I live next door to a very volatile family. The couple have 2 children - a baby and a 6 year old.
As I live next door and the walls are ridiculously thin I can hear pretty much every conversation they have in the adjoining rooms to mine. It might sound like I'm "listening in" on the conversations from what I describe below but I promise I'm not, I often sit in my living room just surfing the internet on my ipad in the quiet and can hear all conversations clear as day - same when i'm in my bedroom trying to sleep the conversations come right through without any effort in trying to listen!
They smoke cannabis throughout the day and the smell seeps into my property so can imagine what it must be like next door.
The 6 year old is often wandering the streets on her own looking for the other children in the street to play with - they can't always come out to play so she then wanders the street on her own unsupervised - the street is long and turns a corner so even if the parents were watching from their windows/or front driveway then they wouldn't see their child around the corner.
The one evening I was stood looking out of my top window, and saw her knocking door after door looking for someone to play with, it was getting dark and she continued to wander up the street. Then a car slowed right down next to her and pulled over across the street, they had obviously called her as she stopped and went over to the car. I started to panic thinking the worst and ran downstairs and out of the house, looked next door and no sign of anyone standing at any windows watching her so I stood there and watched and waited. Luckily the car then drove off but she was still all alone in the street, no one else around and I just thought WHY are you being allowed to wander around on your own at this time of night with no one watching you! I decided I might have been too interfering as she may have known the driver, and went back inside but still kept an eye out for her.
She disappeared round the corner, but thankfully came back a few minutes later and went home.
I came home a few weeks ago at 10.30pm and as I was getting out of my car she walked past me to go home! It was chucking it down aswell poor thing was soaked, I cant imagine where she had been at that time of night!
I am only friendly with my immediate neighbour on the other side as I'm fairly new to the street so haven't met anyone else yet, but during conversations they have told me that the little girl often stops outside their house and talks to them and she smells quite noticeably of urine and her clothes are often dirty and face/hands etc. The dirty clothes and face/hands don't particularly concern me as kids get dirty when they are playing.
As mentioned earlier I can hear pretty much every conversation that goes on and the father shouts at both of his children on a daily basis, not just a telling off but swears and shouts at them and I know he is talking to them as calls them by their names. The shouting/swearing seems to be for really trivial things too, for example yesterday he was heard saying to the little girl "don't f*king put your bowl on the table take it straight to the fking kitchen what the f*k is the matter with you!" - ok fine she did wrong but was that absolutely necessary?!
the mother does the same aswell and one instance last week the mother was getting washing in from the line and her daughter was asking her for something to which the mum said no but child kept on and on and in the end the mother said "For f*ks sake will you just fk off and leave me alone you annoying little fking sht!!!" I have heard him shouting at the baby for crying also!
They don't seem to have any set bedtime, I can often hear them still up at 11/12 at night when their parents have people over and the language is appalling, discussing things that children really shouldn't be hearing (how the father was going to go f**k someone up as he owed him a tenner was one example, discussing how much money they had that week and how much weed they could buy was another).
Last night I was woken at 3am by the daughter running round the house, then the baby started crying, and then the mother swearing/shouting at them calling them everything - this went on for about an hour.
When the daughter is playing in the street, if she cant get the other kids shes playing with to do what she wants them to do, then she calls them C*ts and Btches and throws a complete wobbly in the street screaming the place down. Her parents must be able to hear her as I can from inside my house but obviously choose not to intervene.
I have overheard some of the other children turn down the little girls request for going to her house as they say their mothers wont allow them to go to her house (I can imagine wny not) - queue more meltdowns and swearing from the little girl.
My neighbour has told me that on more than one occasion they have gone outside early on a Saturday or sunday morning to find the little girl sat on the wall eating crisps (for breakfast) with no shoes or socks on, when my neighbours asked why she was sat there alone they were told that mummy and daddy want a lie in so told me to come outside out of the way.
now I know all of this can't be taken as gospel and I know I can only go by the things I've seen and heard myself, but I don't know what to do - they are bad enough neighbours as it is, I really don't want it to get escalated because they will know its me that's reported them for swearing at the kids because I'm the only one that will be able to hear them - I am the only house attached to them.
I know I can remain anonymous but its the specific examples that will out me, I cant just say I'm concerned, I will have to outline why and I think saying that the child wanders the street alone (as that could have come from anyone in my street) isn't really evidence enough to warrant investigation I don't think? Also a few months ago I heard the mother prepping the daughter on what to say when the social services woman came round - make sure you don't mention anything about yesterday, and don't say anything about your brother. I only got the tail end of the conversation but it was obvious enough she was prepping her.
Either they get notification of when SS come around or they pre-empt it because about a week before the visit they had all their windows open daily and weed smoking was done outside.
So if SS have been involved before do you think I should just back off mind my own business and hope they are on the "radar" or do you think they've managed to fob off SS and are no longer a concern?
I know what people do in their own homes is none of my business but I'm finding it harder to turn a blind eye to the things they are saying to these children. I just keep thinking, its obviously acceptable what they are doing or schools and GP's would have picked up on it by now and surely the parents of the other children this little girl plays with will have noticed all this so just leave it alone?
WWYD?