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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to live near a crack and heroin addict?

156 replies

Flatsfromnowon · 10/08/2015 23:49

Just that really; we moved into a block of six flats about two months ago.

One set of neighbours in the block have had a few arguments, smoke in the shared hallway, and have asked for money which I was a bit Hmm about. However...

This morning we were woken at 5.20 - one of them was being arrested and the other was being questioned by police and said that the one being arrested wanted to sell some of their property to buy heroin. The one not being arrested had self harmed and it was just all so horrible.

The police took both of them away. Then later on we were off out and the one whose property was being sold and had self harmed came back. I asked if they were okay and said that I has overheard them telling the police officers that the other one was addicted to crack and heroin and they confirmed this is the case.

I have a small child and just do not want to be in close proximity to them. I certainly do not want to use the shared garden (which their flat overlooks)). I feel such a snob but I am worried about needles, them falling asleep after a fix and causing a fire, all sorts of things really.

It is all young families here apart from this couple (who I think are late forties). I don't think the drug habit is new - they both look haggard and skinny. It is all so sad and tragic, I mean once they were young and probably just fell in with the wrong crowd but that doesn't make me want to stay living here.

We are shared owners so spoke to the housing association who weren't very helpful.

We also lives happily in another shared ownership place for 6 years and never encountered anything like this.

AIBU?

OP posts:
IsItMeOrIsItHotInHere · 11/08/2015 10:58

Charis your doctor, dentist or bank manager is likely to be a heroin addict or alcoholic.

Likely? Likely? Did you really just say that Coffee? Hmm

I don't doubt that there are very many functioning alcoholics working in the professions, and a much smaller percentage of recreational drug takerss and a few functioning drug addicts as well, but I highly doubt that it is LIKELY that a significant proportion of doctors, dentists and bank managers are heroin addicts. I've never heard anything so laughable in all my life.

Coffeemarkone · 11/08/2015 11:00

ok I meant 'as likely as anyone else' Grin

OTheHugeManatee · 11/08/2015 11:00

It's easy to show what a kind and compassionate person you are by being competitively non-judgemental about antisocial behaviour when it's not you living next to it Hmm

Generosity that costs you nothing isn't generosity, it's moral exhibitionism.

YANBU, OP.

MaximiseProductivity · 11/08/2015 11:09

I know lots of alcoholic doctors, the heroin thing they probably keep more quiet!

The sad thing is that a lot of what Charis says is right. She's taken a very unpleasant attitude towards it all but it is true that addicts devastate their communities through their behaviour and that the current system isn't helping them or those around them.

Properly funded tough love may well be more effective and cheaper in in the long run.

youarekiddingme · 11/08/2015 11:12

Ducky do you have any actual statistical evidence to prove those living in Ha and council properties are likely to be troubled, have problems or be trouble?
That is a very hurtful statement to the high numbers of people living in HA - including me. (Who btw works, raises a disabled child alone and pays all rent independently)

Flats I agree about keeping records. I doubt the tenants can be removed because they are addicts, addiction is an illness. However smoking in communal hallway (illegal), leaving needles in garden (if they do but you don't know that?) and causing a disturbance on a regular basis (noise pollution) are things that the HA can deal with.
The best advice I was given before (different situation) and will give you is focus on the effects and what you want as a resolution of the effects - don't focus on the cause. (Because in your case drugs aren't a reason to evict - anti social behaviour can be)

LuluJakey1 · 11/08/2015 11:22

I have no issue with addicts who don't affect anyone else - why would I?
However, they are few and far between. They might not be causing any issues for others outside of their own family but they most certainly will be impacting on the lives of those who live with them even then.

FFS, not everyone who is abused is an addict. My best friend suffered awful sexual abuse as a child for a number of years. She had counselling - privately for several years in her 20s- and leads a normal life- works, happily married, has children, as do her two sisters who were also abused. None are addicts, all fantastic mums, all have good jobs and put something back into helping children through their work. It should not be an excuse for self-indulgent wallowing and anti-social choices. Get a grip!

The OP is bending over backwards to not offend anyone here yet she is the person living with drug addicts as neighbours who are already impacting on her life and ability to live in her home without fear.

If they are buying drugs or selling drugs they are criminals. It's a fact.

prorsum · 11/08/2015 11:29

youarekidding I think Ducky has a point; there will be more social problems on HA/council properties compared to areas where home owning is predominant. I can't provide statistical info, it just seems obvious to me based on what I've observed. This does not mean these areas are no go areas and totally undesirable as there are plenty of people like us who live on them and are not shooting up. It also does not mean there is no shooting up in the non social housing areas; there's plenty, they just hide/deal with it better due to having better resources.

This is why buyers should think carefully before they do buy on HA/council estates.

Hadron21 · 11/08/2015 11:31

If you live in a block of flats with drug addicts then you peep around the door before leaving your flat. You half expect to be burgled every time you leave. If your child picks something up in the garden you're terrified.
No one should have to put up with this.
The tenancy agreement is a contract and if the tenants cannot live within the constraints of the agreement them the housing officer should take action (addicts or not).

I feel for you OP but sadly your thread has been derailed by people who have not clue how this can impact your life on a daily basis.

