To want to move (nightmare neighbours)

[ohbigdaddio]

DH and I live in London and own our small 3 bed house. Live in a nice area, been here 8 years, have friends here, 2 mins from train station and central London is close for work and leisure.

All good so far!

The property next door is rented out to people on housing benefit by a really dodgy agency. (We found articles about the agency keeping thousands of pounds of housing benefit from some of its landlords.) The landlord lives abroad and has nothing to do with the property as far as we can tell. We don't know the landlord's name/contact details.

Anyway, we haven't had any major issues until last April when a family - 2 adults, 4 kids - moved in. They make a lot of noise, kids don't go to school and are up and noisy at all hours, the parents don't work, have lots of bonfires, rubbish piled up in front garden. The couple themselves are pretty intimidating and both look like they could easily beat the crap out of me and DH.

They have arguments that flare up out of nowhere and from what we can gather from overheard shouting, the man is a drug addict... she always calls him a smackhead/crackhead/pillhead. Nice. Their volume of day to day living is high - even when not angry the mum shouts requests to the kids to bring her fags downstairs, ask them what they're doing etc.

Last night the parents were arguing and when I say arguing I mean screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs, physically fighting, dragging each other downstairs, pretty nasty stuff, from midnight til 2am. It was scary, I wanted to phone police but DH said we shouldn't get involved. As well as being scary it kept us awake and made me very anxious about living here.

I work at home so often hear shouting during the day too though not usually violent arguments like this one. I am so anxious about seeing them that I get my keys out of my bag 5 minutes before I reach our front door so that I can go into our house immediately!

I'm on medication for anxiety and on top of all this we are due to start our 2nd round of IVF soon. We have no DC yet and desperately want a family. If we are lucky, I can't imagine dealing with this plus a newborn baby.

As far as I see we have 2 choices -

A) we ride it out and hope they move on soon

Or

B) we sell our house and move.

Neither of us see this as our forever home (sorry to use that phrase!) and imagined if we moved again it would be to a bigger home further out of London when we hopefully have a family, maybe in 5-10 years time.

A is quite straight forward though not very bearable... I'm worried about the impact of living with this on my stess/anxiety levels.

B is more difficult because firstly how could we sell the house with all this going on next door? We could afford to move to another house exactly the same size/era as ours (small 3 bed) but we will lose money through stamp duty, fees etc
We really need money for IVF and I am worried about the extra stress of moving on top of going through IVF.

All in all I feel it's an impossible situation and feel we are trapped. Any thoughts welcome and appreciated. Has anyone else moved solely due to issues with neighbours?

And thanks if you read the whole post!

That does sound very stressful.

I had a thread about annoying neighbours and everyone told me to move house - but I don’t think that’s the answer.

Have you tried contacting the landlord? Does he/she care that disruptive people might damage their property?

Have you ever spoken to the letting agent about them?

I also think that if you think the violence is that bad you could call the police. What if someone got hurt?

As you don’t yet have children I’d do the first option but for a set amount of time. So you know that something is going to change.

Try to avoid them as much as you can. You are never going to be able to change them into anything other than what they are. Report them to the police if necessary though. Don’t ignore them killing each other.

In the meantime start planning your next step.

You heard people being assaulted and you did nothing because your DH didn't think you should get involved?

If you're reasonably able to move, do so. We had to move out of ours while it was on the market with morons next door and go into rented. Best thing we ever did.

I would not want to undertake something as stressful and life changing as IVF while living in fear of going home. Our neighbour problem, which we fought for three years before giving up, nearly split us up and we were both ill by the end.

Try your house on the market if you think it might sell. We ended up with a BTL investor buying ours and I walked away without the guilt of selling to someone who was going to live in it.

Please don't ignore what sounds like domestic abuse. Call the police. It sounds like there may well be safeguarding issues for the children, too. My local force are very pro-active when it comes to raising safeguarding matters where there is DA, although I appreciate that the Met may have bigger fish to fry.

Report noise nuisance and other anti-social behaviour to the council and the letting agents.

Deathstare dunno if you've ever been in the OP's position? I have and I know what the repercussions are.

Phone the police every single time anonymously (obviously they'll know it's you calling but just decline to provide your name) put the phone out the window etc so they can hear the disturbance (without the neighbours seeing you) we had this once,I reported every tiny incident to the police and the estate management company and it took about 12 months from when they first moved in but they were evicted. In your case I would just move, easier to move now then when pregnant/with a baby.good luck.

Oh and they never knew it was us because I was always super nice to their faces, even offered to help them move. Keep your enemies closer!

I can completely sympathise with you, we had similar problems with our old neighbours (minus the drugs). When we bought got the house the neighbours were lovely but they moved after about 5 years. We had neighbours from hell move in, with the most unruly kids you can imagine. They had loud arguments, dog barking, doors slamming, car on the drive used to store crap... came home one da6 and he had parked one of those sand and gravel lorries on the drive!,

I’m easy gong but was so sick of their kids leaving their toys all over my garden we had to fence it off in the end (came home one day to find my newly built door step had been coloured in with felt tips)My daughter was scared to play out in the street as the kids next door and their mates bullied her.

It was a lovely place to live I was so happy but they turned it into a living hell so the day I saw the for sale sign go up was AMAZING. We had considered moving and had been looking as same as you we couldn’t stand it anymore.

