I got the council to kick out a tenant. Unfortunately for most of you, it was in NZ, not the UK.
Before then, we had about a year of her letting to various ne'er-to-do-wells who got drunk , fought and urinated in the front garden. They threatened me and leered at DW through the window when she was breastfeeding. Once, some of them knocked on the door when DW and DD1 were by themselves and asked to use the phone. I don't like to think what would have happened had DW let them in. One neighbour had jewellery stolen, and another lost a bike. Most were too scared of them to admit to being troubled, and it ws left to DW and myself to complain. Constant nighttime parties, and probably drugs being dealt from the property.
By the Lord, we were happy when they all left.
At the same time, we got a new neighbour on the other side - a respectable professional 40 something woman without children. She appeared to like nothing better than holding naice wine parties in her garden, with music, until 1 o'clock. When I told her that she was waking DD1 up, and DW and I were getting quite exhausted from having our sleep disturbed, she just didn't see that she should refrain from having her naice parties. In the end, I resorted to yelling over the garden fence at midnight and spoiling her party.
I also called noise control plenty of times. Fuck you, Auckland City Council Noise Control for being so fucking useless.
We moved. New house - fine for a year and a half. Then we got a group of 20 year olds who smoked weed in the garden and fired up the stereo three nights a week. DD1, now 3, started saying "Fuck" because she heard it from over the fence so often. I remember on the day of her 4th birthday party praying that the neighbours wouldn't kick off with another party of their own, becuase they did so at any time. They grew marijuana under hydroponic lamps in the garage. Police not interested. Lucklily the landlady had given us her phone numbers inc cell phone. We distributed this round the street and got everyone to call her on party nights. She booted them out.
We moved again. Fine for 6 months, but then another bunch of ne'er-to-do-wells. I had to look up a copy of the land title to find out who the landlord was a company, and then the company register to find the director. Lucklily he was sympathetic and put a stop to the nonsense.
IMO this problem has got much worse since high-powered hi fi became cheap. The solution is actually quite simple though - stop obliging people to go through noise control. There is no reason why an aggrieved neighbour shouldn't be able to sue in the small claims court, and on receiving damages, obtain a portion of the tenants' bond , which the tenant should then be obliged to top up for the landlord. THe problem at present is that unless one is a trained lawyer or has money to burn, one is obliged to ask the council for help.