neighbour from hell

[MissJD]

i moved in October to maisonette with my 6yo .

below us lives woman with 10 dogs . these dogs are never walked and always inside her 2 bedroom house .

obviously barking is constant. day and night . our life is hell . sleep deprivation is form of torture and it's not fair on dogs to always sit indoors too.

i reported this to RSPCA , council , landlords however nothing is done .

is my only option to move now ? is it animal cruelty to keep 10 dogs inside and never walk them ?

can anyone give me advice i'm desperate now , my child is disabled and she can't sleep at night begging me to stop barking .

smell is unbearable too , it comes up to our house from downstairs

any advice would be greatly appreciated

thank you

Have you spoken to the environmental health officer at the council? This is their responsibility. Definitely.

Involve your councillor if you don't get any joy and then your MP.

she was laughing when she told me she got arrested for stealing pension and she is awaiting trial .

i didn't find it funny at all .

yes she is renting from same HA , they are called Clarion and they don't care about their tenants , all they care is to grab the rent money .

everyone on social media complaining about them , and they don't seem to care.

i hope they will find her guilty , enough is enough . she can't keep getting away with everything

RSPCA are absolutely useless they don't even come when i call to tell them dogs been alone for 2-3 days and tell me not to put food through letterbox

i'm so tired of all this

Would your dd cope with headphones and a story tape, @MissJD? It sounds like a total nightmare, and my heart goes out to you both.

Clarion are SO EVIL. We had a dangerous criminal in our building breaking all kinds of tenancy laws and they literally told us they wouldn’t do anything regardless of what he did. Very grateful to get out of there. If you have a safer neighbour team they can sometimes help contact higher up people, but we found threatening legal action was the only way anything got done.

I agree, I just wondered if the police might be involved if you looked at it from another angle.

This.

I suspect this woman has mental health issues or other serious vulnerabilities of her own. There will be no quick or easy solution to this. It will probably take a protracted legal case to get any resolution, if there ever is any.

If she’s a crack addict and there are no cameras/witnesses about, the next time she goes out I’d break in, leave the door open so the dogs escape and deny everything if asked about it. Say it must have been her dealer collecting a debt or something. Or at least that’s what I would fantasise about doing!
More likely dog warden/RSPCA would do something if there’s dogs wandering about.

Telephone your MP - they will have a secretary who may be able to advise over the phone. Write down the points you want to make first so you make them all and don't repeat any. Good luck.

To maximise the value of their property holdings, & provide lucrative, safe employment for middle & senior management.

I met one of RSPCA's board directors at their Horsham HQ a while back.
The atrium of their classy building would have housed my entire company (200 people).
We agreed that I would put in a proposal for XYZ back office services. The proposal cut RSPCA costs by approx £160k a year. The director would not go ahead, as it would mean cutting out the roles of 4 HQ staff, despite increasing efficiency & financial reporting.

"But we're a CHARITY!" he blustered.
He didn't seem to get that it was a charity for animals, not well-paid humans.

"But we're a CHARITY!" he blustered.
He didn't seem to get that it was a charity for animals, not well-paid humans
Unfortunately the wealthy people who control the charity are in a position to make sure that they are the main beneficiary of said charity 🤬
He no doubt feels himself to be much too important to sully himself, to soil his hands by dealing with the the types of people who hoarde animals and cause a nuisance🤬

I met one of RSPCA's board directors at their Horsham HQ a while back.
Horsham? That's quite near to crowborough where this poor lady lives,
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-mauled-rescue-dog-loses-29760364
She is currently suing the RSPCA having lost her arm after an attack by a dog that they told her was safe, I wonder how he feels about all that.

If there has been a community protection order issued that's good, but usually the HA/Council then has to wait for a court date if there is a breach.

Unfortunately as the complainant the onus is on you to prove the noise complaint, not the HA/Council. They're job is to act on your behalf once you provide that evidence. It's not about doing their job for them, as a PP said up thread, but about the witness who is experiencing the issue demonstrating what that is.

I work for the ASB team for a large HA (not clarion) and its always a long process. If you serve notice of seeking possession you have to wait for a month before you can apply to court. You then wait months for the court to give you a date, which is then even more months ahead. We are getting dates requested now, that are being listed for July.

HA cannot evict their residents. Only a court van give an order of possession, the HA role is to support the complainant to gather the evidence.

I get really frustrated with the RSPCA, they're useless!! But no one can force entry without a warrant and perpetrators know how to play the system.

Speak to your MP, whilst the ASB process is slow, Clarion should be keeping in contact with you. We call complainants every 2 weeks.

Phone the council and the landlord every day. Keep phoning and tell them you won’t stop phoning until they do something about the situation. Threaten to go to the local news or the papers, whatever will annoy them enough to actually do something. It sounds horrendous, both for you and the poor dogs.

The OP said she thinks the landlord is trying to evict the neighbour

actually i believe landlords are trying to evict that woman but they said there is backlog after Coronavirus or smth like that

So you can call every day, you can go to every newspaper on earth, believe me it won't speed up a backlogged court!! It MAY prompt the RSPCA to do more, but even they will have to go to court.

I agree with what others have said regarding contacting your MP and child’s social worker.

Also, as you’re with a housing association, have you tried submitting an official complaint?

If you submit a complaint it will begin the stage 1 complaints process. If you’re not satisfied with the outcome you can then escalate to stage 2, if still not happy, then you contact the housing ombudsman.

Most housing associations will try to rectify the situation before it’s escalated.

From my experience with HA they couldn't give a stuff. I complained about the weed smoking from the flats above us. A letter was sent around telling them not to smoke on the balconies but inside. I mean ffs!!!

Might have already been mentioned but try your local newspaper and environmental health.

Also I think you said she abused an older person. Was the older person the original tenant? If so, I would ask the ha if she has any right to the tenancy. Is she squatting?

Not advice but my temperament would mean I accidentally left the tap on till my bath overflows and floods downstairs!

HA said they are no allowed to discuss that with me

and council said it's completely different case and they look at each case separately ..

it's a nightmare really , i just hope that HA is waiting to their backlog to clear and to try and take that woman to court and evict her .

or at least for her to be banned from having animals ...

yeah good advice thank you !

i think the best is to move out of here and just concentrate on doing that , instead of wasting my energy on constant complaints to RSPCA , housing , council

What strikes me here odd that the housing association knew about the problem but still houses you above it. They need to evict her. Be very careful that they don't treat you as "intentionally homeless" if you leave. Any idea when her trial is?? Do everything environmental health say. If they say do a diary do it in detail they need it to go to court. You can record things on your phone. Push push push they will get there in the end (I used to with in EH)

Call the police for a welfare check...you heard a funny noised and the dogs are acting strangely, the police should maybe force entry and check on your neighbour...

i did send endless recording of all the barking , and Clarion doesn't really care

all they said to me is to keep it between us but they are trying to evict her however they have backlog and also judge doesn't like to evict anyone .

and instead likes to give people chances

most of the times their customer service team tells me that tenancy breach specialist will be i. touch with me however no one calls back

and council tries to tell me how they saw much worse cases , and basically hinting could be much worse and could be 20 dogs lol

feeling a bit of a nuisance to all of them ..

housing association claimed they were unaware about the dogs

but they definitely did as aware what happened to elderly lady

i was thinking to do mutual exchange, not to make
myself homeless.

as this place is quite large and my garden is massive , so i'm sure someone will be willing to swap with me and i can just downgrade to a smaller place without garden but at least peace and quiet

that's my last hope fingers crossed i can do this sooner rather the later !