Responsibilities of a landlord re: antisocial tenants

[zisforzebra]

I've posted this in chat but someone suggested I put it here too.

Does anyone know what responsibilities landlords have when it comes to protecting others from the anti-social behaviour of their tenants?

I live next door to two houses which have been converted to bedsits. They are both owned by the same person. For months now there has been a tenant who plays loud music til late every day of the week and most of the way through the night on weekends. After much complaining to the landlord, he's finally moved out (although not due to the noise complaints but for other unrelated reasons). We were hoping that would be an end to it but it seems that his just as anti-social friends also know people in the other house so the noise problem has just migrated to there.

Last night the music was going until past 4am. When we ring the landlord to complain we just get told the call the police. I haven't tried this yet purely for the fact that I don't think they'd do anything.

Surely the landlords has some responsibility to ensure their tenants aren't disturbing the entire street.

NB: Since I posted this to chat yesterday, DH has called the police and they just said to call environmental health on monday.

your council should have a noise team - they will have a 24 hr contact number
call them

if its a private landlord then not much, sadly. Environmental health is the way to go - they'll ask you to keep a noise diary, then if its bad they'll install noise monitoring equipment for a few days. there is often a queue for this. There has been a daft bit of human rights case law around privacy meaning that they'll be obliged to write to the neighbour and inform them of what they are doing. If noise is recorded (you have to be there to turn it on when its bad) then they give him a noise abatement notice and seize equipment, fine etc. You could also ring your local authority ASB team for advice particularly if there are other problems besides the noise. If you are an owner occupier do beware tho that I'd only advise doing this if you are prepared to see it thru until its resolved - if you sell you'll be asked about disputes and complaints. hope you get it sorted, it can be very stressful.

Thank you both.

Also worth checking with local council if the landlord has registered it as a HMO.