AIBU to think the council should consider who they put where better?

[coily]

Trying not to be a TAAT but being in a position where I couldn't actually choose where I lived

AIBU to think the council shouldn't have housed families in blocks of flats with elderly people especially living directly below us?

It's impossible not to cause noise pollution to some extent when you have children in a flat - but I think it's exaggerated how much of a nuisance the families are in my block because we're placed above people who spend a lot of their time at home during the day

Our block is nastily divided now between the families vs the old folk and it's not really anyone's fault but the councils I think

If the children run or shout in the communal areas the older folk are yelling at the mums to control their kids better - and we don't let our kids actually play out there but kids are unpredictable especially smaller ones, on the way in and out of the building we can't gag them despite wanting to ourselves sometimes as a concrete block echoes

Wouldn't it be better to have blocks of elderly or single people and blocks of families?

Coily, I appreciate your point about having to take what's offered, but I was just trying to point out that's its not like the council choose to house you with older neighbours. Social housing is in short supply, and will become even more scares now that people can buy places from HA, not just councils.

I already tried communicating with my lady below Queenie - I shot myself in the foot giving her my mobile number to text if things were really bad for her so I could also see exactly when things became too noisy and modify our routines if possible -

The short answer was that I was texted at 10am on Saturday mornings for us walking down the hallway into our living area.

already wearing slippers....

There's just nothing I can do about some of the noise that annoys her. So for us it's awkward exchanges in the hall and the endless noise complaints Iv asked her to now refer to the council who will then come and listen at some point and according to them explain to her it's normal daytime noise to be expected in a flat.

But it's not just her who complains about family living above - all the older folk have a moan at the families above them. It's a joke on the school run about whether they made it out without a comment that day. And I'm sure it is a nuisance. It's equally a nuisance having to try and stifle every noise our kids make as best we can

I think it's the building more than the people really... But no families get annoyed openly with families above them, they know it's asking the impossible iyswim

In that case, I'd give her some ear plugs next time she complains.

So block her number. Complain to the council that she's harassing you over normal living noise. Our downstairs neighour put in complaint after complaint about our so-called noise until the HA branded him an nuisance neighbour. He still tries it on every now and again.

It's flat living. We are not loud.

Oh I changed my number, several weeks later from giving it out, I couldn't put up with it.

Lol
When my friend was looking at a 3 bed in a awful estate she was told by her housing officer t hat it was the first 3 bed had come up in the 7 years she had been working there my friend should expect

#1st world problems

Only house to come up in the past few years in our village was rented out to an underoccupying family, who were not homeless (in fact they told e the house they came from, a private rental, was 'nicer'), and they were paying bedroom tax from day one. Turned out they had been evicted from council housing in the nearby city for ASB (a different council district), rented privately and told a load of lies to get to the top of our council's waiting list. Council gave them a secure tenancy, only then found out their history - too late to evict. The whole village has been affected by moving an ASB family here. No thought is given to existing tenants and communities.

I will admit I asked the Housing Officer wtf they thought they were doing physically handing the keys over to this woman as one look at her and it's obvious she's stoned/drunk - he just shrugged and said whoever gets to the top of the list gets the house. If houses are as rare as they claim then they should make it easier to evict ASB tenants and those who lie to get tenancies.

The irony is the last tenant (a lovely woman and totally not antisocial) lost the tenancy of what had been her home for 20 years, because she couldn't pay the bedroom tax. Within weeks, the council had handed the keys to people with known ASB - who they knew were on full Housing Ben and would be paying bedroom tax!

Councils are rubbish. Our's has imported a problem family from another district, they didn't even need to house - just because they were too lazy to run a few checks, maybe do some police checks etc. (Two police officers work with our council's ASB team actually at the next desk - they only ran checks on my lovely neighbours after the secure tenancy was handed out and they were still causing problems).

YANBU but HA/councils dont give a fuck because they see it as you are paying low rent even though it isnt really low with the added bills and council tax that you would not have to pay if in private rented.

as someone pointed otu if HA/council flats were so low they would make it easier to evict people but they never want to evict anyone even if they break the tenancy.
Guy upstairs to me has laminate flooring which is against the tenancy because he has been here for 8 something years with no complaints that some how means he is allowed to break the tenancy. It clearly states you will be evicted if you lay laminate and dont get permission.
The managers even tried to lie to me and say he was allowed laminate flooring because he has an old tenancy but i came to find that was BS.

I actually live in a block for single people and it is no better than one with family's tbh because i got him upstairs with his laminate and i have some guy downstairs who complains about me when i have carpet, underlay and wear slippers around the house.

If councils and HA just soundproofed their properties nobody would have issues with their neighbors in regards to noise but they choose not to and stress everyone out

My council were compelled to give us a 6 foot fence, in the end - first they have ever given anyone in a garden, I was told. The fence is over 100 foot long, and to put it in they had to have contractors working for three days, flat out - also a ini digger to remove a previous tenant's leylandii. I was told the contractor was paid around £2000. (This was the lowest of several tenders).

It would have been cheaper to never have given these people a secure tenancy in the first place, as I had already flagged up that they were previously evicted for ASB - and that is against their tenancy agreement, not to declare it on their application.

