Charity HMO of drug users set up next door to me

[Changeling123]

Hi All,

this is not an AIBU question, I’m posting here for traffic as I need advise as I’m at my wits end.

There is a terraced house next to me which is usually rented by students. The landlord has had trouble renting it out due to its poor condition, so this summer they opted to rent to a “charity”. At first I thought it would just been for the summer, so I’ve bared it, but now I can see they’re staying on and I need advice on how to manage this, as I had my first baby during the Summer - now a 3 month old.

They’re a HMO of about 6 minors. They look around 15-17 year olds. They’re constantly outside the house shouting, smoking weed, we barely have a front garden at all, and they sit on the wall with a boom box at 10pm on weeknights. I challenged them once to turn the music down and move on, but they got confrontational. I can hold my own usually, but I’d just had a baby and it really gave me the chills - they were so intimidating and happy to fight me. I’m too afraid to challenge them again in fear of reprisal - they know where I live.

I’m afraid if I call the police, they’ll know it’s me. And will they even respond for minors standing on the street smoking weed and disturbing in the early hours?Apparently there is a supervisor in there 24/7, but they don’t seem to have a hold on it at all. I have tried knocking on the door for the supervisor, but no one answered. I could hear people in there.

I’ve watched them looking in our car (parked on the street) - presumably for valuables. I close the curtains now because they stand so close outside the house, looking in. Most critical, can’t open the windows to get fresh air - the scent of weed is just so strong. So I was in with the baby in sweltering heat today. They dump refuse over the back garden wall including cans and blunts.

They wake up the baby every night. Just the other night, we were awoken by one of the teens on the phone at 3am, highly strung shouting down the phone because he’d just been let out of the police station. Not all the residents there are bad; there’s a sweet Afghani guy and he goes somewhere every morning in a school blazer (during holidays), and my heart breaks for him living with these idiots.

I have said it to the landlord multiple times, and he apologised and said it wasn’t his intention for that to happen. I’ve emailed him again with pictures to say it’s still not resolved and to please consider new tenants. but I don’t think he cares, really, he just wants his rent sorted. I asked him for the name of the charity and he hasn’t replied.

I feel unsafe for my family, particularly my new baby. He’s not getting a night’s sleep - I’m defs not. And there’s just weed fumes blowing into in a house I’ve worked like a dog to buy. We can’t live like this.

Has anyone got any suggestions on what to do?

Your racism is showing! How does it matter that it's ethnic minorities bought big houses?!

If the landlord couldn't rent to students it must be pretty dire state - poor children

Council / environmental health / local press about the living conditions these children are forced to live in.

But we also need to step back here

we have a group of very troubled children - what they probably need are good conditions ( to make them feel wanted, to give them a chance to turn their lives around ) and constant one to one support (not a minimum wage job looking after a large group )

And that all costs - we need to be raising more taxes to fund this stuff , and it can't come from the bottom or middle income groups because they have Ben shafted already and that's why the number of troubled children is growing - there are options from inheritance tax to corporations and windfall taxes

And inflict this behaviour on another unsuspecting owner/tenant? Nice!

To be fair, no one's trying g to "fix" them, are they? They've just been dumped. And someone, somewhere, will be being paid a lot to support them.

OP your choices are: complain, complain, complain - to the charity, the police, council etc or (quicker) move.

Don't be ridiculous @CecilyP , the OP I'd perfectly entitled to move. No one else has to live there, that's the landlords problem.

@Newphony I have lived on a street like this for years. Unfortunately ethnic minorities bought up big expensive houses and put undesirable hmo people in. I live in an expensive part of town but you wouldn't think it.

Huh? What does ethnicity has to do with your point ? Please explain!

A lot of the issues are caused because there is either no management of either the property or the individuals or very poor management. If the residents don't understand that actions have consequences they will never be able to hold down a tenancy or a job. Proper ,effective management should be the aim. Please try to contact someone as unless those in charge get them behaving it can only worsen.

I live next door to an HMO. Nothing like this (at present) but I’m never entirely relaxed.

