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.

every time he stands at the door with his knife, ring the police and say he is theatening you with a knife...

every time there ae bottle etc left, ring the council to come and sorrt it out (preferably get your neighbours to do this)

every time he is doing drugs, ring the police no emergency number and complain. get as many neighbours to do this as possible. they do raid. eventually. but need lots of complaints. it is grim when it comes up through your floor or in our case the walls.

the more you bother them with genuine problems the quicker they will deal ith it to shut you up! squeaky wheel and grease and all that.

if we all contribute a pound or to we can get that gulag built in no time (rubs hands in glee)

Chickens. Now look at that and then tell me canvey aint fun

YANBU. Same for private homeowners - if they are anti-social can they please get evicted too?

Ok. Fine. Canvey's out. How about Vange? Or Pitsea? Or Laindon?

Those places are too close to me. What if they escape and come and bother me? The wall would need to be very high with broken glass on the top. I vote we send then ooop north. Either that or a get a few prison ships on the go.

Chickens,...do you live in any of these places....only I am in Laindon and I don't want them here thanks.

I feel your pain OP, when I moved back to this area after a marriage breakdown I was housed on a local sink estate (for Basildon folk that's Craylands) and had a neighbour just like this there. It was hideous and unfortunately it takes so long to get them out as there has to be so much proof over a long period of time. It should not be allowed to get this far.....the neighbour I had was a 20 year tenant with a history of anti social behaviour as long as your arm....and she is still a council tenant. All wrong.

Gruinard Island

Apparently they've cleaned up the anthrax now

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1457035.stm]][

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1457035.stm

Link fail

I completely agree YANBU. Bad neighbours ruin your life, and I can't understand why no one takes the problem seriously enough.

its crap and I am sorry. But what if they were home-owners?

Oh yes, you've found the perfect spot lady gnome. Absolutely ideal. They can be left to their own devices there without costing the taxpayer very much at all.

Lady I'm not sure OP would agree that non-presence of Anthrax is essential to the happy dwelling place of obnoxious neighbours.

Private neighbours can be as bad like ours are!! Neighbours from hell they are with their Jaguar car on the drive and another car just left on the drive and her with her full length leather coat on. Horrible horrible horrible. I agree that ALL nuisance people, whether tenants or not, should all be put on a desert island out of the way. We have some maisonettes not far away and a nice lady i speak to at the shop has had an awful time. She has lived there for a long time and new people have moved in above her. They are very noisy apparently. They have wooden floor and not carpet (which she told me that wood is not allowed) and are always dropping or rolling stuff along the floor. Shouting from the two children and also loud stereo and tv. She complained and was asked if she wanted to move. Why should she? She said no and was given a noise monitor to use. She said the trouble was that most noise was when she was in bed and the monitor can't stay on - it has to be put on when she hears any noise - so the time she has got out and switched it on, its all over. She managed to do it eventually but this was since last year and nothing has happened yet. She is only being asked if she would like to move. Ridiculous.

I don't, Jake, but I grew up but a few miles away. I live in the Midlands now. I used to play in the Alcatraz estate in Laindon with my cousins. They knocked it down which totally ballsed up our games of hide and seek :(

Unfortunately most councils think putting a 'bad egg' in with decent people will make them calm down, not the case, as it just ends up ruining the lives of people who are considerate and trying to get on with life. We live in fear of the old man who lives in the flat below us leaving/dying because we have slowly watched every empty flat be re-filled with anti social knob heads.

Our area is a local joke, being known as 'Staffy land' because every second dog is a bull terrier being led by an owner thats out of his/her brain.

I hope someone finally gets him out Op!

Enjoy

I grew up in Alcatraz chickens.... And I lived to tell the tale

A living in a naice posh area of Laindon now.....if that's possible of course.

Alcatraz looks very naice too these days.

Anyhow thread hijack over.....

OP, rant away because the woman I lived next door to for only a year was horrendous, always being raided by police. Her 18 yr old son was dragged out during one raid and subsequently went away for burglary. The other son used to holler to his mate in the block opposite "oi Baz, you comin over...and have yer got any weed". Open drug dealing went on there.