I was told the council served them Notice of an Order To Quit but the council refused to tell me why, and they told me it hung over them for 12 months but no-one ever gets evicted with one. It is just the first step in a long process. I have a 'heritage' tenancy as we've been tenants for years and I do have a different contract to next door - all kids of things we were allowed without permission, that they have to seek permission for.

But if council houses are rare as hens' teeth, then they should make the new tenancies much easier to end if tenants break the agreement and not give them secure tenancies for several years - in case issues arise.

*mini digger! doh!

Lifeofl - that's it really. Soundproofing would make such a difference to all tenants and massively reduce the workload of HA and council housing officers.

I am on a housing design panel for our HA. I am amazed that " buildings for life" ( so with wide doors in case you need a wheelchair, space for a stairlift in case you get old etc) are only built with one useable room downstairs. So basically instead of making the kitchen big enough to have a table or breakfast bar, everyone has to work, watch TV do homework and invite guests into the same room. They have also put very little soundproofing in between floors and the bathrooms face the tiny back gardens. You can hear all the neighbours having a wee if you are outside.

The flats are built to the same spec so there are massive sound issues. You really can hear everything from upstairs ( but very little from either side)

So badly designed especially when you consider the absolute fortune that has gone into planning and building them.

They recently showed us plans for flats over a Tesco Express. Great for single people or even the elderly. Nope, they were designing family flats so some poor parents with young children will have to live with constant noise from 6 am till midnight, teenagers lurking/swearing/ making a racket and watch for delivery lorries.

Bungalows used to be the preferred accommodation for older folk who became physically unable to manage stairs but HAs are not allowed to build them anymore as they are not considered an efficient use of space. Which makes sense on paper as you can obviously create more units of accommodation through flats, but everyday practicality is another matter.

A change of design standards to include better sound proofing measures would undoubtedly help but would likely increase build costs, which in turn have to be recouped through rents so rents would have to increase...and then affordability for tenants becomes a problem.

You could probably lose a member of staff per council/ HA if you sorted sound issues though - isomeone has to answer the phone read the emails, go out to tenants to discuss noise nusiance .All that paper that gets sent out reminding/ telling people about noise every six months, the phone calls, etc etc.
It doesn't take much to improve soundproofing and once it's in that's it done.

Where we are there are flats that are just for older people,singles and couples.
There has been for years my Maternal Nan lived in one,they were only 2 floors high,she lived on the second floor,all on the second floor had a balcony and all of the flats had access to some shared gardens and that was back in the late 70's.

They've built alot more since then,I can think of 8 lots of the top of my head.
Some are for completely independant living and others have supervisors to offer any help anyone living there may need and they're all owned by the local council so cheap rents.

Within days of moving in, our ASBO neighbours had complained to the council about us for making noise - slamming doors, apparently. Which was odd as when I came here I had 5 kids under 11 - now only two live here full-time. And no-one has ever called us noisy in thirty odd years of living next door to various people, including pensioners.

When the council came round, they couldn't believe their eyes, as it turned out next door had moved in with no furniture, had no carpets down (bare concrete floors and with a baby and a toddler) and wondered why the slightest sound from our house was reverberating round their's. Council basically laughed at their stupidity. We realised pretty quickly they had played this game before, so got in first with a complaint as they knew we were likely to complain about their loud DV/verbal child abuse.

In 12 years of living next door to the previous tenant, we never heard a sound. Nothing. Ever. So these 1940s' semis were probably built to a good enough standard for general 'average' families but can't cope with people who want to beat eachother up scream loudly, chuck eachother against walls and doors, put a sound system against a party wall and play it loudly, moving it from room to room as they did once... People are more antisocial now than they were and social housing used to be for everyone. Now only the most dysfunctional are likely to get to the top of the list.

Solution is we build ore social housing and also tighten up the rules making it easier to evict ASB tenants quickly, or people who have lied to cover previous evictions for ASB, as happened here. Councils need to run more, and more thorough, checks on prospective tenants.

Councils and HA can and do evict tenants. The house I am in was empty because of ASB plus non payment of rent.

When I moved in I had an introductory tenancy for 12 months and that is standard for all new tenants in the HA which houses me.

Also worth considering is that some people elderly or not are just intolerant of noise...my Dad being a case in point. Moaning and groaning about noise you can barely hear. To be fair he doesn't make complaints to other tenants but he is definitely increasingly intolerant with age.

I think OP, that unfortunately it's one of those instances where you just need to be grateful the council were able to put a roof over your head - as awful as that sounds I don't say that to sound mean, so please don't take it that way. The housing shortage is just beyond the joke.

The waiting list in my fairly small Scottish town runs into several years. There is no housing stock at all. So many of the council houses were snapped up when Thatcher sold them all off. There's been a huge influx of ex council houses coming onto the market for the past year or two here because the people who owned them were elderly and have clearly passed on now. The council have actually been buying some of them back - totally nonsensical as I know they own big patches of land that they could build on (previously bought for the purpose of housing). And they could build several new units for the price they're paying to buy back a single home.

I think what they could do when building new properties is as you suggested. Have certain blocks geared towards certain demographics. So a block for families, a block for single people and elderly, etc. Not to try and split them up and cause divides, but to encourage more harmonious living - noise pollution as you've suggested being one issue. At the moment though, they're relying on a lot of older housing stock and merely placing families in houses/flats that are big enough to accommodate them. They don't have the stock to consider much else.