to report my neighbours to the police?

[LondonKiwiMummy]

Our neighbours are a group of young professional guys who don't think neighbours should get in the way of their lifestyle. Acceptable party nights can be any night of the week. Most recent one was a Tuesday.

After months of stress, lost sleep, and trying to discuss it with them, basically, we've gotten to this point:

• they make as much noise as they want until 11pm which they've decided is an "acceptable" time to make noise until. We don't agree but attempts to persuade them otherwise have gone pretty badly (shouting). Noise is thumping music and loud shouting.

• They turn the noise down (but not off) at 11, and not always graciously (we've had shouts from the garden at 11pm telling us to go fuck ourselves as they turn it down). Most of the time though they do turn it down at 11-ish but there is usually still a fair amount of noise.

• If asked to turn the noise down before 11pm (which we can do by text), they've shouted abuse from their garden at us, most recently telling us to "get out of your fucking house".

• Once after we asked them to turn it down before 11, the next day they frightened the children by screaming swear words through the wall at them early in the morning.

I'm frightened of one of them, he has a real temper and is not good at controlling it.

Council ASBO team were really good, and strongly recommended we report them to the police but we are nervous. It will make them very angry. My nightmare is that we report them to police, police go round and have a "lads will be lads eh" chat, and then they're angry at us for reporting them and then I've got my children living next to a group of aggressive and angry men.

They are private tenants, and no, their landlord could not care less.

I'm actually wondering if any of these guys are taking any kinds of stimulants, for example cocaine or crystals?

It goes with the party lifestyle, the user can be awake for many hours.....and stimulant drugs are known to cause aggression, sometimes even extreme aggression. (You can google it)

My spouse worked in The City for many years (we are now overseas) and knew of quite a few guys in banking (typically working very long hours) who liked to snort the white stuff.....

Maybe you can suggest your suspicions to the police. If you're in luck they may do a raid next door. I'm quite sure their employers would take short shrift if they were to be found to be taking illegal substances and I guess the landlord won't want them to stay there anymore

If they are in the city then their company would really like to know before you go to the press. Find all of them on linked in. Any investment banks would take this very seriously.

Maybe go round and ask nicely for their name or steal their post. Do You know the postman/ woman?

Also go to police tho for swearing at you - that is awful.

Good luck - sounds awful

I do feel for you in this situation, anti social neighbours are hell.
Calling the landlord when the boys are bad will not have the desired effect as the landlord has no power over the tenants. Maybe just antagonise him/her
It must be remembered that tenants have absolute right of abode, cannot be evicted, for the first six months of a tenancy.
After that time the landlord can issue at section 21 to get possession of the property. If all goes well the court action can be effective in, hopefully, 6 months or so. This is a costly and time consuming process for the landlord, think £300 to issue the papers, then lots more for the court process.
Far better to go with the council noise abatement process as they have the power to confiscate music equipment. They can work far quicker.
Keep a detailed record, a diary, of the disruption. Exact times and dates.
Hope you get a quiet night soon

Record/video everything! Show it all to the police and the landlord. Invite the landlord round one eve perhaps so he can hear it first hand?

A tenancy agreement will often contain something to the effect that tenants should not make a PITA of themselves and eviction is possible on this basis. You may wish to explain to the landlord that he can be personally sued for not taking nuisance tenants to task.

OP how awful for you and your family. It's intimidation. I doubt this will go away by itself, these things tend to escalate. I'm guessing it's worse in the summer, in the garden etc? I think I'd speak to the police again (maybe unofficially) and see what they can advise. Hope it gets sorted soon.

Contacting their work would be useless, if they are young, single guys the company won't bat an eyelid at them playing loud music until 11pm and having a few parties. Office culture is changing so much, companies are often encouraging partying, letting loose etc. as it means workers will be more relaxed and work longer hours at the job. Go into the city at 4pm on a Friday and the bars are heaving with sloshed city workers, it's part of the culture and expected (I personally think it's awful).

As they turn the music down after 11pm I don't think the police will touch it, quiet time is only between 11pm-7am. You could ask the landlord to write them a letter but ringing him every night will only get your number blocked!

Audio recording doesn't tend to capture the awfulness of the noise, unless there's some special way of recording?

bit flummoxed at the idea of their organisation taking it seriously - last time I dated a banker - a few years ago - he did coke in the loos there - and I'm middle aged now so I would imagine the culture is worse rather than better!

If they are a bunch of bankers (you can take that literally or as rhyming slang) I doubt their employer would give much of a shit. I doubt they all work at the same place and most companies like hedge funds and investment banks aren't particularly bothered about that type of thing - they don't need a good reputation with consumers because their main business is with other financial institutions, not with the average man/woman on the street.

I do feel your pain as I have been in a very similar situation with a neighbour who would frequently hold parties or bring groups of people (people she'd literally just met, apparently) back from clubs with her mid-week. And she had an unemployed teen daughter who would have groups of mates round to be equally noisy during the day.

I suspect the council have suggested you call the police because of the aggression and threats, rather than the noise. It does sound like a volatile situation, particularly if they are frightening your children. I think their landlord might start caring a little more if he gets a call from the police asking about their tenants.

In our case, the police didn't care about the noise, but suddenly became interested in a party our neighbours were having when I pointed out that there was money changing hands in the back garden and someone was snorting coke off the kitchen worktop when we knocked on the door to complain.

I wouldn't call their employers as the risk is that would incite more hate/abuse towards you. Stick with the fact that by swearing/shouting at you and your kids they are acting in a criminal manner and report to police!

I don't have any legal/HR background, but if my employer called me into a disciplinary meeting because a stranger phoned up and pretended to be my neighbour and complained about my social life and noise disturbance in my own home... I'm pretty certain I would be raising a grievance and getting a solicitor -- because it would be (1) heresay and (2) none of my employer's fucking business what I did in my personal life!

'Reputational risk'. No bank wants to be in the papers with a story of drug taking, abusive employees.

www.gov.uk/how-to-resolve-neighbour-disputes/overview

Persionally id be putting up cctv and buying a decibel meter as evidence incase you do have to go to mediation or further. I feel for you, very stressful fof you and the kids

If they are renting privately, they should have a lease. If it's a proper lease it SHOULD have tenant obligations in it, and most will contain points about not being a nuisance. I work for a rental company, and I've not seen any lease without it. To quote www.tenancyagreementservice.co.uk/noise-and-nuisance "Whether it is the tenant or the tenant’s visitors, the law gives the landlord the right to take action against excessive or unreasonable noise or nuisance. The terms of the tenancy allow the landlord to deal with this problem by applying for possession of the property through the courts." If he wanted, he could issue a Section 8 or 21, depending on how much time is still on the tenancy.

They are contravening the 1996 Noise Act, and EH need to pursue this. Keep plugging away at your local authority, too. Maintain that you are worried about your safety.

Stuff like this is soul destroying, I totally appreciate that. I hope you get some kind of result soon.

'Reputational risk'. No bank wants to be in the papers with a story of drug taking, abusive employees.

I was responding to the posters who were telling the OP to call the employer. How a random stranger calling with heresay about your employee the same as a national paper (who researched the story enough not to get their asses sued) reporting on facts and arrests about your employee and naming you in their publication?

Gah. The point is, the landlord is choosing not to do anything. He can serve them notice, but he is choosing not to. He cannot be forced!

ok don't ring the employer ring the taxman instead!! He! He!