I drew the short straw moving here 8 years ago. Is it unconscionable for me to move? Have I done my time? Why is it ok for me to put up with this but not someone I’d sell to?

Op, I feel for you. In an ideal world these set-ups would be housed in self-contained buildings, not sharing a party wall with houses built for single households. The booming of fire doors being left to slam is enough to convince me of this.

That was in response to this comment:

And inflict this behaviour on another unsuspecting owner/tenant? Nice!

Of course OP is entitled to move! Is she owns, she might have trouble selling. If she rents it is indeed the landlord’s problem. But it would still make more sense to try and find a solution to the problem.

You have my sympathy. I used to live next door to a similar house, run by a local charity.

It was horrendous. By the time I moved I was on first name terms with the security team employed by the charity, as they would regularly be needed to sort out issues within the house.

I understand that these transitional houses need to exist, but it is ridiculous to expect success from them when the staffing of them is so poor. In the example from my experience, a group of six 15-17 year olds living in an HMO with no stabilising adult presence was a recipe for noise and disruption. I witnessed several very noisy evictions and regular ambulance call-outs. As traumatic as it was for the young people, it was also similar for those permanently living in the immediate vicinity.

I knew a couple who were supposed to supervise thes etypes of people, the supervisors themselves rarely visited instead they made false reports in the local park whilst smoking weed themselves - sadly I am related to one of them. Clearly this place is subject to the same kind of supervision and the OP is paying the price.

"They'll be traumatised and have their issues but the entire point is to help them learn how to be good tenants and neighbours." - yeah right. You say they have to live somewhere, I guarantee you would not house them next door to yourself.

I have such units in both the centre of my local town and my village. The village one is well run and no trouble at all. The town one has single handedly caused the town to be a ghost town as they are marauding around at all hours intimidating people for money for their next fix.

They need decent supervision by people who care and are worldly wise, too often the supervisors are naieve and unable to impose any kind of rules or standards of behaviour.

I would publicize the “charity” on the neighbourhood Facebook page. Ask who is supervising these minors as they seem to be allowed to behave in an antisocial manner without consequence. Also email this charity and ask the same question. Surely you can’t rent a home to unsupervised minors.

It's antisocial behaviour which is causing the neighbours to feel afraid and effecting their right to enjoy their home.

Having had a shit life doesn't make it okay to make someone else's life shit.

Call the Police OP, and the council. Absolutely vulnerable people need housing but that doesn't and shouldn't mean, that other people have to suffer.

You need to speak to the actual charity.

If the supervisor isn’t doing their job properly then the charity needs to know.

I would 100% ring the non-emergency police.
I would also list all of the things you have and just ask if they’re able to drive past when they’re doing their rounds.

You need to make a log of everything that happens so you can take it to the charity.

If the property is an HMO then with that many residents it would need to be licensed by the local council. You can find out from them who is the responsible person. The person licensed to run an HMO does have legal obligations in terms of noise and nuisance, in addition to the normal ones to maintain the property, etc.

Complain to the responsible person, in writing so that you have a record, and keep doing so. If you can find out which charity has placed the young people there complain to them. Also complain to the ASB team at your local council. If your neighbours are also affected can you get them to complain also? I know it’s hard. Unfortunately it is also the case that these youngsters have to live somewhere, and if you don’t complain things are unlikely to improve as the people running the house will take the line of least resistance.

I was involved in a similar, but less severe situation. I am a landlord and rent a flat in a small block. The property above was leased by the local council to a charity, which provided transitional housing for ex care leavers.

Whilst all of the neighbours ( some of whom were very elderly) were actually quite sympathetic to the poor youngsters who were ‘dumped’ there with very little support, they couldn’t put up with all of the noise, mess, damage, huge amounts of anti social visitors, and really sadly in one case clearly unmet severe mental health issues.

We got together and complained to the council anti social behaviour team, the council as freeholder, and the charity. We documented every incident.
It took a long while, but eventually the charity agreed, almost on the grounds that we had ‘served our time’ putting up with their disruptive tenants, and moved on to a different property council leased property, knowing that those neighbours would also suffer.

