To want rid of upstairs neighbour

[ChrisYoungFuckingRocks]

I live in a ground floor flat with a garden. There are two floors above me. A young girl with SN moved into the top (3rd floor flat) a few months ago. She is making all our lives a misery. She has three carers a day, and a sleep-in carer at night. I used to be a support worker for people with learning difficulties, so I am fully aware of what it can be like. However, they can't seem to control her.

She deliberately throws cigarette butts into my garden. I have to pick up 20-40 butts every day. My DD has ASD with pica, and I'm worried one of those butts are going to end up in her mouth. She throws milk and cream all over the middle neighbour's balcony and my patio. She treats me garden like her personal rubbish bin. She sits in the communal areas smoking with her friends (with a clear NO SMOKING sign right there), and leaves butts everywhere. The other day the neighbours stopped her throwing things at my car, and told me it looked like she was trying to break my car window. Neigbours had to call the police the other night as she was sitting in the middle of the road. And last night the final straw - she threw chinese takout all over my patio and garden. My garden is covered in sticky rice and other food.

The estate agents won't give out the LLs name or number (data protection). The carers won't give out any information as they have to protect their client's privacy. Her behaviour is getting worse and the carers can't or won't try to control it. The LL is by all accounts an arsehole who charges a huge amount rent (for the area) and will rent it out to anyone who can pay.

AIBU to want her out? I honestly don't think she has the capacity to live alone - she belongs in a home. And I don't say this lightly. Who can I contact, and WWYD?

Blaming the Tories or anybody else is off the point. The OP cannot be made the scapegoat for the perceived failings of the LA. Get the LL's name from the Land Registry, complain to LL, to LA, and keep at it till this is sorted.

It isn't off point at all. There were 4.6 billion worth of cuts to social care 6 years ago. People like the girl in the OP have been at the direct point of those cuts and her current situation is a direct result of those cuts. The fact it's impacting on her neighbours is directly the result of the cuts to social care. Its impact has been huge but unless you either work in the sector or have a vulnerable relative who relies on these services you may not have been exposed to it, either directly or indirectly.

No one is making the OP a scapegoat. Her life, her daughter's life, her neighbours lives are being affected by a vulnerable young woman who is at the centre of her local authority not having enough funding to put her in suitable accommodation with suitable care. Failing vulnerable people in our society and our communities is negligent. Denying it is happening and is ignorance at best.

Owllady I wondered how long it would take for someone to pop up and blame the Tories - so predicatable

And so true. Unless you are deluded enough to think the current Government is funding social care adequately?

Owllady has summed it up perfectly.

What an intolerable situation to be in.
I really feel for you OP, you have enough on your plate.😡
Do get in touch with the Police and the Authorities, they need to know.
As long as the LL is getting his rent money, he won't care.
Hope something gives. 💐

The OP's right to the peaceful enjoyment of her home is paramount and if the provision made socially for this young woman is inadequate that cannot affect the OP's rights. In that sense the talk about the stories is off the point. She cannot be expected to make up for the perceived failures of the (elected) LA and government.

because of course there has never been a non-Tory government....

anyway, not relevant. To correct some other fallacies on here:

• not all areas have compulsory landlord registration
• landlords should update the land registry with their own contact details (for their own protection) but not all do

and of course the only thing that the landlord can do is evict. This will take up to a year depending on the status of the tenancy, whether the landlord gets the paperwork right and the area where the property is situated.

nasty situation all round.

special, you really can't use the tactic of "other governments did it" in relation to the current crisis around council funding. This government has been in power for two years and its predecessor coalition government for 5, so it has to take sole responsibility for the current state of affairs.

I must say, the current state of funding for vital local authority functions terrifies me. We are constantly hearing of LAs completely failing to carry out their statutory duties with regard to special educational needs and disability provision, on both the education and social care fronts, and that in itself puts children in danger. But what is really worrying is that there seems to be reliable evidence that the cuts are impacting seriously on performance of their child protection duties, and realistically that is not in the least surprising. I was going to ask whether it would have to take child deaths to wake this government up, till I realised that even that wouldn't work because they'd just shuffle blame onto the hapless local council.

Well, the police were up there again last night for the 4th time this month, and she was banging and crashing around 'till the early morning hours. I shall sit down tomorrow and contact the people who need contacting.

