Would you tell somebody in this situation?

[recoveringthesatellites]

Basically we've lived in our current home almost 2 years. There are neighbours across the way who have 4 children aged probably 7,8,12 and 16/17 if I hazard a guess. There are 3 adults living there normally (mum, dad and another woman).
We haven't had any direct issues with them except for them fly tipping furniture, car parts etc on the road which they did remove once asked to but only when asked to after they'd been there a while. I'm purely trying to give background info so our concern makes sense.
They have their curtains closed all day and night which is fine but I don't think it's a nice atmosphere for the children but each to their own I suppose.
A couple of weeks ago another adult man moved into the property (we are assuming this because his car has been there since and he unpacked loads of bags and bedding etc when he arrived).
Today we watched the father fill up a double air bed in the street. He duct taped a pipe to the car exhaust then instructed the 12ish year old to get in the drivers seat and pump the pedal, thus filling the air bed with exhaust fumes until it was firmly full and the child then carried it into the house.

Wtf?? We can't be the only ones finding this strange?
So they're subletting we assume (I know for certain that it is a council property) and also I feel that the children are living in a fairly dangerous environment if the father thinks that this is acceptable. If that is to leak in the night surely it would be incredibly dangerous?

So my question is: what would you do about this? Do I report this to the council or what? I don't want to get them into any trouble but I just feel the living arrangements and the fact that someone is sleeping somewhere in the house on an air bed filled with carbon monoxide is a bit of a cause for concern. The property is either a 2 or 3 bedroom (that's what they all are, no bigger).

I'm a bit baffled really and we are at a loss what to do if anything so decided to ask here.

[RAOK]

You did the right thing. You could have potentially saved those children’s lives.

[PopsicleHustler]

Oh my god. I would evne phone the police. I once had an air bed when I first moved into my first ever place as Argos said it would be ages before my proper double bed would be delivered and so I slept on an airbed. It would deflate all the time. And sometimes would pop I had to tape it or use the material given to patch it back up. Most of the time I would wake up and would be on the floor as it was so useless.


This is so dangerous. And it sounds like they don't have a clue they could be putting themselves and their children at risk. If that airbed pops then they could all be in serious danger. Filling the room or house with carbon monoxide or dangerous gases. I'm not entirely sure. The police need to be involved as well as the social services. The police should come drag out the mattress and empty it safely somewhere. I would even call the fire department i am not being ott. I would if I saw my neighbours doing that and knew the children in there are at risk.
How awful!

[SteelyPanther]

If you are concerned about the children you could always contact the school nurse anonymously. She will ask school safeguarding lead if there’s any concerns and act upon it.

[Toddlerteaplease]

@steelypanther. School nurses are impossible to track down and will be unlikely to do anything. Better to contact the school directly.

[SteelyPanther]

I suppose it depends upon where you live. Ours are excellent but it’s been harder to contact them since they went over to a private company, along with the health visitors.
They both used to be based in clinics but now they’re forced to work in their cars and WFH.

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

I can’t say I’d be stressing over closed curtains or who’s sleeping where, but the air bed thing is potentially dangerous, so for that reason alone it was worth the call.

[recoveringthesatellites]

The police did turn up last night, the dad answered the door (the mum wasn't in) and they never went in or anything, they were only there about 10 minutes. The dad was clearly getting angry/agitated but they left anyway so not sure if it's going to be passed on to somebody else.
He did open some curtains slightly after the police had left and we could see the air bed stood up against a wall in the children's upstairs bedroom though so he never took it out or brought it out to deflate and all the curtains are closed again now so not sure if it's still in there but haven't seen any of them this morning.

[MaryRaddy]

Thanks for the update OP I had been thinking about this. I wonder how that conversation went then?! You've done all you can do.

[slightlyoutting]

Bloody hell thats awful and an awful response from the police. At least they should have done was to have a walk around to make sure the children are safe.

My mind boggles how anyone would even come up with attaching the air bed to the car. There’s always the hair drying trick which is the first thing to come up on google.

Poor children. Thank you for reporting it as action needs to be taken.

[Emeraldshamrock]

The police will follow up with SS if the father was irritated and unhelpful they probably couldn't go in to check on hearsay unless invited without a warrant.

[Coconutbug]

It's a good idea to report if there are dangerous practices like you say. Regarding the amount of people living there obviously some might be unregistered but I know council's have funny rules about what can count as a living space. So it's not just bedrooms if that makes sense, any downstairs rooms that can fit a bed in could also be classes as a 'bedroom' so they may not do anything about the amount of people living there except maybe if they were unregistered I guess