Feel like I am living in a nightmare

[newnamesa]

Sorry if this is a long post but dont want to drip feed.
I live in a shared house in a housing co-op. For the last two years myself and family (and one other tenant) have been harrassed by another tenant. It has got to the point that I am on two types of medication due to this issue.
He was an aquaintance that showed up at my door asking could he leave his bike at my place, so I said of course. It them transpired he had been eviceted and asked to stay. As the house was very underoccupied I said of course. He was granted a tenancy, even though he was evicted due to none payment of rent/bills at his last place due to me sticking up for him as I thought it was only fair as he was street homeless and the co-op house was vertually empty.
Anyway since then he has inflicted a living nightmare on everyone else who lives here.
Ill feeling started off when the bills came in. He took my asking him to pay his share as a person attack and since then has sworn to make our lives a misery.
He assulted me about a year ago and the police did nothing. He sends long rambling abusive emails and texts. He has called me a sloppy bitch in an email that he sent round to the whole co-op. He messes around with the bills, getting the power company to delay issuing bills till they mount up and then claims he is not liable. These are just a few highlights of an ongoing campaign.
He has described his behaviour as 'psychological warefare' and warned me that he knows what he is doing. And he does, he is careful to stay just inside the law. (forinstance he no longer used my name in his abusive letters, small details like that, that I only find out when I go to the police that it counts as not addressed to me)
The housing co-op have been worse than useless and are doing nothing. Because I have never been in a relationship with him all the domestic violence services say its not DV. The police say the landlord should be dealing with it.
I am at the point of feeling utterly hopeless and can see anyway out of this.

• *[Edited by MNHQ to remove identifying info] **

Thanks, I will try the MP in person this time. He gets UC for food and stuff I guess? He could be on the sick, his rent is paid by HB.

Are you covering his share of the bills at the moment?

The co-op agreed to take the utilities in to their name as he was not paying and it affected our credit scores but he got the accounts changed back in to his name. And the co-op just accepted it. Its bonkers all round.

No I refuse to. He has conned hundereds out of all of us over the last two years by his chaotic nonesense. He creates so much confussion over bills its difficult to keep track. Forinstance he will not pay his share and it gets carried over to the next bill and so on, untill no one even knows who owes what anymore and thats one of the ways he gets away with it.
As I said I had no idea how easy it is to con and confuse people/companies till now.

I would not have believed something like this could happen till it happened to me. People are right that I was incredibly nieve to let him move in but he was homeless and the house was vertually empty, also I have never met someone like him before and I think till you have experianced someone with a personality disorder its very difficult to understand just how toxic they can be.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Never, ever try to help a poor payer with housing!
It’s just going to end badly.

People know how to take gross advantage, and the one helping pays the price, usually.

Leave people like this to professionals, don’t attempt to help out.

@EishetChayil

Everyone I know who has lived in a co-op has experienced this sort of thing. Just as much as cooperative living attracts brilliant community-minded folk, it is also a magnet for the absolute dregs of society.

Either get a group together and evict him by force, or move out.

Yes, I used to know some people that lived on a fairly large Co-Op. And in each house of four people, there would often be one person who was addicted to alcohol or hard drugs, and/or had serious personality problems.

The funny thing is, whenever a room came up in one of the houses, they would be absolutely swamped with applicants from the lovely, energetic, positive, etc, people.

Yet it was incredible difficult/impossible to remove any of the troublesome people already living there, unless they did something that literally got them sent to prison.

Maybe also the fact that the rent is so cheap and the tenancies are so secure meant that people in the Co-Op tended to either spiral upwards or downwards?

Many people used the financial freedom of super-cheap rents to be productive in other ways. But sadly others just fell into addiction, paranoia, and mental ill-health.

I think you really need to try to move. No you won't find another place for £40 a week. But how much is your peace of mind worth? I happily took an increase in rent to be away from a nightmare neighbour. You can take your furniture, dig up your plants, that's not a problem. You should recommend the other (sane) tenant leave too. And when you go make it clear to the landlord why they are losing a good tenant.

You make it sound like your dc's are grown up. Could you move closer to one of them?

I don't think you were naive to help him get a tenancy. How were you to know how volatile he was going to become?

I know someone like this. She comes across as chatty and friendly and funny, but it takes only the tiniest thing for her to decide you are her mortal enemy. I watched her get into a physical fight with her next door neighbour on the doorstep, they left, and months later she was fighting the new neighbour on the doorstep. She went off me because I bumped into her outside Costa and didn't offer to buy her a coffee (I wasn't going in to Costa, I was just walking past.) That type of person is impossible to cope with.

Maybe an obvious suggestion, but have you tried CAB? They can be incredibly helpful with this sort of thing. Perhaps also shelter could advise??

