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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think segregation In new build estates needs to stop!

159 replies

FourFiveSecondsFromSmiling · 18/04/2015 14:29

I live on a new build estate built about a year ago, 15% of the 500 homes are social housing.

The biggest problem we have on the estate is parking, the parking spaces are not allocated, it is generally considered that you park in a space near your home. I could not find a space near my home (social housing) so I parked on the private part of the estate and walked.

So I go to take dc to school the other day and a women rushes out saying I stole her space. I explained that parking spaces were not allocated and that she as am I are free to park anywhere. She then started ranting about how she works to pay for my house and called me council estate scum (infront of dc). I stated crying after I dropped dc off.

The next issue is that the residents association is generally hostile to the social tennants. I went to a meeting and could feel the hostility after I said my road.

We are constantly blamed for any crime on the estate because many in social housing including me have teenagers when the private homes tend to be 50+ .

I don't want to live in a community that has segregation (we are pretty much separate to the other homes apart from by the road). I don't know why because you pay £250,000 plus for a house you deserve to be treated better (or look down on others)

Aibu?

OP posts:
BishopBrennansArse · 19/04/2015 14:04

Four - I was once a homeowner, and a higher rate taxpayer.
Divorce and disability mean I'm not now.

Yet whereas I used to be an acceptable upstanding citizen I'm now scrounging scum. Actually I'm still the same person. I may have a bit more empathy now as I know how quickly life can change.

MrsPeterQuill · 19/04/2015 14:40

OP you say you've reported her.

May I ask who to? Please don't say it's the police.

Kvetch15 · 19/04/2015 14:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SingingHinnies · 19/04/2015 14:49

Four, i don't think this issue is just a problem because your a tenant and she's in private, you get arseholes in all walks of life, my neighbour (mine council his bought) refuses to park his car on the other side of the street where everyone else parks so wastes 3 full spaces because he wont park on the other side. He also just parks there anyway, blocks the street and refuses to go out so one of us have to move. I think he would be like this anyway even if his was still council and he hadn't bought it for 10 grand on the rtb scheme hes just obsessed with parking in front of his house. Nice bloke but hes obsessed with it all and get irritated if you say anything

People get blamed for stuff on my estate as well bought vs tenant's. Bought houses tend to have older people in who boughtin the 90's kids left home but they constatly blame the kids for stuff, moan about them playing out in the summer, moan about bbqs, they forget they had kids once who i know as i have lived here all my life used to play cause bother

StellaAlpina · 19/04/2015 15:02

Aw Kvetch thanks, but I wasn't worrying about it like that :) I meant more as in what if the neighbours are snobby about the other neighours in the HA flats and then there'll be people who bicker about parking and school places etc...

I live in a big block of half owned/half rented flats atm. where I don't have any idea who rents and who owns...whereas we've been looking at the plans and it is obvious which are the owned/shared owned houses and which are the smaller HA flats and it makes me feel a bit sad in case people end up not getting along. But obviously it's hard to know until we actually move and also you might get neighbours you don't like/random parking arguments in all sorts of roads,

Pandsala · 19/04/2015 15:04

Yanbu, some people are just idiots about parking spaces though, my parents neighbour insists my Dad is not allowed to park in front of her house, despite there being no allocated parking spaces and none of her family owning a car.

I live in a HA flat in a block that is about 50/50 split and have often heard this sort of snobbery, never aimed at me because none of them realise I dont own my flat but next doors teenagers are often referred to as council scum, ironically they arent HA tenants (the housing officer told me when I complained about them)

Aeroflotgirl · 19/04/2015 15:08

Sending you Flowers and a Brew she is awful, and yes I would report her behaviour. There is no need for that, she is behaving in a disgusting manner.

WoollyHat · 19/04/2015 15:18

This happens the other way too. We own our house on a new estate. Social housing at the bottom of our cul de sac, private houses at the top. When we moved in, it was very us and them. One day when they were all outside DH and I went and introduced ourselves. One of them said to us 'you aren't as bad as I thought'?! Although they all say hello, there are lots of parties and bbqs at their end of the road that no one else is invited to. Sad for us because we are the only ones in the private houses with youngish children and there are loads in the social housing.

Kids all manage to play nicely together but the grown ups can't.

TheChandler · 19/04/2015 15:27

I used to have a small house for work on a new build estate with a similar allocation of social and non-social housing such as yours. In reality, the majority of houses were rented out with a very few of us living in ours. Similar experience to WoolyHat, the social housing group would never speak to us and seem to wish to be very segregated. Other than from their behaviour in this, I would have had no idea that was where the social housing was in the development. It does look different because of people "making more use of the outside space" lets say.

