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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to be fed up with the bad association people see to have with social housing?

233 replies

NoahVale · 25/04/2016 22:17

PEOPLE at work criticizing the new builds which, shock horror, also contain Social Housing
tales of people complaining that they are buying houses the same as those in social housing

and others putting down social housing residents. of which I am

OP posts:
HelenaDove · 30/04/2016 13:50

Greys thats awful That poor dog Sad

Toffee arent you being a hypocrite. You have an assured tenancy yourself but dont want others to have one. I appreciate that you have had a couple of bad experiences but why treat all other tenants as if they are the same.

Would you use the same thought process to refuse treatment by a doctor because most doctors must be like Harold Shipman?

Ah.......but of course not. The rules for the middle classes are different Hmm

A11TheSmallTh1ngs · 01/05/2016 18:38

They should have rules to also protect GOOD HA tenants from BAD ones. Because it must be worse if you HAVE to live in HA and there's always some badly behaved twat there ruining it for everyone.

They should simply have a rule that after a certain no of noise complaints you will be forcibly relocated to an estate that is basically a free for all. You can smoke, swear, fight at all hours, litter, fly tip and leave dog shit everywhere to your heart's content.

In fact, they should give better facilities/lower rent to incentivize these trouble makers into these places. Then everyone else, HA and privately owned, can get on with their lives without the interference of the perpetually feral.

HelenaDove · 01/05/2016 18:46

A11 you have a point and the estate i live on is quite quiet now. Im teetotal and ive never been drunk.....not once. But ppl hear the words social housing tenant and automatically think the worst.

And that goes for ppl in authority too.

HelenaDove · 01/05/2016 18:49

"Better facilities lower rent to incentivise them"

Really? You wouldnt be trying to take this thread into a different direction...........so it becomes a tenant v. tenant thread perhaps? Do you work in housing by any chance.

FuckityByes · 01/05/2016 19:11

I am very much in favour of social, HA and private housing being mixed. But fuck me, some of the people in social and HA make me question that sometimes.

I am a resident director of a large development so I have oversight of how it's all being managed and any issues which come up. There have been a hugely disproportionate number of problems with the HA and social residents, including fly tipping, anti-social behaviour, vandalism, dumped cars and rubbish left in communal areas. Part of what I do is having to meet regularly with the management company and the HA officer, and they have both said that these issues are extremely common. I've had to deal with complaints about screaming rows, excessive noise, violence, threats, intimidation of other residents, and the police repeatedly being called out over the behaviour of some HA and social residents. I also saw it when I lived there so I know it's not fabricated.

I know it's not considered to be acceptable to point these things out, and I will doubtless get flamed for this as everyone scrambles to find examples of where private residents have done the same stuff. And yes, I know there are many social and HA tenants who are lovely and want a proper community.

Despite all the above I still believe that mixed housing is the best way. I categorically do not want to see ghettos of council housing. I just wish I didn't have to question that belief in my own mind every time I see the reports about the residents with dumped furniture and cars outside their houses who claim 'someone must of come and done it last night, we never saw nothing' which costs every resident money to remove it. Or the single mother who is too afraid to park in her own space because the social housing tenants keep blocking her in and threatening to cut her if she asks them to move.

LarryStylison · 01/05/2016 19:16

But why should hard-working people have to put up with anti-social lowlife?

Seriously, I am working-class, but I have worked my arse off to give myself a better life so that I don't end up back where I started. If the government keeps housing these people on nice estates, then what did I work for?

PortiaCastis · 01/05/2016 19:22

1d fan you lost all credibility when you called people lowlife.

HelenaDove · 01/05/2016 19:28

Larry are you saying ppl should be housed in slums?

LarryStylison · 01/05/2016 19:56

I don't know what the answer is, all I'm saying is that I don't want to live with them. If I had all the answers then I'd be working in government.

By 'lowlife', I mean anti-social, rude, tenants. They are lowlife who lack basic civilization skills. I come from a family like this btw.

HelenaDove · 01/05/2016 20:05

Then maybe you are projecting your own issues because of experiences you had while growing up.

PortiaCastis · 01/05/2016 20:05

You can also get anti social rude home owners and I live next door to one but I wouldn't call her low life even if she does have dubious morals

Laura812 · 01/05/2016 20:40

Those who behave like animals needs to be segregaged and kept apart from decent people. It is not very hard to work out who are the core troublemakers and we should move them

FuckityByes · 01/05/2016 20:52

I can see where Larry is coming from. I wouldn't buy a house next door to people like that either.

Laura Move them where? This is precisely the problem.

x2boys · 01/05/2016 20:57

There is some social. Housing near me that gives preferance to working families ,Im just great full to have a home and we have a reasonabLe amount of social housing in my town it didn't take us long to get a house about 9 months .

unlimiteddilutingjuice · 01/05/2016 21:05

"They should simply have a rule that after a certain no of noise complaints you will be forcibly relocated to an estate that is basically a free for all. You can smoke, swear, fight at all hours, litter, fly tip and leave dog shit everywhere to your heart's content"
This sort of happens, unofficially. Often in areas the council would like to demolish. There'll be a long period of selective allocations: people with a history of anti social behaviour, drug users.
Then when they come to demolish it, noone opposes them.
I've lived in places where that sort of process is going on. It isnt good.

FuckityByes · 01/05/2016 21:16

Just to burst some bubbles here, we bought a house in a nice area which is opposite some HA/social housing (which we hadn't realised at the time of buying). We have spent the last four years reporting drug dealing by the residents (because we live here and recognise them), domestics involving kids being conducted right outside our house, vandalism, fly-tipping, anti-social behaviour etc etc etc. Which is all a bit too familiar.

chilipepper20 · 02/05/2016 00:19

Toffee arent you being a hypocrite. You have an assured tenancy yourself but dont want others to have one. I appreciate that you have had a couple of bad experiences but why treat all other tenants as if they are the same.

i think toffee is saying despite benefiting from assured tenancies she'd like to see them scraped for everyone.

unimagmative13 · 02/05/2016 03:33

Big development near us being built - 1/3 is 'affordable' housing with a housing association. Some to buy some to rent.

They have a strict criteria of people who live and work locally.

Local people are just moaning that about the foreigners that will move in (get a grip)

We are moving down there and repeatedly have had to explain this.

chilipepper20 · 02/05/2016 16:20

They have a strict criteria of people who live and work locally.

I can't stand this attitude.

AppleSetsSail · 02/05/2016 16:43

Why, chillipepper?

HelenaDove · 02/05/2016 16:44

unimag i hope they put their money where their mouths are then and are prepared to do things like gas safety checks outside of tenants working hours

Because you often find that many HAs will only wax lyrical about working tenants only in the instance that its not going to cost the HA any extra or involve the HA being more flexible.

chilipepper20 · 02/05/2016 16:50

Why, chillipepper?

First, I don't think we should reserve a certain number of flats for affordable rents in new developments. Second, I don't know what 'local' means, but why should a Scot with a job offer in the local area have the same access?

we have a completely dysfunctional housing system.

chilipepper20 · 02/05/2016 16:51
  • not have the same access?
AppleSetsSail · 02/05/2016 17:11

but why should a Scot with a job offer in the local area have the same access?

It makes sense to house the local population first. If there's no housing available for the Scot, to carry on with your example, then he should go back to his prospective employer and negotiate for more money to expand his housing possibilities.

chilipepper20 · 02/05/2016 22:25

It makes sense to house the local population first.

does it? maybe they, like the Scot, should move to where their skills are in more demand and pay is in line with housing prices (which are universally outrageous now).