I've been here. It wasn't easy to say the least.
The way to deal with it is as with any other problem neighbours. You have tried the landlord, unfortunately with not much success. From what you say about him failing to maintain his property, he probably isn't much cop as a landlord anyway. So the next step is the council.

Start with your councillor - as this could come under environmental health, housing, anti-social behaviour - or social services, especially if the tenants are as young as you say.

Do you have a neighbourhood Policing team? Find out if you do, and ask if you can meet to talk about your concerns.
Smoking weed outside your property and playing loud music late at night are all legitimate concerns.

I am concerned that (I assume) vulnerable under 18 year olds are being housed without any support. Find out if there is a housing association responsible for them. If there is, ask for a point of contact - ideally this will be a 24 hour phone number to report any concerns.

Keep a log. Report any anti-social and criminal behaviour. Keep reporting. Keep it as factual as possible. Keep on at your councillor(s).

There are an increasing number of housing providers who are providing so-called supported housing (exempt accommodation), charging huge amounts of money to local authorities for exempt rates of rent (approx £400 per week per person) then not providing the support that extra rent should provide, creating problems for the tenants and the neighbours.

The house next door to us was one of those. It wasn't safe for the tenants. In less than a year, there were 2 fires, 2 near death incidents (didn't die, but police were investigated as potential homicides while waiting to see if they would live), a very public attempted suicide, lots of robberies (of the tenants in the house), squatters, and huge amounts of drug dealing/ drug use.

Exempt accommodation has been the subject of a parliamentary select committee and there is legislation on its way - but this does not help you in the short term https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exempt-accommodation-government-response-to-the-select-committee-report/exempt-accommodation-government-response-to-the-select-committee-report

Oh god im so sorry this is happening to you, it really is the most horrendous thing. They tried to set one of these up on our street and the residents made a huge fuss and it was eventually scrapped.

there will be others on your street who hate it too, which may be useful.

I would say go to citizens advice and see if you can get some legal advice, you are entitled to peaceful enjoyment of your home, you could also try asking shelter for advice. That’s where I started when dealing with this.

I know it’s terrible, but I had a neighbour issue with antisocial behaviour in London, I had to keep calling the police and council because this provided the evidence that got the people responsible evicted. It’s not fair that you are being put in this position but if it gets worse really the police should be notified.

good luck with it all x

Dreadful advice and naive to think people can just move
Complain loud & hard @Changeling123 both for you and the lack of support these kids are getting

I would speak to the council and find out who the charity is and go from there.
sounds awful though & I sympathise re awful neighbours. Our is in his late 50s and smokes weed pretty constantly - he’s a f*cker - only moved in last year and we had great neighbours up until then.
we will probably move in a couple of years (sadly he has bought the house).

Much sympathy to you - that sounds really awful and I think you need help and support in real life. Could anybody come and stay with you while you are being intimidated in this way?
There is some useful advice here on dealing with problem neighbours
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/housing/problems-where-you-live/complaining-about-your-neighbour/
and it might also be helpful for you to go and see someone at your local citizens advice for a chat. It might help you to see a way through this to have some face to face support. It would all be confidential and less scary than reporting it as I understand that at the moment you are very reluctant to take any steps for fear of the repercussions.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/contact-us/
You should not have to put up with living like this.

Great advice from Fairyflaps. The council definitely have people who deal with these things unoHMO licenses and environmental health. The charity is getting money from these placements and the most likely source is the l local authority. They need to investigate if the charity is providing what they said they were in terms of support for the young people. I’m

OP, just be aware that if you do follow advice to speak to the authorities about this you are going to have to declare it if you sell up. That in itself could hinder a sale and put potential buyers off so play this very carefully. You say you knocked on the door where the supervisor was and could hear them talking. Can you get a note through that door or an open window of their office room?

If you look on the CQC website (or ofsted as they might be the inspectorate if it's below 18's) it will give you the name of the operating charity.
And you can also complain to the inspector responsible around what has gone on.
There is always going to be some disruption with a home like this-it's inevitable I'm afraid, but what you are describing is a lot and especially when you have a baby in the house.