Cigarette butts in garden

[duod]

Hello,

I live next to a residential care home for younger people with mental health conditions.

Almost every week since I moved in last winter, I am finding cigarette butts in my garden. I've spoken to the care home manager a few times about this, they've said they've told all staff to dispose of cigarettes correctly but we're still having problems. Someone or a few residents are throwing it over the 2m trellis fence.

It's incredibly frustrating. Is this anti social behaviour and can the council do anything about it? I know the manager can't control each resident but something needs to be done. No one in the household smokes.

Speak to them again.

Has the care home manager provided enough ashtrays so that staff and residents can dispose of their cigarette butts properly?

I'm not too sure but a lot of the residents just throw the cigarettes on the ground. I can see their front and back garden from my toilet and there's loads of cigarettes on the ground.

I've been speaking to them since December, nothing has changed. I don't have any trust in them

report them to the council and their head office. They should be setting a good example.

This and place cctv up

I think I'll have to. I don't think they have a head office so not sure who is above the manager

There are a lot of things the manager could be doing to try and solve this problem such as notifying staff to not allow butts to be disposed of this way, larger/more bins, designating a smoking place away from your boundary, better supervision of residents smoking, installing a smokers shelter/hut and if needs be using cameras to monitor who the culprits are.
Have they tried any of them? If not, then please report them as @LaylaLjungberg had suggested.

Thanks, they do have a smoking shelter near our boundary but a lot of them smoke away from the shelter. They smoke all over the front and the back garden. They have 1 small bin and that's it.

There is cctv but only facing the front garden. There's no supervision when they smoke.

I would throw them back over the fence and they can be seen by the staff who will hopefully tell all the smokers to dispose of their cigarette butts into the correct bin. You are only returning what belongs to them.

I’d be telling the manager that they need to come and clean them up themselves or pay someone to do it, every time it happens!

Then report them to the council. Perhaps try through environmental health in the first instance. You could try your local councillor if you prefer, they can be very helpful. If you wish, maybe contact cqc and see if they will investigate. This is my personal opinion, but a care home who cannot manage something as simple as this, may have larger issues which require help/investigating with regards to the care of its residents.

if you own the trellis - could you replace it with a solid panel or maybe cover it in fine netting to stop butts being thrown through the trellis? It won’t stop them coming over the top, but might make it a physical/mental ‘wall’ and less inviting to throw butts at. You shouldn’t have to do this, but it might work.

You can just become a nuisance back, and return the butts back to them or insist that they clear them up, but they might just ban you from the home/block your calls and you could leave yourself open to a counter claim of harassment. Ultimately this could work or could backfire completely.

Thank you I'll get in contact with the councillor too. Forgot about them as an option.

We plan to replace the fences in the future as they're old but was hoping not to do it so soon.

Report them to the council, and also point out that throwing cigarette butts into your garden is a fire hazard in prolonged dry weather.

Thanks and yes I did tell the manager about the fire hazard a few months ago. I guess nothing has been done about it

You could always get in touch with your local fire station and tell them about it. They will be very unimpressed, especially if this is a residential home, and they are not taking fire precautions seriously...