To ring social services on my neighbour?

[EllieRosesMammy]

So basically, I've lived next to my neighbour for 4 years now who has 2 young kids (5 & 4 I believe). She's a nice enough person but every single day she's sat out the front of her house smoking weed and drinking lager, and I don't mean just a can I'm talking about a whole crate and then off to the shop for more. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen her bring a food shop home over the years, yet the daily trips to the shop for lager are constant. The kids are left at home to roam in and out of the house while she goes off on her booze runs too. And if she's gone for a long period of time for anything I'm pretty sure that when she doesn't leave them with some teenagers (not sure who they are) they're actually left completely alone in that house. Her children (and others from the street) are also allowed to roam around on the road outside, which constantly has cars traveling up and down - the other day one of them, who must of been about 3 years old, ran out infront of my mams car and nearly ended up squished! When my mum confronted my neighbour and said "excuse me but one of your little ones just nearly ended up under my car" she replied without a care "oh yeah that's our Charlie, he's got adhd"?!?! Didn't bother to bring him in, or seem remotely fussed he nearly ended up dead. Also her house absolutely stinks of drugs & animal faeces, so bad so that if she has her door open I have to close my windows because the smell bellows in. I've glanced in to her house a few times as I've walked past and I've honestly seen better looking smack dens. Another thing is she will frequently have angry, drugged up men banging at her door during the night. She's had her windows put through 3 times and just the other day there was a man stood at her door, snorting either ketamine or cocaine off the wall, threatening to head butt her.

AIBU to report her to the social? Surely this isn't an acceptable way to be bringing up children, and I'm concerned that one of these days something really bad is going to happen to them.

If the house is full of animal faeces you should also call the RSPCA since the animals are also living in unsafe conditions.

They might also be able to make a referral to SS about the kids since there is a link between animal abusers and child abusers.

Staggered someone needs to ask that question with the information in the OP.

For anyone who hasn't been reading my replies and keep asking the same questions:

1. I hadnt reported it until now because I've always worked a lot and am rarely home myself so I didn't realise how bad it really was,

2. I already believe SS are involved with most of the families in the area but never seem to do anything, as they are always warned when SS are coming so manage to make things seem in order eg. Tidying the house, staging what the children say etc

3. I didn't have any solid proof of what was happening until I installed cctv, without any proof SS are reluctant to do much

4. as I am one of the few families without any SS involvement it will be fairly obvious who has reported her, especially when I tell them about the smell coming from her house. All the other neighbours surrounding wouldn't report her as they are just as bad, and I was worried about the reprocussions of getting involved. I have two young children myself and don't want my windows being put through.

For what it's worth, SS have now been informed. Whether they do much or not is another question. As far as ringing the police goes they take long enough to respond when there's an actual violent crime occuring (for example they took 6 hours to show up when my old neighbour had her windows and door put through, and she was in that house with 5 children). I rang the police last week when there was a man threatening to head butt her in front of her children and they weren't even remotely concerned until I also mentioned I had seen him snorting drugs off the wall. Cleveland police don't seem to care about anything other than drug offences

Not sure which area of Teesside you're from where this isn't a common occurance, but I'll assume it's not Eston, Grangetown, Southbank or those surrounding areas as unfortunately it's rife round here.

Don't just report it, report it repeatedly, report it to everyone you can (police, SS, school etc) and whatever you do, DO NOT report it anonymously.

Sadly most anonymous reports are ignored because they're impossible to evidence and follow up.

For example, the family I know of who even with existing social services involvement, the neighbours repeated anonymous reports were written off every time...

Don't report it anonymously? Are you mad? So when she finds out it was me who reported her and my car and house gets smashed up, and her druggy friends make my life a living hell, that'll be okay will it?

People round here don't deal with things in a civil manner, they get aggressive.

There is genuinely no point reporting at all if it's anonymous- it will not help the children in any way.

And they don't share who made the report, it just means they can follow it up with you and it's less likely to be a false report.

I think the poster is getting a hard time here. She’s reasonably asked if she should report this and is looking for reassurance she’s doing the right thing. If people are ridiculed or made to feel silly when they ask questions, they may not ask in future and a situation like this may go unreported.

Anonymous reports are followed up. I’m a school safeguarding lead. If someone reports something anonymously through NSPCC the NSPCC contact the local authority and they contact the school to flag it up and ask if the school has any concerns.

You might want to speak to the social workers about how much weight is actually put on it, because that's just not true in my area. Even with existing SS involvement, there is no investigation of anonymous reports being a box ticking exercise.

@EllieRosesMammy should report it anonymously, no good will come of putting her family in danger
she is doing her duty reporting it @HappilyHadesBound , what SS do with it is out of her control

Call them now. You knew that anyway.

How do you know that's the right thing to do. It should be but can you trust that it wouldn't lead to a harder time for the kids!