PM me if you need help in putting your complaint to the HA.

prorsum · 11/08/2015 11:38

Hadron That is such rubbish. I live in a building with a drug addict. His flat was the local drug den for a good few years. We all vented about wanting him gone but we also knew his circumstances and didn't look on him as a total POS to be removed from our presence. Over time we managed to get changes made to his care which meant the local addicts could not use his home and from there things improved for him and us.

ThisIsClemFandango · 11/08/2015 11:39

Who said that all children who are abused go on to be drug addicts, or that all drug addicts were abused as children?
People simply said that often drug addicts have had a difficult start in life and a lot of them were abused as children.
Not all, always, everytime.

LuluJakey1 · 11/08/2015 11:41

Coffee- surely you are not, not even ironically, suggesting that living next door to drug addicts who are impacting on your life by asking you for money, smoking in your hallway, being arrested in the middle of the night, fighting, having dealers/buyers coming round and causing altercations, is in any way comparable to living hext door to someone who drinks 20 cups of coffee a day or takes the odd aspirin?

You are really triviallising the OPs worries if you are suggesting that and they are not trivial worries.

Coffeemarkone · 11/08/2015 11:42

no I am certainly NOT trivialsing OP's issues. I have lived on estates and know how hard it can be.
My (yes) ironic post was not aimed at OP at all.

Hadron21 · 11/08/2015 11:44

I didn't say drug addicts were POS. I expressed how other people living in the same block as them feel.

If there were no anti social problems or fear of crime from those living in the same block then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I'm glad you found a resolution. Fear of returning to your own home is very real for some people.

prorsum · 11/08/2015 11:47

derailed by people who have not clue how this can impact your life on a daily basis. You said that. How do you know what other posters have had to deal with?

LuluJakey1 · 11/08/2015 11:47

ThisisClem - but it is being presented as an excuse and my view would be it is not an excuse for anyone. Addiction is a choice. No one has to be an addict to start with and anyone who is an addict has choices to make about how to stop being one. I am not unsympathetic to anyone who has been abused or who has ended up with an addiction. I am unsympathetic to those who indulge it and do nothing about it and inflict the fall-out of their lifestyle choice on other people who have nothing to do with them.

youarekiddingme · 11/08/2015 11:48

In my estate it was the private owners/ tenants causing the anti social issues. prorsum

When 10 cars were damaged in one night it was the DC of a family who privately own and DC went to private school.
The children hanging out in park who set fire to it 3 times - all children living in privately owned houses.
The drug dealers and addicts in my street - privately rent their house.
The DC having parties til 5am weekly, joyriding and leaving smashed bottles of alcohol. Parents were part ownership so part HA. They were eventually evicted.

I don't deny in areas of extreme poverty and disillusionment there are likely to be more issues. We know that and there is statistical evidence. But I don't think it can be applied nationally as a general rule - more applied locally to areas of deprivation.

shaska · 11/08/2015 11:51

I think coffee and I were taking the piss out of Charis, not the OP. Apologies if that was unclear.

ThisIsClemFandango · 11/08/2015 12:02

I don't agree that it's always a choice.
I personally know people I grew up with who had horrendous upbringings, as teenagers began hanging round with older friends who were users, they were manipulated by them, pressured by them and one girl I know was injected against her will by her boyfriend's friend who was a dealer until she became an addict herself.
They had no one else and nowhere else to go and were controlled and isolated. To say it's simply a choice is a little short sighted. The issue is more comlex IMO than, they just want to get high or they chose to become drug users. Some of the users I know certainly seemed to have limited choices.

Coffeemarkone · 11/08/2015 12:05

tht is true Clem; the last junkie I knew had been abandoned by her dad, emotionally abused by stepdad, beaten by her mother, taken into care for her own protection, run away to London , been forced into prostitution and then injected with heroin by her pimp.
I used to think 'well I wouldnt have done that' but really, what do I know?

Coffeemarkone · 11/08/2015 12:06

ex addict I should say, I mean she was trying. (very trying haha)

Lolamon · 11/08/2015 12:20

My upstairs neighbour was an addict in a converted house I lived in. He was kind used to buy me dinner once a week but he was a addict and sometimes things were bad. I was only there a year but it was a rocky year! OP is well within her rights to be concerned had contact HA because there's huge issues going on.
Can't believe the stuff I've seen in this thread about addicts being scum etc very sad they are humans too

Prelude · 11/08/2015 12:24

I've been having trouble with neighbours and the HA's anti social behaviour policy is joke. Drug taking isn't mentioned although drug dealing is. They can draw up a contract whereby dealers have to promise not to do it again before they can take further action. WTF? Is drug dealing not actually illegal?

AnUtterIdiot · 11/08/2015 12:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

shaska · 11/08/2015 12:33

The two heroin addicts I know are both dead, for starters, but both came from stable, well off 2 parent homes where as far as I know there was no abuse or neglect.

It happens. But the clue to the problem is in the term 'addict' and once you get into it, it can be very easy to end up somewhere very nasty. Nobody thinks it's fun to be a heroin addict. Nobody ends up there on purpose. And if they're too 'weak' to make healthier choices then isn't it sort of our job to support them, rather than hoping that ignoring the problem will make it go away?

shaska · 11/08/2015 12:34

I mean, OP not that it's your job to 'help' your neighbours! Just that some of the posts on here seem pretty harsh. It's a difficult one. But I agree.. they've got to live somewhere.