For instance, they had a BBQ once, for all the social housing block, but put up a marquee in the middle of the access road to it. It went on all day and much of the night and was quite noisy, but it was obvious none of the rest of the development were invited. My neighbour went across and tried to introduce herself, but got an unfriendly response. Later on in the evening, some of the men started racing their cars around the estate, boy racer style except some of them were in their forties and fifties, it was really noisy and went on until the small hours. No-one cleaned up the mess until a few days later; someone complained to the management company for the whole development and we all ended up paying for the clean up job on our bills (it is itemised). Mercifully, they must have learned a lesson as all has been quite since then!

SingingHinnies · 19/04/2015 15:29

Although they all say hello, there are lots of parties and bbqs at their end of the road that no one else is invited to.

Ive noticed this. DDs friend's some of them live in the luxury houses, massive houses, lovely street's but all the kids gravitate towards my council estate, loads of kids playing out, neighbour's all know each other, bbqs in the summer with pool out. This doesn't appear to happen on the luxury estate, all the kids say it's boring where we live, we are not allowed to do various things. I think nothing of getting 2 rolls of old wallpaper out in the street with a big box of pens in the 6 weeks, kids spend hours drawing massive pictures, no one bats an eyelid, neighbours say wow look at your pictures, stuff like that. Me and most of the people in my street work so it's not a 'we work you don't so have the time' sort of thing just doesn't seem like their parents would do something like this

WoollyHat · 19/04/2015 16:08

The other parents are very happy for their kids to spend their days in and out of my house and garden. I happily entertain and feed their kids, yet they still seem to exclude us.

I have to complaints about noise or behaviour but this has really put me off social housing and I wouldn't buy on a new estate with social housing again.

WoollyHat · 19/04/2015 16:11

NO complaints

SingingHinnies · 19/04/2015 16:11

Maybe they wrongfully think you will look down on them or have had issues with other people doing so. Not saying its right maybe have a bbq and invite them to yours

SingingHinnies · 19/04/2015 16:12

Break the ice so to speak

BishopBrennansArse · 19/04/2015 16:48

That HORRIBLY scruffy social housing... Wink

To think segregation In new build estates needs to stop!
worksallhours · 19/04/2015 16:56

One of the major reasons behind difference in look, feel and size between HA/Council and private homes on a new development tends to be down to the HA or council's considerations about their future maintenance obligations.

This is why HA/council properties tend to be in smaller plots, have fewer loos, have cheaper kitchens, only have one lift etc ... the council/HA does not want the extra maintenance responsibility.

And believe me, those maintenance bills can be high, particularly if you are dealing with an outfit that has obligations to hundreds of properties..

Joan0fArk · 19/04/2015 17:16

Wow that is shocking OP. What a bitch! Report her. An asbo would suit her.

lookatme14 · 19/04/2015 17:51

YANBU what a foul woman, report her x

GreenEggsAndNaiceHam · 19/04/2015 18:01

Ha habishop, I know, you don't have to step over the dead bodies and syringes to get into my front door either. Who would have thunk it!

formerbabe · 19/04/2015 18:05

I think its awful what happened to the op but I think people think like this...

Its bloody expensive to rent privately and buying a home nowadays is extortionate... To do either, you pretty much need to work your socks off and/or get into a heap of debt. I doubt any healthy adult of working age nowadays gets social housing unless they have children. Therefore it is seen as a choice.. either attempt to buy which is getting tougher and tougher or get yourself pregnant and present yourself as homeless to the powers what be. Either choice and you land up in similar or identical accommodation.

Not saying I agree with any of that by the way. I'm just suggesting this is how many people think.

HelenaDove · 19/04/2015 19:09

Yes SH tenants are in such an enviable position that one of the companies doing gas safety checks currently has complaints against them with Trading Standards for.

a. causing a boiler to leak gas.
b. taking months to fit a boiler and six radiators.

c. 12 to 15 visits from the same engineers to the same homes turning up without the tools to do the job.

d despite all these complaints which are stacking and stacking up they have just secured a TEN YEAR contract with another HA.

BishopBrennansArse · 19/04/2015 19:22

Agreed Helena.
Yes I'm in social housing but the reason for that is having disabled children. If people still envy that then they need to give their heads a wobble.

Plus in my previous home I called the heating contractor out on average 15 times each winter as the heating had failed. Most of the time we then had to use a fan heater for a few days and live in one room until it was fixed. After SIX YEARS of this the HA was forced to call out another company as their regular one couldn't get to me on an emergency call out. He condemned the boiler - it had been unsafe the whole time as half the bits of the boiler were missing. It had been gas safety tested six years running and passed each time - and should have failed.

Then there was the time they left us with no running water for 48 hours...

HelenaDove · 19/04/2015 19:24

YY Bishop Brennan Private landlords get wrapped on the knuckles for it HAs dont.

HelenaDove · 19/04/2015 19:27

Bishop Brennan this is the company.

www.facebook.com/pages/Liberty-Gas/381603068598221?ref=ts&fref=ts

HelenaDove · 19/04/2015 19:27

And the reviews on that fb page are Shock

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