To resent our benefit claiming neighbours?

[kerala]

I worked really hard for 6 years for the deposit to this flat. DH is still slaving away doing 12 hour days (at least) to pay the mortgage and support us.

Our noisy neighbours have been given the flat next door to live in by the council. It is the same as ours. They spend the afternoons messing about in the garden with their DCs, drinking stella, smoking hash and destroying the peace of the neighbourhood. They keep fighting dogs because the council pays all the vets bills for them.

My DH would love to spend time at home with us. but trots off everyday to work. I used to consider myself a left wing guardian type but beginning to resent the thousands I have paid in tax so my neighbours can loll around in the sun all day. They are all able bodied and we live in London so cant believe there no jobs they could get.

Because they're at home making a noise rather than out at work?

their benefit claiming equates to funding their non stop party/chilling lifestyle - I think that was the point the OP was trying to make.

it's the drug use thing that bugs me. the fact that people are trying to be friendly by offering you drugs. hapenned when my bf was walking my (then) 10 y o dd to the shops, in broad daylight ( sorry, i may seem horribly old fashioned)

i bought my ex LA house when my ex left after spending some time in rented accomodation. It was the only way i could afford to get back on the housing ladder and get a 3 bedroom house. I was left in a lot of debt by my XP. and I'm not paid terribly well. I work because I don't want my kids to grow up thinking it's acceptable to be on benefits long term.

I can't wait to move. I've stuck the area out because i am actually building some equity in the house, but out of a block of twenty houses, only four familes have peopel working. I don't let my children out to play because i don't want them mixing with the other children ( the family next door but one has an ex junkie as a mum) I got my windows broken twice within a few weeks of moving in - so did the guy across the road who works. I absolutely loathe where we live. I am locked into my mortgage until next novemebr and then i am off, hopefully to a snmaller house in a better area - even if it means me sleeping in the living room.

I do sympathise with OP. my neighbours regard me as a complete idiot for being a single parent and working full time.

We are having to move. Its got too much. Which is a shame as we have been happy here and all the other neighbours (a real mixed bunch) are great. All I have mentioned plus fights on street at night, violent dogs escaping into and defecating in our garden despite us paying for higher fence etc.

Was scared to complain although we have called the council. Also they have kids would not want them homeless not the kids fault.

Also am not criticising benefit claimants per se of course not. But admit I am prejudiced against able bodied men that loaf around in flats in central London for 3 years making their neighbours lives unpleasant.

I think you're justified for being naffed off with them kerala. you shouldnt have to move either

The fact that they are claiming benefits with any obvious need is bound to be annoying!!!
It would annoy me, especially as dp works his butt off, and I am also going to have to get a job working a couple of nights a week, depriving myself of sleep to be able to afford a new house, as our landlord has decided to sell and we cannot find anything suitable within our budget. I don't think she is being classest but can you all honestly say, it wouldn't annoy you breaking your backs to support your family, and someone next door was not only making your life a misery by doing drugs/drinking/having loud gatherings in their garden etc and claiming from the tax we have all paid without genuine reason?? If these people are really unable to work then fine, but the fact is kerala has a valid point and doesn't need to be jumped on for daring to mention benefits. Also, I have claimed benefits before, so am totally pro-benefit.

I agree, kerala. Been there myself. Luckily we were renting.

But it's not as easy as 'just complain' because this can result in violence.

There was a poster on here who had neighbours like this.

It sounds like your main problem is not that they are on benefits per se but that they are disrespectful people. Was going to swear btw but thought i'd be polite. I am on benefits, for reasons which people will probably start complaining to me about, but i never ever cause disruption in our neighbourhood, i try to keep our noise down even during the day (for example, music is on headphones or low volume, and no running up and down stairs). We don't own cats, dogs, or a car, we don't smoke or drink, or go on holiday or trips out. We don't buy branded clothes, our furniture is cheap or secondhand. And we are a family of 5 in a two-bedroomed rented terrace.

Point being - not all people on benefits are jerks, please don't tar us all with the same brush.

I feel for you kerala - they sound like our neighbours.

One was housed as he had custody of child (who now doesn't live with him) His girlfriend stabbed him in the garden after a drunken screaming row last year. Next door to him are the sunday night partyers smoking drugs in the garden all summer meaning we have to keep windows closed. Shame you can't try before you buy to find these things out eh?

Kerala, I dont think you are being unreasonable at all!!!

Obviously, benefits are there for those who are unable to work but those lazy scroungers who are blessed to be able bodied, healthy and well able to work absolutely boil my blood...... hmm I wonder what their children will turn out like? poor pets...

