Will try and keep this brief, am feeling so restless and out of sorts waiting for options and decisions, and want a sanity check on this.
When I had my first baby 9 years ago me and my partner were allocated a housing association property. It was our first home together, my first home from flying the nest, and I loved it. It was small but in a beautiful area with a nice community and just ticked almost every box possible. A little small but workable and we went on to have more children and despite ups and downs of life, it was a cosy and secure base for us. Basically I'm trying to say, I was very attached to the property and area.
Fast forward 6 years to 2022, and we got a new neighbour in the downstairs flat which was part of our house (large detached house converted into 2 floor maisonette and small ground floor flat), and everything slowly changed.
To cut a long story short, there were lots of concerns raised by us and the whole street as the GF flat went to shit, was used as a drug den and had all sorts of bad stuff going on. It got pretty bad; the neighbours were never a problem directly and were never mean, but there were huge environmental health concerns and lots of police raids and conflicts within the property due to drugs, as well as lots of random people coming and going.
I'd clearly lived a very sheltered life, as this seemed like the worst situation possible and after months of reporting and moaning, we were eventually moved in summer 2023.
The new place was so much worse, we went from being in proximity of ASB to being direct targets of abuse and harassment. The area was awful and we were moved to a block of flats in a city centre which was the complete opposite of our little place which was in a lovely leafy area close by. I won't go into it but I had a complete breakdown, the impact on the rest of the family has been profound, and I've become a shell of myself. All I've dreamed of is reversing this decision and following the channels to deal with the ASB at our old place.
We only moved a mile or so away and didn't move the children's school and it's a great school. My partner occasionally walks past our old house, and noticed that it was empty again.
I've basically begged my HA to put us back there. Am I mad? Would they ever agree to it? They are fully aware that I have asked multiple times to move back and that I'm really struggling, and have agreed to move me when something suitable comes up.
I just want to go back there, but I'm worried the new situation has clouded my judgement. Has anyone been in a similar situation of returning to a property they previously left? I can't imagine it's a very common situation at all, so it's really hard to get any advice 😞