To be pissed off at housing tenants

[Pssedoffathis]

To be pissed off at this
We live in a nice area, there isnt much available to rent. The last 4 bed was 4500 a month that came up 2 months ago.
We were renting at 3000 a month an older house but it needed work and the landlord decided to sell so we moved out and living in a temporary small flat further away from kids schools waiting and waiting for 6 months for a house to come up.
We have heard from several friends that in the area the council have moved a problem family in to a large house in one of the roads. They dont work, 4 kids, police round all the time, stolen car crashed into a lampost, kids out the front screaming, teen age boy being arrested.
Anyway, these absolute scummers are living for free in a house we would love..
Whilst I am paying 40 percent tax and effectively homeless with 2 kids. Waiting for a house to come up that I can afford as 4500 is out of budget and property is scarce.
I am basically paying for these people to live in a house i can not afford to live in myself.
Am I a Mug? Should I move countries?
What is the fecking point in working anymore.

Why don’t you buy instead of renting? You’re clearly a high earner. But you chose to rent, which is not secure housing.

You’re not paying 40% tax. Tax is a progressive system.

A “nice area” should not be free of social housing, or do you want all the poor people sectioned off into one place?
Your nice area will have a lot less social housing than other areas, but you’ll be getting a lot more taxpayer money spent on where you live. It’ll be an in demand area because of good, well funded schools. The roads will be better taken care of, you’ll have better policing. Stop acting like you get nothing from tax payers.

You're not paying 40% tax. You might be paying 40% tax on SOME of your income.

If you're earning into the 40% tax band (and you say "we" so there's presumably two earners in the house) then you're in a position to save up and buy, you've just prioritised other things.

You don't actually know anything about this other family's story, and blaming them for your own poor planning is a lazy way out.

Im sorry you cant find a property to rent that suits your family .
You seem to be taking your frustration out on people you have no way of knowing the truth about based on gossip.
Honestly with such a large amount of money available i suggest you look at buying rather than renting but even then you wont be able to dictate who your neighbours are.

I don’t know your full financial situation. But if you really can’t afford to live where you are then it might be worth getting a calculator out and doing some maths on Entitled to. You can put as much in pension as you want and it doesn’t count as income. Even without rent paid I worked out we would be only a few hundred worse off a month but would be able to massively boost our pension by tens of thousands a year. And that is as home owners. As renters you’re going to be quids in.

Unfortunately we are business owners so it gets very tricky for us. But as employees you should absolutely have a look at it.

Morally it’s potentially wrong. But we can only play the cards we have been dealt and Angela raynor for sure would be doing that.

You're very privileged then.

My daughter's life has been made a misery since the council bought one of the flats in the (converted Victorian house) block where she lives. She struggled to buy her flat and worked incredibly hard on it, fitting a kitchen herself and repairing the parquet flooring - and creating a little garden out of the scruffy courtyard.

Then the council bought the neighbouring flat and put a drug addict, alcoholic, violent thief in there and all hell broke loose. He's aggressive, shouts at and threatens the other flat-owners, fights with local pub landlords and shopkeepers, creates horrendous mess all over the place and recently smashed all his windows in (including 2 which overlook her garden) - blood all down her wall - nice.

The whole block of flats is miserable and scared. His mates come at night (he deals quite openly) and while my daughter was away her window was smashed and her gate broken and the letter box wrenched off.

So if you don't know what a scummer is, I do hope I've helped you to understand.

Any thread about social housing or benefit can only end up in tears.

Who do you think are posters who can be on MN all day, during the day for a start? Read the room 😂

They probably actually do.
Not sure why people flock to defend this type of person/people.
They do exist.

After spygate,the coaches, managers and CEO ARE scummers !

Not relevant to the post I know

I'm getting the feeling a lot of them are on here...

How can anyone defend this kind of anti-social selfishness which spoils other people's lives?

Just live in your home like normal people - don't wreck it, make horrendous noise, crash vehicles, quarrel with everyone and be a complete arsehole.

@CoffeeCantata i don’t think anyone is denying that horrible anti-social people exist. I was just saying that people in social housing have to live somewhere; and we’re not ALL ‘scummers’ purely because we live in social housing.

