Neighbour from hell issue- any advice please.

[Megan1489]

I am renting from a housing association and I have lived in this property for 6 years but the last 3 have been hell. My mum is terminally ill and my sister critically ill and I work full time. My neighbour has been racist, presented anti social behaviour - loud music and TV into early hours so it’s like I’m in her house with her, thrown rubbish in the garden everyday, swearing, name calling and spreading malicious lies. Every time we go out she runs to the window just to stare and questions if anyone comes to my house. The Housing association are aware and keep saying we will talk to her. There are over 357 incidents recorded. I’m so trapped and suffering from a lot of anxiety- I try not to let it show in front of my ill members of the family as I can’t put pressure on them. I don’t want to leave the house- I’m petrified of her. Please can someone advice what can I do? Thank you

Ask to see your housing association's anti social behaviour policy and check to see if they have followed it.
They should have tried a number of measures but with racist behaviour and persistent asb they could have invited her to sign an Acceptable behaviour contract, and/or sought an injunction from the County Court under the Anti-social Behaviour Crime and policing Act.
Keep on at your housing association until they take proper steps.

Make a formal complaint to the Housing Association, their complaints process should be available on their website. They have a duty to investigate and act upon anti-social behaviour and harassment and they are currently failing in that duty. If the complaint is not dealt with or you don't agree with the decision then you can escalate it to the housing ombudsman.

In the meantime you should log down every incident - date, time, what happened, and the names of anyone else who witnessed it. Contact your Local Authority and report it to their antisocial behaviour team, tell them the Housing Association are aware but not acting. I know it's unfair and shitty for you to have to go through the inconvenience but I'd also be applying to go on the housing register and signing up for a housing exchange in an effort to move away from her.

I’m really sorry that you are going through this
I hope you’re able to reach a resolution.

log anything you can with the police on 101 then you can request the record if you need it. Contact your local MP and Councillor and get them involved.
Speak to your GP and get it on record that it is effecting your health.
If you are able to take photos or video record her behaviour it is useful for evidence.
Don't engage with her at all and keep reporting it. Call them every day if you have to.
I have been where you are. You just have to keep on at them.

Agree with previous posters. Also, have you downloaded the noise app? You can record noise related incidents and keep for evidence.

So sorry you are going through this. Don’t know what to do but wanted to send you good wishes. Hang in there.

Hi. Thank you all so much!

@Boomboomboomboom- they have given her over 17 behaviour contracts but no court order. They keep saying they dont want to take her to court.

I have been logging every incident and the housing association have over 1000 recordings on the Noise app which they refuse to act upon. I have submitted a Noise diary to accompany this and all they keep saying is that we will contact her. I have had to install CCTV as she sent someone to my property in the middle of the night to bang on my front door and she keeps throwing rubbish which is all caught. They have all this evidence and still say it’s not good enough. I have indeed made a formal complaint and they are now saying with covid it will take a long time to investigate (which is understandable). I have also reported this to the council who keep saying ‘oh keep a log‘. I contacted my local councillors who said report it to the Council so it’s like going around in circles. I contacted my GP who has put me on tablets and the housing association actually asked are they really for the stress with the neighbour which I thought was disgusting.

I have contacted the police who have asked me to report it online which I have done and they never come back to me. I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle.

I wish I could move but my mums not got long left and the hospital is only 5 mins away from here and it’s closer for me to get to work and home if anything happens to my mum and sister.

Any idea if the local MP will help and how would I contact them? Thank you again!

You shouldn’t be having the enjoyment of your home ruined like this. Your HA should have a robust anti social behaviour policy & following it to the letter. I’m sure in my HA we would’ve got to court on the racist comments long ago, never mind the rest. Do not continue to tolerate this! @Boomboomboomboom & @KKSlider Offer excellent advise. You may also want to think about going to your MP or local Councillor this will pull the HA up sharp.
Good luck!

Some advice here about how to contact your MP.

You should also speak to a solicitor ideally a law centre, community type law organisation who can advise you.

Would the HA move you within the same area? They really aren’t doing enough here. They need to take into account the massive impact this is having on you. They must know of something you dont if they won’t take a legal route. But that isn’t your problem at all.
As a HO I’d not want this on my patch & id do my utmost to get it resolved.
I feel very sorry for you 🥺 x

Keep escalating and don't let your local councillor fob you off. Go back to them again and go to your MP and I would also phone 101 for police instead of using the website as its harder to ignore. Ring everytime there is an incident and follow up with complaints if nothing happens. Don't give up! You are coping with a lot op

Follow their complaints process and keep record of all contact with the HA. To take the complaint further (i.e. to the housing Ombudsman) you have to have been through their complaints process first. Yes Corona will allow things down but there is no reason why they couldn't deal with it before and Corona is not an excuse to justify doing nothing.

There may be mental capacity issues if has breached 17 Acceptable behaviour contracts which is why they have not gone for an injunction, or the HA may just be crap.
Alternatively mediation may be appropriate (but it doesnt sound like it)
Even still for this sort of behaviour I would expect an injunction or if that was inappropriate because of fears the tenant could not, as opposed to choice based would not comply (capacity issues) issue possession proceedings with the aim of getting a suspended possession order as a minimum.
Keep on at the housing association.

If your HA and councillor has been useless, ring them again and tell them the local paper is interested. They are scared of bad publicity. (I used to work in housing and it shocked how quickly they suddenly jumped when the papers got involved!) If that doesn't work actually call the papers - daily fail loves a HA bashing story, so use that.

Have you spoken to your other neighbours?

Take all the advice above, don't do 1 thing and wait weeks to see what happens, be relentless, keep complaining to as many agencies as you can, you may feel like you're being a pain but it shows your desperation. Good luck.

I really feel for you OP as we're going through a similar thing.

We own. She rents. It's been four years of absolute hell. Constant smell of cannabis, she's verbally abused me, she's spat at me, her son is feral, violent fights between her and men, she can't talk - everything is shouted, loud music, throws her household waste directly into her garden, videos us in our garden. It's been absolutely horrendous.

The Police have been absolutely useless - because every time they go out to her she spins them a load of lies about us (me in particular). The annoying thing is they never ask me about these lies so I don't get chance to put them right. The local authority can't even be bothered to respond to me. Her landlord isn't interested. I've got a log about 16 pages long of antisocial behaviour incidents but they just fob it off as a "neighbour dispute". There is no "neighbour dispute" - this is a sustained course of anti social behaviour by one person, who is known to the Police and the local authority and was thrown out of her last house for poor behaviour.

Last weekend she actually posted a horrendous fabricated disgusting statement on Facebook about me and my husband. And another post containing horrendous lies. She's made numerous untrue allegations about me - even alleging I went into her son's school about her. I've had to contact the school direct for them to prove this is untrue. She's a very dangerous and unstable individual. The Police won't do a thing. This almost tipped me over the edge. I'm currently trying to get an appointment to discuss matters with my GP as I don't know how much longer I can go on. I've never experienced anything like this in my life - I've never been in any trouble with the Police, I have a good job and I don't go looking for trouble. It's totally beyond me how anyone can live like that.

I've now taken the step of making a report to the Police Commissioner for our area. I also sent a formal complaint to the Council threatening to report them to the Local Government Ombudsman - lo and behold I finally got a holding acknowledgement out of them.

It's incredibly unfair that people like us should have to put up with such abuse in our own home.