What exactly happened when you went to you MP before? Did you go in person?
Also what was the police's reason for not acting on the assault? That's not within the law. I would have thought it would be unacceptable in terms of the tenancy, as well.

Aren't you worried about your credit rating etc if the bills are in all your names and not being paid? I would speak to the utility companies and see if there is any way that they can split the bill between each individual tenant group so you can pay your way and he will have issues if he doesn't pay his share of the bill.

OP, just wait till he is out one day, change the locks and put his stuff on the front lawn. If he can break the law so can you.

Why don’t the management just evict him?

Do you have a lock on the door of your specific living space(s)? Do you have heating in your living space that he can't access and that you can turn on or off/control the temperature?

@TheRigatonini

Why don’t the management just evict him?

Because it's a housing co-op, so he kinda is the management?

Because it's a housing co-op, so he kinda is the management?

Fair enough - you can probably tell, I’m not fully familiar with how it works. The OP mentioned a management committee and s tenancy agreement, so I wasn’t sure if there was an elected group (or something) responsible for administering everything.

Can he not be evicted by the other members then?

In light of that it seems absolutely mad that the OP asked him to move in and vouched for him despite knowing little about him other than that he didn’t pay his rent at his last place.

I know you’ve more than learned that lesson OP so not intended as a dig! But I’m just amazed that he can really veto his own eviction – there must be some sort of contract in place, surely??

Actually sorry, TheRigatonini, what I said isn't really accurate.

It'll be as you say, with a separate structure/committee that deal with such issues.

But eviction will be difficult because the troublesome housemate will himself get support from well-meaning people/organisations, and he probably is vulnerable in his own way. Plus the co-op committee will probably be minded to be very accommodating towards people with mental health issues - as they're not the ones having to live with him.

It's a pity if he can't be convinced to leave the flat because he must see that he's the newcomer! For the co-op to find him a flat where he can live on his own would seem like the best solution for everyone.

How many people live in the house? It sounds like you have kids, how many bedrooms do you have and do you just have to lock your bedroom doors at night? Or would you do that anyway?

Sorry, I'm really not familiar with this set-up.

It sounds like a lot of people aren't familiar with it to be honest, so it's difficult to give good advice.

I guess it comes down to two options really though - fight or flight. You've lived there so long it would be awful if you had to move....but ultimately you might have to.

If you and the other tenant both threatened to leave would that hold any sway?

The Ombudsman generally does insist that their timescales are met, so go back to them and tell them that the co-op has not co-operated (oh the irony); that should hopefully spur them on to do something.

Somebody must be responsible for sorting this. It's just finding out who and forcing them to act.

What type of tenancy does he have? Many housing cooperatives don't even offer tenancies with security so it's incredibly easy to evict.

If your landlord is a registered social landlord the very least they should be looking at is an injunction under the Anti social behaviour crime and policing Act 2014.

There is more than enough evidence of antisocial conduct towards you and your fellow residents. They can even use it aa an opportunity to restrain his excessive communications with them too.

Thanks for the explanation @manolantern

It seems like rules / contracts should be treated separately from sympathies for personal issues. I mean, fair enough something like that might be cause for a bit of slack on a discretionary basis if someone is struggling with finances or day to day organisation.

And I mean, don’t most people have mental health issues of one sort or another at some point? It can’t be free licence to harass people. Perhaps the committee could be persuaded that this man‘s needs and issues are beyond the scope of what support they are set up to provide and they are in fact letting him down by enabling this continued conflict and discord in his (and his neighbours‘) living environment. The responsible thing to do would be to enforce the agreed rules of the co-op and find somewhere suitable for him.

The co-op would happly rehouse him but he has refused to take anywhere. His obsessive behaviour is very focused on me, who he talks about as the boss of the house [confsed]
He 'has swarn never to move so I can never have the house back', he sees it as we are locked in some battle, which is nuts. We all tried to help him when he moved in.
Its like its his life mission to destroy my life so him moving out would never do as it would be giving me what I want.

I am not totally sure why the co=op are so reluctant to evict him. Its possible they want the house emptied to sell it and are seeing corin as a gift in this respect. He will eventually clear the house and then they will evect him for harrassment. Bingo. Empty house!

I had another distressing email from the co-op this afternoon and I got in a real state about it and called the kids dad and he offered to swap with me. He has a two bed in Primrose Hill and its only £170 a week, still a real hike but I could do it on my salary.
I am seriously thinking about it. My ex is a tough bugger as well so bully boy would be in for quite a shock, which is a very pleasing thought.

My ex has a girl friend who could swap with my youngist which would also be good. She has a child and partner who is also a very tough guy