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!

I got my utter scum of the earth (sound much like yours) neighbours moved. Took a year of hell and often daily contact with the council/community police etc. Who are bloody slow to act and also DF informing the pcos dealing with the matter (turned out he was pals with the scum next door and I complained about this and got him demoted and put on weekly review) that if the matter wasn't sorted within the next month he'd get family to sort the problem. Life is blissful now though I fought tooth and claw to get to here. However, we were both council lets and the problem with you being the owner is that if you try to fight your corner then end up selling anyway you'll have to declare the dispute with the neighbours which will probably put off buyers. Sadly, in your position I would sell up and move. Shit I know but not worth the stress of staying what with TTC? Its shite and I feel for you OP.

You need to record everything all day everyday. Contact the council and let then know your situation. So by then you will have some evidence to show them. It won’t be easy. But even if you do decide to sell. Having neighbors like that won’t make the selling process easy. Sorry op

We've been in the same situation, I agree with pp who are saying report, report, report. I was in daily contact with our local council team who deal with anti-social behaviour and I called the police when needed too. In the end my phone number was recorded on the police system so that I didn't even need to speak if I was too scared, and the police would arrive very quickly. The were out within 9 months, I had other neighbours that reported too so it wasn't their word against mine, and they were well known to the authorities before they moved in.

It is everyone's business to keep children safe from harm, so please call and report.

As per previous posters.

Social Services need to know about children and if police are involved, so much the better.

Can I suggest if you are frightened and upset by the noise of what you heard, you have a think about what those children , who are actually in the house with it, must have felt. I cannot believe you would not call the police. How far were you willing to let it go then, what if one of them killed the other ?
As others have said, bigger issues at play here than how you feel about having difficult neighbours.

Thanks for your replies, will read through properly later as on way out.

Please don't think I'm uncaring or unconcerned. l didnt want to go into their background as it shouldn't matter but to give some context, it's a family from the traveller community. Hence the children not going to school. They are both as aggressive as each other and the house the other side of them is currently unoccupied. We genuinely fear that by calling the police they will clearly know it was us and we worry about the repercussions.

Poor you OP.

Report the family to your local authority - the children should be in school and the Education Welfare Service will follow it up - you can do that anonymously..

I would seriously think about moving. We moved from a lovely house in London when the house next door became a multi occupancy house. We just knew that we wouldn't cope with all the hassle so put the house on the market

Once you start making formal complaints then you have to state that when you sell so getting out quickly may be the way to go.

That’s a tough one and I’d be afraid to report too, I completely understand, I can’t believe there are people trying to make you feel guilty for not getting involved. You live next door and your safety comes first!!
If it were me, I’d give it a year and see if they move out. Postpone IVF. It’s a very bad time to sell. But I’m not you and you and your husband are the only ones that can decide how much of this you can take.

Oh and I wouldn’t report. If you have to sell, you’ll have to disclose this....

I would still alert social services/police/letting agency about the relevant issues. Being part of the traveller community makes things harder for authorities to get sorted but still needs looking at.

Seamus - why does it make it harder for authorities to get it sorted?

There is violent assault happening in the house, there are children living there and you don't want to report to the police, I just stop can't get past that fact really

I have had a neighbour from hell and have been going through this for 3 years police and housing won't do anything I would just move if I could I would of moved ages ago the neighbour I have is pure evil and manipulative he has managed to turn everyone against me including new neighbours who moved in downs stairs I actually pray for the day he drops dead. don't judge me for that comment bevause if you knew the crap he put me through plus the 10k I lost defending his lies you would understand

I am very sorry for you op but if you can just move don't complain bevause it will start a war

You could call the council, environmental health for all the rubbish and safeguarding for the abuse and children. Ring the letting agency and tell them to come round and see what is going on, if they don't then speak to the police for advice. They need to be evicted.

weddings just because OP doesn't report doesn't mean a good solicitor wouldn't find other complaints and complainants.

Agree that it's a tough one for you OP. I would keep a log of sounds, noises and timings in a diary and a phone record for the time being. Including photos of what's being dumped etc. I would also try finding the house owners through the land registry and making sure I had contacts for the dodgy agency. Think about it and go on the legal side of MN or other sites to ask their thoughts.

I would also be concerned about the 4 children. Traveller children don't tend to go to school frequently because gasp they tend to travel, though the families often say they need a permanent home so their children can go to school. I'd be sad if it was another generation witnessing and learning violence (certainly not just travellers) and not learning how to read, write and enjoy what understanding education can give.

Don't traveller children have to go to school?

Police and social services. Sorry but it's your duty. Those poor kids.

Also, move. The property market in London is so quick, hopefully you'll be gone soon anyway.

@FelicityMorange if it didn't the OP wouldn't have mentioned it.

If you stay, you stand every chance of the same happening over and over. You live next to a rented property, and the Landlord doesn't give a stuff about who is in there as long as their rent is paid. My mum has had years of misery from her neighbours and the LL just doesn't give a shit. She's had EH, the Police and SS involved but it takes at least a year to get one lot out to be replaced by another as the LL doesn't maintain the property well and it gets more run down with each tenant. It's a desperate negative cycle, and her house doesn't stand a prayer of selling when you see the state of the place next door and with the dispute she'd have to declare. She desperately regrets not moving when it first started.

If you don’t want to call the police and get involved you can register your phone to text them.

Text every time there is a disturbance , when they ask for your name say you don’t want to get involved due to threat of harassmeant.

We had bottom floor tennant (drug addicts) evicted because I texted tlthe police multiple times after a druggie smashing up the windows downstairs.

Each incident goes against them x

I'm gobsmacked there are violent druggies living with kids and not sending them to school and people are saying not to report it!

Such a difficult situation, OP and very easy for others to tell you that you must contact the relevant authorities, easy when the outcome of that won’t affect you sitting in your armchair at home.

We had issues with a rented property. Our little Cul de Sac went from suburban bliss to police, camera, action, what seemed like every weekend. The difference in our case was that all neighbours contacted the leasing agents, the outcome of which this neighbour’s tenancy wasn’t renewed after 6 months and away he went to no doubt disrupt another street in the neighbourhood.

You are in a situation where if you do inform the authorities your NDN will know it’s you. You’re already intimidated by them, this will no doubt escalate the issue further. Unless they start fighting outside in the street and other neighbours complain I can see the issue you face.

Is there a way of finding out how long their tenancy agreement is for? Are there other neighbours you can talk to?

We were very lucky, I’m sure our lovely neighbour's was either 6 or 12 months.

If they moved in in April chances are there's a possibility you could not get their contact renewed at 12 months. So you need to lay the ground work now. The landlord, in the absence of complaints, would surely just renew it. Why wouldn't he? So you need to get the complaints in now.

Thank you all for your comments, some really good points on both sides. I understand everyone's concerns about the children. Sorry to drip feed, I was so tired when I wrote the OP, to reassure you 2 of the children are in their late teens/early 20s so this is why I am less concerned as they look after the kids too and could report the situation themselves/call police.

I don't feel comfortable calling social services etc about them not going to school (too late for 2 of them anyway!) as it would be obvious it was us. As some posters have said it is very easy when you are not in this situation to say you must report it but the reality is I am here on my own during the day as I work at home, I'm suffering from bad anxiety which I'm taking medication for and if their level of aggression is that bad towards eachother, l dread to think what it would be towards a NDN who decided to 'grass them up' to the authorities.

If I were in your situation I'd be having my house valued tomorrow. It sounds like it's unlikely to improve, unless they move out...and even then the next lot may be even worse. It's just not worth the stress OP.