To call the police to conduct a wellness check for my hoarder neighbour?

[Atmywitsend23]

I had posted last week about an awful smell in my new apartment hallway. It transpires my neighbour has been a hoarder for 15yrs and there’s amongst other things, vermin and sewage issues in her apartment. The smell is so incredibly awful that it consumes the hallway and my apartment too. I’ve contacted my landlord, the building owner and the housing regulator to try and get some help to deal with the situation. Nobody seems to be able to do much. Would it be unreasonable to call police or social services for a wellness check? Surely when things are this bad there is a significant mental health issue and someone has a duty of care in this situation?

The incident in the hallway would have been sufficient for police involvement alone really. Perhaps that was a missed 'opportunity'. They couldn't ignore that and wouldn't be able to accept a refusal to engage of the occupant as simple as they'd have to otherwise. For the stuff that goes on in the flat for a large part of it people have the right to live in absolute filth. It's surprisingly common. It's when it gets to the point of being an undeniable life threatening safety hazard for other residents that means action can be taken.

That's why you'll find nothing much happens - essentially people who live like this will not want to engage/change their ways. To get to the point where essentially a multi agency response will break in/evict the occupant/dispose of everything within the property (in itself hugely time consuming and expensive to do safely) - then if the person is allowed back in the property/another property the cycle quickly repeats so an attempt can be made to evict to make them homeless - which does happen but is pretty rare.

Without a shadow of a doubt if you have any opportunity to move away from this situation I would do so. Life is too short to endure something like that if you have a choice not to.

The police won't do a welfare check if you know she's alive. The defecating and smearing would come under anti social behaviour so I would log that. Make a nuisance of yourself with the HA.
It sounds awful I really feel for you.

exaggerating the situation might get more of a response.
our local ASC has an automated call center or leave a message & emergency …. If it’s not emergency wait is 6-8 weeks due you “influx of immigrants”

You need to tell them it’s a life /death situation. Buzzards, flies potential dead body.

It sounds to me that her mental health may mean she is a risk to herself and others - fire risk, sanitation risk...

I hope it gets dealt with by the HA. It genuinely needs to be treated as a fire hazard. Especially in a block of flats or maisonettes close together.
I'm presuming you've spoken to her, and she does seem to acknowledge there's a problem and that helps is available? She will probably feel ashamed. I think once things get to a certain state someone can feel like it's a mountain they simply cannot face trying to climb.
I hope the fire service, the HA and SS between them can help her declutter, and whatever other help she might need.
I feel for you as it must be really upsetting. X

The police will check she is alive and then share info with social services which you can do yourself without having to put on their resources. It sounds hugely frustrating but the police aren’t the correct agency. This will be joint working between housing and adult services in all likelihood. Housing are probably already be dealing but won’t be able to share info. Hoarding is notoriously difficult to deal with but you are being impacted by the smell so keep on to your landlord.

Adult social services are your best option, but if the neighbour doesn't want their help and has mental capacity (which is extremely hard to be deemed as not having) then they aren't going to be able to do anything more than offer help.

Buzzards? The birds?

Don't exaggerate things just to get a police response. Adult social services are who need to deal with this lady that being said the police do still get sent to these kinds of jobs but they are just a reporting agency that will share the information with mental heath services, housing, adult social services etc.

This type of call will tie up a police response for hours because there's no quick fix. They can only do so much and if she is seen to be fit by mental health services (and by that I mean no mental heath condition putting her life in immediate danger) she will be left at home with referrals put in place for other agencies to engage and assist.
Keep pressing the landlord, environmental heath and social work for them to take action,

How could there be buzzards?

Thank you. I won't go into detail but I have experience of this. All the various agencies will just play ping pong with this. They don't want to commit their personnel and they don't want to spend their budget.

The OP has to emphatically that she has personally observed rats. That triggers a whole raft of immediate action from Environmental Health.

Hoarding is far more common than most people realise. This is something the landlord should be acting on. I would contact shelter and ask for their advice on getting your landlord to take action about the smell.

You can lie and say there is vermin, but if they enter her flat and there are no signs of vermin they may do nothing else.

I’ve hoarding disorder, which is now a recognised mental health condition. I’m writing this to offer perspective, nothing more and, mean no offence,

Realistically (this is my experience) they will remove everything from her property (probably during an “assessment”) without consent and send her back with zero help or support in place, she will have a list of what she can own and someone will go in and remove any item not on that list. Then end the tenancy. She won’t be allowed another or any help from council as it’s often classed as a choice by homelessness prevention, even with diagnosis (only one clinic can diagnose in the UK, waiting list years then more years for therapy, so that’s nearly impossible). This was my experience and I ended up hospitalised for weeks because of the trauma it caused and, then discharged to street.

