Topic: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

We live in a three floor flat on the middle floor.

This January noisy neighbours moved upstairs…they are a 19 year old couple with a 2 year old son.

Last night I couldn’t get to bed until 1am because their TV was on full blast.

I was woken at 9am (it’s my day off) to raised voices and constant banging.

Everyday all I hear is constant banging. Our mini chandelier often shakes due to their vibrations. You can often mistake these vibrations for an earthquake.

There have been some major incidences. Her boyfriend has “trashed” the flat several times in a temper (the noise was unbelievable). She has always promised that he won’t be coming back but he returns a few days later.

He once trashed the house and she defended him by saying, “it’s ok he’s only drunk”.

She denies to the council that she has a male living with her, which is completely untrue. I can hear him in the middle of the night. His car is parked outside all the time. He is the father of her child. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out he’s living there.

They had a massive party that lasted from 7pm to 11am the next morning (yes, that long). We called noise who told us, “If we’re not there before 4am, we’re not coming”. They never came. We called the police who said that there is nothing they can do as it’s not a “criminal matter”, I thought the police came for disturbing the peace. They rang us back 10 minutes later and asked us whether we thought drugs were involved. We found this very strange.

We rang the police on another night when they had a social gathering in the early hours of the morning. They told us they were coming as there’d been a fight nearby and they had plenty of officiers nearby. They didn’t come.

Their son is only 2 but the first words I heard him say were, “fuck off” to his mother. He has temper tantrums all the time in the middle of the night. This is more than the usual tantrums for a 2 year old. The son is like his father and throws things around when he’s in a temper. I can hear things smash. I’ve never heard a 2 year old be so aggressive. I hate to condemn somebody so young but he will end up on an ASBO one day and probably in prison, mark my words.

They once flooded our kitchen through their own carelessness.

We frequently hear a grinding noise in the early hours of the morning. It sounds like somebody is trying to grind something down (it’s hard to say what the noise is but it’s unusual). Once whilst this grinding noise was going on shady figures were in and out of their flat. They stopped for less than a minute and then before you knew it somebody else was up. It was all very weird.

She sometimes kicks our door as she walks past.

We keep hearing an old man shouting at them. He does not live there. But he shouts at them for hanging out with dangerous people and drink driving by the sounds of things , he has a very strong accent so it's hard to understand him.

We have been investigating her via facebook as her facebook profile is public. She has written on her facebook that she hopes we die. We have reported this to the council but we have been told that there is nothing they can do as they have not used our names they’ve referred to us as the people downstairs. If they use our names we should report them to the police.

On her myspace account (which she no longer updates), she has pictures of her boyfriends cannabis plant in her flat (this is uploaded before she moved in above). She also has quotations such as “live by da gun die by da gun”.

We have reported them on a weekly basis to the council.

A woman on the bottom floor caught them exchanging packages and money with teenagers and young men in the back doorway of our flats. People now hang outside the back door of our flats who do not live here.

The next day the woman caught them tampering with her door. She has also reported them to the council. Apparently a third neighbour has reported them. There are 9 flats in this block, 3 have reported them.

The police come round to their house on a regular basis. For what I do not know.

To make matters worse, their antisocial friends (who they previously knew) moved into the flat next to them. We cannot hear them too much as we are not directly under them. Essentially two anti-social neighbours who are friends managed to get flat’s next to each other. Coincidence?

We fill in the log books, they call her in, she say’s we’re lying. We’ve asked if they can install recording equipment to record them but they won’t.

I’ve got my own recordings of them admitting their noise. I’ve got a long one of the time where her boyfriend trashed the flat and she said it was ok because he’s drunk.

The council are useless. They have given them ONE warning in 11 months. They have also informed us that their “hands are tied”, which does not fill me with confidence.

We are trying to move. They are banging as I type this.

I feel completely let down by the council.

What should we do next?

Last edited by Tired_Man (29 December 2010 11:26)

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

I am very concerned about giving certain details away as I feel my neighbours can be dangerous.