At least there are no butts in my garden today, so perhaps they've told her to smoke out the back windows. I really should go check behind my flat and see if there's a mess there.

The way people in this thread are talking about people who live in homes/whether or not they should be living in them is honestly disgusting. There's been a number of posters saying 'they get to go on holiday' or 'they get to socialise and taken out etc'. Just fucking listen to yourselves and the language you're using. 'Get to' go on holiday??? 'Taken out every day'???? This is someone's life we're talking about, and you cannot deprive people of the liberty to live as they please because you don't think they have the capacity. I realise the OP is in a very difficult situation, but unless they're qualified to determine mental capacity and privvy to an enormous amount of personal and confidential info about this woman (and I'm betting the carer they yapped to isn't either - plus what happened to client confidentiality?). The rest of you seriously need to have a good long think about the language you use to talk about disabled people.

Bonadrag - Have you ever actually been in an assisted living facility. Have you seen what it's like? Have you experience in caring for someone with SN? I have. I have a SN daughter and worked as a carer. And yes, as part of our training we did assessment for capacity. Regardless of how strongly you feel about this, the fact is that some people DO NOT have the capacity for independent living. We may wish they did, but some people do not.

Or should we just leave them to hurt themselves and other people, because we don't want to offend anyone by saying they can't take care of themselves?

Bonadrag - another thing. One of the homes I worked in had a man in his 50s. He spent his entire day playing with children's squeaky toys, and basically lived for his two glasses of brandy & coke in the evening. He didn't even have capacity to wash himself in the shower. Should he be allowed to live by himself in his own home if he chose to? No, firstly, he didn't have the capacity to decide that, and secondly, it would've put him in serious danger.

Some things are not about offending someone's sensitivities, but are cold hard facts. If you are in any way disabled, I mean no offense to you, but you obviously have enough capacity to be on MN typing sensible sentences.

He didn't' have the capacity or understanding to decide that

I'm sorry I don't understand, she has three carers a day and a night career. When is she doing all this stuff?

The carers can't control her. And they're not legally allowed to physically restrain or 'grab' her (about the most you can do it put your hand in front of them to stop them running across a busy road). Carers are not actually legally allowed to grab someone to stop them falling off a chair, for example. Or to pick them up if they fall without the use of a hoist. So it's hard. Hence I suppose the police getting called when she gets totally out of control - they have the 'power' to restrain her.

This sounds completely unacceptable. She shouldn't need restraining, they should be managing her behaviours properly :(

So the carers are there and she's sitting in the road and someone else is calling the police? The carers are there when she is sitting throwing stones at your car? When she is throwing food out the windows?

I know, they sound like they haven't even received any appropriate training

I have no idea . When I spoke to the carer about it while she was cleaning up all the food and butts from my garden, she said she was totally unaware that all this was going on. The other neighbours told me they've been told the same thing by more than one of the carers. They don't seem to have a clue.

These are exactly the points that make me fear for this young girl. I don't think she's been adequately cared for, and she may be better off in a place where she has 24 hour care.

Yep. I am very very very familiar with supported living. Doesn't give me the right to judge anyone's capacity, nor does it give me the right to use dehumanising language about disabled people.

Another thing that worries me is that, when someone has an overnight carer, that carer is supposed to have her own bedroom and bed to sleep in. Right now they have two SN girls living in a 2-bedroom flat, so where is the carer sleeping?

Bonadrag - what dehumanising language? Stating facts is by no means dehumanising someone.

If you're in the uk, the stuff you've written about restraint is just not true. The currently ethos around restraint is Reasonable, Proportionate and Necessary so I'm not entirely sure why you're on here telling MN her carers can't restrain her. They can do far more than put an arm in front of her to stop her from being run over - that's utter bollocks. Also wtf is this company where the carers just yap about this poor service users business to her nosy neighbours?

Nobody in this thread has used any insulting or rude language, or said anything bad or wrong about any disabled person - they've all just shown concern.

And tbh, if I cared so little about SN or disabled people, would I really have worked as a support worker, and spent days pushing people around town in wheelchairs so they could visit all their favourite shops? I think you're just shit stirring.

If you can't see how people saying things like 'they get taken out every day' and 'get to go on holiday' and having her carers discuss her capacity with a neighbour is dehumanising then I give up. I really really do.