That compounded the problem so now it’s much much worse, since then I’ve lost a friend to the disorder. This, sadly, won’t end well, and likely she’s been through similar. Right now I’m facing street homelessness again. Homelessness prevention won’t engage until everything is gone and I must be “cured” for two years (only own what I’m “allowed” with strict controls”) before I can even go on housing register. Fire brigade saying fire risk having escalated the eviction process.

For me this has been a lifetime condition. People say they understand, I don’t so no way they can, and yes I’ve had therapy, but it didn’t help.

There are now charities that can support BUT local help is essential and realistically impossible because it takes a very long time to begin to deal with the issues, which are complex before even starting. Shelter had a go at me for making myself homeless as did mind for example.

I am NOT saying you don’t have a point here, not at all, just offering it from another, perhaps more realistic, point of view in terms of “help”. The fact is no one is going to be offering help for what is considered a non issue by very stretched services who prefer to use terms like “filthy” “stupid” “out of control”. Even now when it’s actually a recognised condition.

OP I think you need to photograph the smearing ( revolting I know) to keep as evidence. Send an email to everyone listed below with a list of the problems sewage smell, risk of fire, flies etc… Say you have photos and will send those on request. You should not be having to pay rent to live in these conditions. Email your LL, HA, environmental health, local council housing department, fire department, whichever water company deals locally with sewage, your MP, local councillors. Tell them you expect action to be taken to prevent harm and spread of disease to others.
I understand the person has a mental illness but when their behaviour risks the health of others that has crossed a line.

Exactly!

@Atmywitsend23 Why on earth don't you get the hell out of that literal shit hole?

There are clean, pleasanter places to rent.

This woman needs to be in a supported home by the sounds of it- It sounds like she's shitting in her actual flat, rather than in the lavatory.

Hope there aren't any animals there- of so, that is a welfare concern for them.

Human excrement is a biohazard.

No way should anyone be having to put up with that in their living environment.

Plus her hoarding will be bringing vermin to the property.

You have a statutory legal right to quiet enjoyment of your property and at this point I do not feel that you should be paying full rent, since the landlord cannot provide that. I know it isn’t the landlord’s fault as such, but the flip side of all the benefits of being a property owner and landlord is that the buck stops with them on things like this. Honestly if it were me I would give notice asap and I feel you should be paying a heavily reduced rent in the meantime, or perhaps a reduced rent with the proviso that you can be released from your contract as soon as you find something else. I sense this problem just isn’t getting resolved any time soon.

Hoarding must be expensive? Buying stuff to hoard - unless it's junk picked up from the streets..There used to be a homeless person who lived under a flyover years ago who had built a shanty town out of rubbish - they had bags and bags of what looked like bags of rubbish tied to shopping trolleys- very sad.

It does affect people around serious hoarders though.

If it only affected the hoarder, no one would interfere, but the infamous ''Mr Trebus'' from the old TV programme ''Life of Grime'' was eventually put up in an older people's home, and seemed much happier there, as his rat infested house {Probably worth millions now} bothered his neighbours.

Mr Trebus.. Bless him..He died in 2002.

Could you call 111 and select option 2? That’s the option for speaking to someone about mental health, I’m not sure whether they would be able to help as neighbour not engaging with you, but they might be able to help with signposting for further support?

I really don’t think police would be able to do anything although I guess there might now be some crime in terms of what she’s now done to the hall which they might then be able to put referrals into social services etc.

I’d also contact the fire service and report concerns around hoarding. Basically get her on every radar you can.

Surely smearing faeces around a communal area is an anti-social offence.
I'd report that incident to the police and be contacting social services as well.

Social services won't see her without her prior agreement.

And then when they come out & get no reply to the door they'll ask other neighbours who'll confirm she's alive. So from the Police pov job done, householders alive. And they won't have seen the state of the house - so a waste of time

Lying wastes everyone's time. Report it to the proper agencies. Social work and the fire service in this case. The Fire service will definitely go out to a hoarder and they can get a SW referral done. They're probably the most effective route to get the ball rolling

second this.

OP you are privately renting, and at the point of viewing the property it was not to your knowledge a hoarder, that affects your health and mental well being, will be sharing a common space with you.

If the hoarder has been there for 15 years, he/she must know it when he/she was letting, so it's misrepresentation of the landlord I guess?

I am so sorry you have to go through this OP. It's very upsetting indeed.

How are you going to prove it was her though?
Also op, if te in your new flat smell is that bad, did you not notice when you looked round? If she has been living there a long time and it is a recent smell, it may be a cracked drain