''Just seems odd that people are given flats in central London. Never mind - they are moving on soon as they are having another baby so being given a bigger house. ''

excuse me? WTF so council tenants should be banished to the outskirts should they?

me and my family have griown up in central London and yes in council housing but guess what my family have always worked.

should we not maintain our roots? so people can buy out all the social housing and destroy the history of working class london.

I would really like to to explain your comment. I find it very offensive.

I don't get why you are moving if they will be gone soon and neighbourhood is otherwise ok.

YANBU Kerala. I knew loads of people who scrounged off the state in council flats when I lived in london, i used to hang around with a lot of them. Thats how they were bought up and they knew no different. it was their right to have more children and for the state to pay for it. it's a shame you have to move, you shouldn't be put in that position. I can highly recommend moving out of london, it's a much better quality of life (and cheaper I might add !!) much as i loved living there !

ah my dh was an 'able bodied man' for 3 years after dx. so many people looked down on us for being dole scroungers. 'why arent you both at work, why isnt he at work' 'what you claiming benefits' 'oooo look at you with you new car, wish i could have that' 'arent you lucky to live in a bungalow'

[sighs]

what you see isnt always the full story.

me23, I think OP meant that because they are in London, a huge city, they surely could find jobs if they wanted them.

where do you live kerala?

sounds a lot like my neighbourhood!

I can understand why they're pissing you off, but think you're conflating the council tenant bit with the bad behaviour bit.

It just makes you sound snobbish and arrogant when all you want to do is vent some spleen.

I agree that the problem principly is that your neighbors are disrespecful people. I think that what upsets you is not the fact that they are on benefits, but that they are on benefits, have the legal right of abode for free/greatly discounted that you and your husband work hard for, yet show no sense of respect or gratitude.

I believe in a welfare state, but I also believe in community responsibility. Those who have have a community responsibility to provide a safety net for those who need it, and those who are being helped by the community have the responsibility to try to give back to the community in whatever means possible. Implicit in this is everybody acting like responsible members of the community. The problem with your neighbors is that they are not doing this.

me23, if they are in central London, as I am, there are no houses here. Only flats. I am in a flat which I own. If I wanted a house here I would need 1.5 million. Literally. And that's for a 3 bed with no garden.

I think your post was looking to take offence at something.

Forgetting the obvious 'neighbourly' problems..If these people are feckin' around and having their rent and council tax paid and having some kind of income support too, then no, YANBU.

If there is a genuine disability which prevents them from working, then obviously none of the above applies.

Our benefits culture is crap, IMO. We have generations of families where I live, who have no expectations in life whatsoever. 'Poverty of aspiration' is the accepted term, I believe.

We run a daycare nursery and have recently given free care for 5 months to a family who have been with us since we opened, when the dad lost his job and until he started working again. These parents, like us, are both working their butts off to be able to afford a small house in London.

A couple of weeks ago a twenty something mother with a two year old came to look around our nursery. She explained that she wanted her daughter to go to nursery for three days a week so that 'she could have some time to herself.'

Fine. Many of our parents want their children to come to nursery to socialise, give them a break,whatever..

We got to the signing up part and discussed fees. The woman then told us that she couldn't pay because she was claiming benefits.

So. Who should pay for her daughter's place? And, more importantly, why does a seemingly able-bodied person feel that anyone else should?

kerala,

I fully understand what you mean. I think the problem is that the benefits system is too generous in this country. It takes away moviation and pride to work. There are a lot of people on benefits who could work.

Working tax credit needs to favour those who choose to work over those who don't. There needs to be better and affordable after school care. Prehaps there also needs to be day care available for those who look after disabled adults. Before forcing people off benefit it is necessary to remove obsticles to working.

Prehaps we need to have a system of workfare where people are forced to do volentary work if they have been on benefits for more than a certain periods of time rather like Germany.

pmsl that the council pay vet bills...what??!!!! lol. do you think we get our food shopping paid for us as well?

no offence, i just found it funny.

i agree with ladyvictoriaof cake, you don't know the full story. there may well be a reason they can't work,you ca,'t always see illness/disability.

That may be true, joking, but no excuse to go around being thugs.

Bubble,I am on my local Sure Start board.At monthly meetings we go through feedback form parents woh use our (excellent) nursery.

One was complaining that it wasn't open on Saturdays and Sunday.

I'm a right old hippy but sometimes the Margaret Thatcher in me rears her ugly head.

we try not to be thugs whilst claiming our benefits