It took me some time to realise that mother of the year also had a 4 year old regularly found wandering the estate,....thank God for social services who after some effort to get mum to engage whisked the child off to his Dad.

Do I mention the two women kicking hell out of 18yr old son? Just before leaving the vicinity they went first to retrieve the baby in the pram who had witnessed the entire thing.

Neighbours from hell......needs to be taken much more seriously.

Jake, we might know each other! Are you in the hills, now?

sounds awful for you OP.

the worst thing is that the anti social people seem to get away with it for a long time and there are never any repercussions for them.

do you remember when they did that Castaway series with Ben Fogle. Perhaps they need to be dropped there and left to get on with it for a while. Perhaps they would realise how fortunate they were before.

Nope.
I don't think they should be re-housed at all.
I think they should be kicked the fuck out, and their flats given to people who don't take affordable housing for granted.

Poor you, OP. I hate noise and agree with your overall proposal.

I think all of the UK should be divided up into Noisy zones and Quiet zones. Then the Noisies could all bug one another. With 24-hour cctv, of course... :)

Hi The response from your landlord very much depends on their size and their commitment to dealing effectively with anti social behaviour. Some (my employer) take things very seriously and have a large budget to facilitate this. In your case, we would take your complaints very seriously and would have looked at securing an anti social behaviour injunction against your neighbour for the assault. Did you report this to them at the time? We would also take very seriously your complaints that he is menancing you by standing with a knife, another good reason to seek an injunction.

I wouldn't advise bombarding your landlord to get them to take action, but I would advise you to ask for a meeting to review the complaint. At the meeting you can ask them:

Do they have noise monitoring equipment available? We use something called a Matron system, it's a small box which you activate when the noise starts. It is constantly recording, so will then keep the recording for the minute before you press record too.

Do they use professional witnesses to witness noise? We have a company available 24 hours a day, complainants can phone them and they attend to witness nuisance.

Have they given you a diary/log to record incidents? If not you need to ask for one, if they won't provide it, keep your own. Write down the date, start time and end time and importantly the effect the nuisance has had, eg woke you up, unable to get to sleep, etc.

You also need to challenge their refusal to accept your own witness statements. These people may not be directly affected, but they have witnessed the noise and this evidence is admissable.

They should be looking at an injunction to get him to alter his behaviour, if he then breaches this he is in contempt of court and riskes imprisonment or a fine. If the order is breached your landlord should then begin possession proceedings, however, be warned this is a lengthy process.

If you're not satisfied after the meeting then put in a formal complaint. This will escalate the matter and will mean a manager will review.

Good luck!

I agree but I'd also include homeowners in that. All anti social, obnoxious, inconsiderate, noisy, abusive arseholes should only be allowed to live in specifically designated areas far away from civilised people where they are free to cause as much disturbance to each other as they wish.

It would be wonderful for decent people like yourself, nobody should have to suffer so much in their own home. I really hope this situation is resolved soon, it sounds nightmarish.

I'm new here, but I used to live in a council flat in Mansfield directly above a tenant who sounds the same as the one you are describing.

Luckily, my partner plays guitar and has massive speakers, so when we knew we were going to be off, we'd stay up til after his music has stopped (usually about 2-3am) and then around an hour later, put our speakers face down and blast out death/heavy metal music. So it was a complete contrast to his rave shit.

It was a very small block, with only ground and first floor, and one flat on either side of the block, so we only had him beneath us and noone else.

After a about 3-4 times of us doing this the music went off by 11pm without fail.

I know that noise limits take effect from 11pm so that wasn't so bad.

We did call the police once when he was blaring it out at about 3.30am and I had to be up at 6am to get to work the next day, but low and behold they said nothing could be done and to call environmental health.

We never did!

I appreciate you may not be able to do something like this, but like others have said, don't give up. You should not have to move because of him. Call the police when he's staring at you with a knife (every single time), email and write to the council, as well as environmental health, with all dates, times, types of noise, any smell of cannabis smoke, etc.

I hope you get it sorted

If your mother thinks you're making a fuss, invite her to swap homes with you for a week.