Area gone to shit, feel forced to move 😪

[Runouttatown]

I've lived in the same London suburb all my life. Until just a few short years ago it was a very nice area, and we thought we'd likely stay for ever, perhaps downsizing when the DC left home. We've spent a lot of time and money improving and extending our home over the years and it's perfect for us, just the way we want it, so would not wish to leave it for a few years yet.

However, the area has been going downhill at an alarming rate over the last 3 or 4 years to the point that we find we now absolutely hate it and want to get out - overcrowded, horrendous traffic, driving & road rage, unpleasant, rude people, lots of crime and antisocial behaviour. HMOs springing up all over, including one at the end of the street, most of which contain single, foreign men, not families. We're overrun with food delivery bike riders (many of whom live in the HMOS) who congregate in the high street, leering at women & young girls and spit disgusting red tobacco on the pavement. The area looks increasingly run down, fly tipping and a general lack of care. It has long been fairly multi cultural (no problem with that at all) but we're now finding that as white british people we are fast becoming a minority, and frequently encounter people who cannot speak any English. I'm sure some will accuse me of being racist but I absolutely am not, I'm just sad at what has happened to our once lovely area and, no, I'm not blaming immigration for all of it, although it's clearly a factor.

I know many areas are the same but there are plenty that are not - I only have to compare our Community Facebook page which is full of posts complaining of the above issues to that of the area we're thinking of going to which is completely different.

We've accepted we now need to move several years before we are ready but I feel so sad and angry about it. Several friends have already moved and others are considering it for the same reasons. The DC are happy for us to move as they hate it too - one at uni, the other working & considering buying their own place, not round here!

Doesn't anyone else think this environmental change is to do with growing inequalities? The rich are getting richer - have you not noticed the cheaply built new blocks of flats are for rent tather than sale? The super-rich (these blocks are often owned by bans and financial services companies) exploiting those unable to afford to buy. The rise in take-aways - the low paid are working two jobs and have no time to shop or cook. Immigrants are a scape-goat. The wealthy Reform members and sponsors are making you poorer and more desperate by fleecing you.

How on earth do you know for a fact that 'so few BAME people post'?

Nobody has taken my name or knocked on my door to discuss the topic of Jewishness.

I only found out one of my best friends was Jewish after I'd flown to L.A. for her wedding and she told me some of her family wouldn't attend because it was Rosh Hashanna (sp?)

It wouldn't occur to me to be anti-Semitic. Nobody has ever suggested it to me as an ideology.

We’ve had similar problems over the past five years. Previously smart streets have been converted to HMOs, and they now look dirty and scruffy, hundreds of wheelie bins all overflowing. There’s a lot of antisocial behaviour, and the long-standing locals are shipping out. But in our case, it’s university students that are causing the problems not foreigners.

Is there an article? That video just shows someone assaulting a Palestine supporter.

Totally agree. There is a certain tone to these comments, and it's very obvious.

This is true. There have been news reports this week of canvassers going door to door and asking people living there if they have allegiance to Israel.
We may not be living in Nazi Germany (yet) but DP and I have been discussing this issue today. He and I are part of the last living generation who know about the 1930s from our own parents lived experience. Terrified is not too strong a description.

"I only have to compare our Community Facebook page which is full of posts complaining of the above issues to that of the area we're thinking of going to which is completely different."

Surely Community Facebook pages everywhere are stuffed to bursting with complaints about fly tipping, dog shit, bin wars, pot holes, traffic, driving & road rage, unpleasant, rude people, antisocial behaviour, Amazon drivers, parcel misdelivery, food bike rider and tip booking systems.

If you've found somewhere like that online OP I'd move there. It'll be the only place on Earth that's perfect.

Part of the problem OP will be an aging thing. I remember my parents moaning about how their area had gone down. It was solid, white, middle class area (think Midsomer meets St Mary Mead) in the mid 80s.

Everything changes. Always.

I am curious to know how @Runouttatown knows that they're all "foreign".

What is your source?

But even so, the UK is not a place where this would be tolerated. Any nutjob doing this would be arrested.

Suspect he / she has done a runner.

Agreed, same tone, and they even use the same language.

Standards haven't just declared ned but collapsed.

Council houses used to have manicured garden and flowers, now they are used to fly tip.

When you started out in life you lived in student digs (maybe messy but not antisocial) or rented a room from a family. The system worked.

Now we have increased housing regulation and HMOs which quite frankly are treated appallingly by tenants. All down to the something for nothing brigade of people of all shades. Why does a drug addict removed from one council property qualify for another. He or she should be struck off the list.

Hardly an excuse for spitting red tobacco on the street though is it. Regardless of circumstance. That’s disgusting.

Because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it's not true. Every Jewish family I know had either experienced it first hand or hides the fact that they are Jewish so that they aren't subjected to antisemitism. It is rife in London, Manchester, Birmingham Bristol etc.

To state the blindingly obvious, you don’t have a race issue OP, it’s a poverty issue.

The number of people (yes including white people) living in poverty has grown and is growing. Housing costs are a major cause of this. They’re also a major cause of Councils not having funds to address fly tipping, maintain services etc because they’re having to fund temp accommodation for families made homeless by landlords racking up rents ‘to reflect market value’.

As another poster said - where did we think treating housing as an investment vehicle would end?

Over 5% unemployment (and that figure is higher for younger people).

It will get worse when the next generation are still renting/paying crippling mortgages aged 70.

I am neither naive nor stupid thank you.

Ok 👍

Having had to live in them when younger, I am genuinely interested in where people think the tenants of HMOs.should live?

The thing that gets me down most in an area is litter.
Everyone deserves a home where they feel comfortable.

Hearing people speak in foreign languages is usually a sign? Tired of this snide, disingenuous question

Does that include people feeling intimidated by loitering groups of men?

Agree. Look at Matt Lucas this week

Oh I'm not saying it's made up! I know very well it exists.

I just wish people would realise you can live an entire lifetime without Judaism having any effect on you whatsoever.

It's all so simple inside my head.

Anyway, I digress.