Don’t be driven out, contact the council, make a fuss and hopefully they will be killed caked out and become someone else’s problem

Next time call the Police. Keep calling them every time they are disturbing the peace. Eventually they will either keep it down or move.

Deathstare dunno if you've ever been in the OP's position? I have and I know what the repercussions are

Yes I have. Several times. I can't ever imagine ignoring somebody being assaulted. I'd deal with any other issues later. I'm not suggesting the OP goes round herself but definitely phone the police.

Why don't the children go to school?

Could you contact the relevant authorities and report that? It might be the start of some positive intervention.

I think you can find out who owns the house quite easily. I'm not sure of the specifics but I think it involves going to the land registry website.
If you could get in touch with the landlord, maybe he/she could kick the letting agents into action.
Having said that, if they're withholding housing benefit/rent from landlords, maybe they won't get very far.

I agree with PPs; always call the police when things like this are going on. Especially with children involved. If Dad is a drug addict and they're both violent with each other, there are some serious safeguarding issues going on.

Good luck!

You must always phone the police! Getting 'involved' means going round there and trying to sort it yourself - so no, don't get 'involved' at 2am when they're dragging each other down the stairs.

They have kids? Social Services.

Don't under estimate the toll on your physical and mental health when you have a baby. You and your baby don't need this environment.

Not your forever house? Move. You're going to do it so do it now. They might move themselves, they might not. You can't control that. You can control what you do. It's shitty that you are 'forced' into it but you were doing it anyway only a bit later. You don't have to move away from the area. 3 bed in London with good connections into town is going to sell.

Chin up and good luck!

We had a very stressful summer last year with NDN. I've just found two inches of regrowth around my forehead which me as some of my hair must have fallen out with the stress.

You have two options:

A) move - which you shouldn't have to do
B) wait it out until the NDN move on. Keep a diary, sound recordings and take photos and report it to the lettings agency. Unless an actual crime is being committed, the police don't get involved in neighbourhood disputes. The crime here seems DV and drugs. Is there any evidence of child neglect that you could contact social services with?

sometimes the stress just isn't worth it.

Contact your local council and report noise nuisance, they should send a letter to the property stating they have had a complaint, but your details are not divulged, you will be asked to keep a diary of the problems to enable the council to take action if necessary. Sometimes the letter calms things down. If you feel there is violence happening you need to call the police, also contact social services about the children, it can't be a good environment for them. You will feel better for doing what you can to sort the issues instead of burying your head in the sand.

There's a safeguarding issue being glossed over here. Those 4 kids sound to me like they are at risk. It is your duty, whether you want it or not, then report the violence to the relevant authorities. DV / DA around children is extremely damaging and needs to be dealt with. Please do 'get involved' and make an anonymous report to SS if you suspect that this is happening.

Social services now, those poor kids.

I too had neighbours from hell. It's not a good time to be selling up, but frankly that's what I would advise. You don't know what it is like until it happens to you. You have my sympathies OP.

I'd sell up and move. Its not worth the stress. I'd be worried they'd confront me if I called the police! We had awful neighbors years ago, we moved, such a relief!

Be careful calling the police if they'll definitely know it could only be you that called them. As much as its great to want to protect people from abuse, you need to think of yourself too. I had similar neighbours, they have no children though thankfully, and have called the police on a few occasions. The guy turned up at my door with a baseball bat one night when it was just me and the kids home. He smashed my windows in because I wouldn't open the door. They've since been evicted but we're moving anyway.

Report it if you feel safe to. Otherwise, I'd honestly look at moving. But neighbours are the luck of the draw unfortunately. You might end up with shitty neighbours no matter where you move.

I agree with contacting your local council. You’ll be asked to fill out a noise diary, then once full they’ll likely attach the devices to monitor noise then pursue with resolving the issue.

Good luck.

We are desperately trying to move due to neighbours from hell. They are a different sort, but the stress has been unbelievable.

Unfortunately now is a terrible time to sell, so we are renting it out instead (having had 2 sales fall through on exchange). We have had to take money out of the equity and will be getting a mortgage on a house elsewhere.

Be aware that you must reveal any disputes with neighbours, or anything you know of that may become a dispute.

Sadly, calling the police falls under dispute.

We did reveal our dispute with our neighbour, but as it wasn't noise related (it was a boundary dispute)both buyers went with it. We didn't say that in our opinion the guy is psychotic- that isn't a dispute!

The stress is unbelievable, isn't it? Every time I am.aware of them I tense up. I hate them, I feel they have robbed me of 2 years of my life. I am on anti depressants because of them.

Spend £3 on the land registry site, but it may not help - only decent landlords register rentals to their own address.

I've no sympathy for druggie couple but the kids have no choice. It is very difficult for the police to get enough evidence to raid a drug den. Try the council for advice.

Been there, done that, similar domestic violence situation. I called the police then had a year of noise torture from the wanker neighbours, all night, every night. Environmental Health were heavily involved.

The neighbours who’d been there 30 years moved (wanker neighbours in upstairs flat so affected us downstairs and next door). We moved. I declared everything. I just couldn’t cope. We stayed out as much as possible, cost us a fortune, but pushed us into buying a house much sooner than planned.

It was the most stressful period of my life, so my answer would always be to move, sorry, OP.