My neighbours house-neglect.

[fishandlilacs]

My elderly neighbour went into a home about four years ago. Since then the house has been empty.

The neighbours relative keeps Guinea pigs in the garden but only comes once a day usually late at night, last thing to clean and feed. She lives less than 5 mins away.

The garden is totally over run with bind weed and brambles which are coming into our garden. We laid a new patio last year and put in new fence, even replacing fence that wasn't our side because it was in such poor condition.

I did approach the neighbour about making a contribution to the fence but was told she has no money. I carried on because little point in trying to enjoy my new paving area with one side rotten and collapsing.

Now we are getting rats from that side, obviously brought in by the rodent food and overgrown garden. My cat is doing what he can to 'help' but obviously it's not ideal!

I have asked the neighbour when she comes over what she intends to do, have even offered to help clear but nothing ever comes of it.

I just looked and our council has a specialist telephone number to report an empty home and dedicated officers working on this issue in their Private Sector Housing Team.

It is possible your council has something similar. I'd have a look on their website and check.

Amarmai, really not being inflammatory but what do you think the GP will do or how is this remotely anything to do with the GP? Please don't ask the GP (unless you think you have Weils disease from the rats!)

Maybe you get your neighbours to write to the Council saying that they have seen rats in their gardens and especially if they have children, the council will do something about it, also you could give the RSPCA a call about the 'Piggies' and mention that the garden is infested with rats.

I'm not sure this counts as an 'empty home' as far as the local authority is concerned. It's not been abandoned and we know who the owner is and someone is there regularly. When properties have been empty for 10 years and nobody knows who owns them - that's a bit different.

I never even considered about animals kept in uninhabited property. I am scared of causing trouble. I don't want to say too much in case I out myself, but I see the relatives daily through mutual circumstance. I'm sure they would know it's me.
The front is in such a bad state with over grown climbing plants it's spilling out onto the pavement.

Our neighbours garden was in such a bad state we had a rat come in our back door & into the front room one hot evening a few summers ago!!! It's quite a funny story now but at the time I was a standing on top of the sofa screaming while my husband was trying to hit it with a broom !!! The neighbours were neither ill or elderly just plain lazy & didnt want to spend time or money on a house that wasnt theirs!!! The next day I phoned environmental health, the council, the local mp everyone I could think of! EH made a visit & they had to tidy it up, if it was let go again they would be fined. Maybe explain to the relative about the rats & say if it's not tidied by X date you will have to talk to EH because it's dangerous to your children & pets!!

And your better suggestion is?

amarmai I would hazard a guess along the lines of what has been suggested ref council etc. Rather than bother a GP who's job it would only treat the person in front of him for medical reasons??

I'm not sure either what you thought a GP could do?

GPS have a duty to report threats to public health. NOt adding anything to the discussion to repeat what others have said and def not adding anything to use sarcasm to try and knock down my pp because you do not see the point of it.

If there is more than one guinea pig, and they are in suitable accommodation and being fed every day, they will be fine. They are group animals and are happy enough with other guinea pigs. If there was just one, that is totally different.

Id go round myself and do it OP if they arent there all day everyday then just go round a strim the edges away from your property line and lay rat poison and traps in the undergrowth out of site ? YANBU i hate sloppy homes i always make an effort to mow the lawn and paint the house and wash the windows etc when i move to a new rental property your just bringing the neighbourhood down if you dont

*sight not site

We had a problem with rats last year whch we became aware of when workmen giving us a 6 foot fence (paid for by the council because of ASB neighbours) disturbed an apparent heap of tree prunings in next door's garden, only to discover a swarm of rats underneath living in a pile of shitty nappies. (Their garden looks, to all intents and purposes, almost manically well groomed).

Environmental Health refused to act. They said they had to treat council tenants as if they were homeowners and they might find it offensive being told they had created a rat problem, so if we wanted the rats gone, they had to be poisoned by the council from our side, and EH refused even to notify the neighbours. (So they then spent a month laying bait, which made my garden unusable for my kids and dog, whilst the neighbours continued with their shit pile garden feature unchallenged).

It may be different in different areas. But here in this council district, EH refuse to deal with the problem at source in case it upsets anyone. Not sure how typical that is. About 6 years ago they'd come out if someone passed your house on a bus and complained they saw a piece of Lego on your lawn - so probably due to funding cuts.

Actually local authorities do have the power to make compulsory purchase orders of empty homes. They can also make 'empty dwelling management orders' where they take over a property but not the ownership. They have to jump through a lot of hoops first though.

www.emptyhomes.com/what-you-can-do-2/resources/local-authority-powers/

And no, it's not just in cases where the owner is unknown.

As for your neighbour, maybe she has dementia and doesn't have mental capacity to make decisions about selling her house, and no one has a Power of Attorney to act on her behalf. A friend had a neighbour in that position: she went into residential care and her house was left empty for years.

Contact your local authority and see if they have an Empty Homes unit. If you're in an area with a housing shortage they should be keen to have this on their radar.

They can be forced to do the works by the council. I know this as a friend is going through this as the recipient of an order. First the homeowners will get a letter giving them 21 days to do the work to bring the garden up to scratch, under threat of a... Section 215 I think it was called. So if they don't do the work the council will take them to court for the right to do the work and bill the owner. Either way, the garden gets done.

So, contact your council, start the process, you have nothing to lose.

It is very very difficult to make compulsory purchases order of houses. You can't do it because of an overgrown garden. Similarly compulsory work on a house is where it is causing damage to someone elses. So the council could force them to deal with pests like rats, but not simply to have a tidy garden.

I agree its extremely difficult for a Local Authority to get a CPO on an unoccupied/neglected house. As plumpcious says, an EDMO is probably the way they would go. This is somewhat of a last resort though. I only mentioned it in the first place as a possible way to get the house back in occupancy, which will obviously stop the problem recurring.

the LA will know if council tax is being paid on the property. They do not charge on an empty property when the owner is in a care home. So either the council knows the property is unoccupied, or someone is still paying the council tax. Either way, they would have some contact details for her. Its just a question of getting the right departments to talk to each other.

But yes, telling the LA would be the way to go. Why should the OP have to spend time & money to sort out someone else's property?

as an aside (off topic) I do see many overgrown gardens where elderly owners can no longer look after them, and don't have enough money to pay for help. Why aren't there local schemes (volunteers, charities or even community service) that could help out in cases like this?

Op, just a quick side note about your cat- one way or another, it's very likely that poison will be put down, and that can pose a problem for pets who eat contaminated rats or the poison itself. If there is poison in use, it really needs to be done with proper bait boxes so it's inaccessible to pets. And maybe keep your cat in for a bit?

When I kept guinea pigs in my garden rats were always trying to get in to eat their food. I had to reinforce their hutch & run with metal to stop the rats chewing their way in.
Recently I have heard of a guinea pig who was attacked by a rat. It was touch & go whether the piggy survived the experience (fortunately she did recover but the vet bills must have been huge).
Perhaps you could mention to your neighbour's relative about this - that rats are being attracted to the guinea pigs' food, and does he/she want them to be attacked/injured/killed by the rats?
I will kill rats which move into my shed but I really don't like using poison. I use a Little Nipper rat trap which is very effective and instant. You could set one up but you'd have to be careful it was somewhere your cat couldn't get to.

Ring the council.