Ah, come on! I can't believe that everyone thinks it's fair that someone should get something for free that someone who works hard can't afford. It's simply unfair. I'm a socialist through and through. No one should go hungry or not have a good roof over their heads but the system is broken when a person is doing what society needs (working, paying taxes and raising kids to be an asset to the state) but ends up worse off. Don't op's kids need a decent place to live too? Where's the incentive for op to continue to be a contributing member of society? Without contributors, we're all in trouble.

Yes, if you can't beat them, join them!

Then you can come back and tell us how wonderfully luxurious and relaxing it is to live at the taxpayer's expense, OP.

It's got nothing to do with you.

You are conflating two different issues. Your own inability to afford a nice home, which is the result of policies that have not seen SH provision keep up with demand, plus the extortionate and exploitative rents in the private sector; with the problem of some people being anti social.
The second is a matter to be dealt with through the law. Where the perpetrators are housed is irrelevant to that.

Has anyone suggested that all social housing tenants are 'scummers'? I didn't read it that way. I certainly wouldn't suggest that.

But there are anti-social people and anti-social families. I taught at a school which drew from the local council estate (which looked nice - all well-kept houses and gardens and regular, law-abiding people around) and soon found that there were actually a few families who'd been re-housed from elsewhere in the county for being anti-social nightmares. They had a disproportionate effect on the school - so much so that Ofsted remarked on it in their report.

My daughter's neighbour is vile. I think things are being re-assessed and that they will finally evict him, and thank God for that. What should happen to him? I don't care. What I care about is that my daughter, the other residents of the block and law-abiding people in general should be able to live their lives in peace. This horrible man has had a chance and he's wrecked it. I think even the council there will baulk at having to replace every window in his flat several times a year.

Such people are a massive drain on society. I accept that I have to pay for them with my taxes, but I don't want them anywhere near me. And I don't mean regular social-housing tenants.

There are a lot of benefit apologists on here but I agree with you @Pssedoffathis

Why can't we call this out for what it is? Adults not working and kids causing trouble being given a nice big house in a good area that they will no doubt not look after.
Yes that is a massive assumption but is based on previous experience.

A previous neighbour of mine has 5 children with their partner both of whom have never worked. They have been moved several times due to anti social behaviour and have now been housed by the council in a 6 bedroom barn conversion with 5 acres of land and 2 lakes.
I'm lucky to own a lovely place myself but couldn't afford that and I don't think it's fair that unemployed claimants get priority over those in employment.

OP it must be very frustrating.

OP are you a net contributor?

If you are a net contributor do you know how much by?

If you are a large net contributor, would you prefer to live in a society that does not provide social support to those less well off?

Being in the 40% tax bracket is not the same as being a net contributor. I think you would need a salary over 85k if you have 2 kids in state education to even pay £1 net contributions.

Completly understand its difficult when you cant provide what you want for children, and you see others getting what you want.

Perhaps if people understood, depending on your salary of course, that just because tax is paid, doesnt necessarily mean you are subsiding others, or perhaps only very slightly subsiding and this might give people a different perspective.

Personally, I am a net contributor, contributing circa 40- 50k per year into the system over what I consume. I would rather live in a society that has protections for all. Even looking at it from a completly personal selfish level, without the protections there would be significantly more social issues. That is not a society I would wish to live in...car jacking, bars on windows, paying for private security, large numbers of completely uneducated people, families living on the sides of roads. This isnt hyperbolic the reality in some countries.

Are there problems that need to be adressed, of course.These problems IMO are systemic, and will take at least one generation to fix. We should be looking at how to change the fundamental issues, rather than focusing on the somewhat unavoidable outcomes and resorting to infighting and punching down.

Well, I retired at 70 after working since I was 17 without a career break of any sort. And I own my house and have never lived in social housing or been on any benefits apart from statutory sick pay.

Nice bit of stereotyping though.

how do you know they're living in it for free?

where should they be housed? the streets?

It’s not just mumsnet. It’s everywhere, and your reply is disingenuous. The dismissal of worried people with real concerns as bigots, idiots, or whatever other disparaging term is chosen, is a huge part of the problem. If the traditional parties treat them like that they’ll go elsewhere and there are only so many places to go.

What country do you think will be queueing up to take a large family of emigrants who were effectively homeless in their own nation and want access to housing in a society they’ve never contributed to?

Why don’t you buy? Then you can look even further on that high horse of yours.

What is the fecking point in working anymore.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable.

I agree with you OP. It’s a sad state of affairs.