didn't grow up knowing people who lived on housing estates'

says it all really

Here in the South we love poor people

In fact everybody should have one

We do a song and dance for a scrap of bread

I don't think it's snobbish. My experience of council estates is that they're rough and have higher crime/social issues, so my initial thoughts would be that I would want to avoid them (another reason is that they are usually modern houses and I prefer older ones). That's not to say all council estates are the same though.

i grew up in a council house too btw.

Ha ha, yes, we should all have a poor best friend. - i love the millionaires who play at being poor - Brixton squats are full of them - and when they get bored they go back to the family mansion in Berkshire.

Ime council estates are very different to the way they were, say, 30 years ago.

I grew up on a fab estate, people took pride in their houses, the local (catholic) school was excellent, and there was a real sense of community. Everyone on our street was 'Auntie' this or 'Uncle' that, dinner was meat and 2 veg at 5pm sharp, and children were turned out clean and pressed for school each morning

I don't live there now, my Parents bought their own house further from the city ( through sheer hard graft and long hours in low paid work).

I work in a school that serves the same estate.
It is now one of the most deprived areas in the city. There is a huge drug problem, houses are boarded up, and crime is a massive problem.

In my school we see large numbers of children with CP/neglect issues.

Whilst it was a great place to grow up, I would sell a kidney not to have to live there now. I'm not a snob, but it's not a place I would want to bring up my family.

I don't think you can,lump the kind of attitude into a group op, people are people, they have different experiences, opinions and outlooks.
I love in a very small village, there are some very very rich people here and huge houses with estates (not the housing type) then you go all the way through to council and housing authority houses, a fair few of them really given the size of the village. A good number of them are no privately owned, they do well on the housing market as most of them have a good amount of land and are well built. On the very large part here people make no distinctions about a person or family in regards to the home they live in but there are always a very few who have bad attitudes.
I have only come across one such case of this in the village, a few years ago a single Mum (who is now a good friend) with two children who grew up here moved back and into a council house. After she moved in the was chatting to another Mum who had moved into the village during her time away, they chatted for a while and the other woman asked my friend which house she had bought, my friend told her which house she was in, the woman looked aghast and said 'but that is a council house!' my friend simple replied that yes it was. That other woman has never said more then a curt hello to my friend ever since. That woman and her friend are the only ones like that in the village that I have come across (or had chance to hear their views), it was these two who questioned me about how my best friend was going to be paying for her dd's pre-school sessions before funding started as she had split from her husband a few months earlier and was on benefits while she found her feet. I resisted the huge temptation to shout that the child did have a working and involved Father and that it was nothing to do with them what so ever.

I'm from Ireland (Midlands).

Where I grew up, the council estates genuinely seemed a bit dangerous. I knew quite a few people who were attacked or mugged outside or in them, and knew no such situations in other estates. This may have been simply down to location/luck rather than the people from there though.

There were always gangs of intimidating teenagers hanging around there. I'm not at all saying that teenagers in general are intimidating, but these ones seemed to be. People from these estates were afraid to leave their houses after dark. The gangs may have actually originated from elsewhere and just chosen to hang around there.

This is all second hand information and may therefore contain inaccuracies. However, it would make me wary of living in one of those estates in that area.

For the record, we had less money than most living in local council estates.

I'm very naive when it comes to social housing.

I presumed that if you were earning a lot of money you wouldn't live in one. I didn't necessarily think it was for poor people, but definitely for a type of social group.

I mean, looking at crime rates, if you were earning 6 figures would you realistically want to live in one?

I've always though social housing was for people who couldn't really get housed anywhere else...plus the rent is cheap.

I think inner city estates are very different to rural town estates.

I grew up on a estate which had less crime than the inner town streets (more drunks,drug raids and burglary),we found this out when we bought a lovely Victorian town terrace and ended up living next door to drug dealers and people being sick/pissing over our front wall at the weekends and our car being keyed numerous times.I didn't grow up with that level of crime whatsoever on a council estate.

Councils here cut all the verges,parks and do weekly road sweeps on all estates.

The worse gardens on our estate belong to privately rented/owned houses.

We have up to date play parks,football/cricket pitches and free tennis courts.

I have never witnessed burnt out cars or drug busts or any unsavory types here,but maybe we are just lucky

My experiences are pretty much like yours thingumy

The worst crime rates around here seem to come from the inner city privately rented terraced streets

Maybe its because I'm a certain social type though ,that I'm quite happy living on my council estate

It makes me laugh ,theres threads on here about how its not fair that council house tenants have houses for life ,and then theres this thread

Make your bloody minds up people

Our estate is small, in a lovely area, may people have bought their houses, though many haven't and have lived here (or their families have) since they were built in the 30's.

The people here are wonderful, everyone knows each other, everyone talks and chats, people are friends, they will do anything for you. There are retired people, families with grown up children, one or two with young families, including us.

My neighbours and I mean everyone on our street when I say that, are wonderful, wonderful people who are constantly offering to help me out. They treat my son like part of the family, he's loved by them all. He rides his bike (he's 4) up and down the street, stopping at every gate for a chat.

Out front, we have views to the see, over green fields filled with horses, a small, charity run steam railway.

And our house, though it's tiny, cost less than £100k

I really wouldn't swap where I live. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I think I'd just convert the loft

Now obviously, not every council estate is like this, tbh, not many private estates are this nice, but it can be done.

Well built houses, small estates, mixed local authority rentals and privately owned. Homes people want to live in, places people want to live. When people love where they live, they love their homes, they respect their neighbours, their community and they mow their bloody lawns!

(I can almost hear the hovis theme tune playing somewhere....)