However, we are white and they are white.

We are all in council housing.

It is in an area of one of the biggest cities in England.

One thing I do know and I don't know if it changes anything is that they have a social worker and social services visit them.

I now understand that saying we suspected drugs may have been a good oppertunity. We had no idea about the drugs at that time. I guess we suspected it but not massivley. We obviously suspect it much more due to all the things that point to it.

I did not understand the hands are tied comment. The guy from the council is very sympathetic to us and says he once had noisy neighbours. Everything seems to drawn out.

I don't understand about warnings. What worries me is how many warnings they need before something gets done. Let's say if it's 3 warnings at this rate it will be 33 months. I know it's all IFs but surely things have to start speeding up.

I really want the council to begin recording them. At least it's evidence. It's just our word against hers at the moment, although we have two other neighbours making complaints.

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Before I forget, the council have also told us to under no circumstances communicate with them.

We tried reasoning and asking them at first, like the noise pack we were provided with told us to but the council have told us not to approach them.

Noise actually suggested mediation but the guy from the council is very against that.

We're past that stage anyway but it gives me the impression they know something we don't.

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

"I dont understand the second. Are there two lots of officials involved from different departments? ASB unit and Environmental Health?"

The council have told us to ring Environmental Health at night to log the noise with them, who I am assuming forward this to the council?

A man from the council is meant to be visiting us next week.

My light is currently swaying due to their noise.

The houses are not bought, they are rented from the council.

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Is the Environmental health the out of hours number?

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Spoke to the guy from the housing today.

I now have a medical note stating that lack of sleep is affecting my health.

We have pleaded that we have our ceiling tagged, the guy from the housing said that they have a small team and “limited resources”. He will however see what he can do.

We’re having giant bangs in the middle of the night and we can feel the vibrations. We told the guy from the housing this and he responded along the lines of, “well perhaps it’s the baby dropping it’s toy”. What a joke. Unless the baby is playing with a brick in the early hours of the morning, I do not think so!

Also, yes environmental health is for out of hours but they are meant to forward our “logging” calls to the housing. The housing have not received our recent ones.

Anyhow the council have probably given them a call as they are even noiser than usual tonight, which is quite an achievement.

Last edited by Tired_Man (10 January 2011 19:53)

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Baby playing with a brick, sounds like child abuse to me! Can you record the noise yourself or wont the council accept this?

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

It's obviously not the baby making those noises. These are done by adults. Adults jumping is my guess, but you're always trying to work out what's causing the noise in your head.

I've got recordings of them. I've done those of my phone. If I went about it I feel I'd need a clearer recording device, I've been thinking of buying a Dictaphone.

I've got recordings of her once admitting the noise and saying it was due to her boyfriend being drunk. The boyfriend who she has convinced the council that he doesn't exist.

I haven't asked the council if they'll accept this. The difficulty I'm having with them they’d probably no but I can ask if I don’t get the ceilings tagged tagged. The only thing is I doubt our own recordings can be used evidence if it went to court.

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Mac99 wrote:
Tired_Man wrote:

We have pleaded that we have our ceiling tagged, the guy from the housing said that they have a small team and “limited resources”. He will however see what he can do.

There was a court case last year where short staff was raised as an issue to not dealt within the time frames. High court ruled not having enought staff and being busy was no excuse.

Not having enough money is not an excuse in law for failing in the delivery of a statutory obligation.

Sorry but they are still taking the mick.

Regards
Mac

I think they are taking the mick. I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.

I don't know how to progress, whether it's a case of seeking legal evidence if they don't provide tagging?

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Thanks for your help, the situation is insane.

I've got a feeling I won't be sleeping tonight. I sleep more on the bus than I do at home.

11

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

What a disgrace...but don't stop harassing the council.  I had a similiar problem and after the first 3 months they wrote to me saying my vile upstairs neighbour wasn't producing enough noise for them to warrant pursuing the complaint and I would have to sue them privately.

I phoned and insisted on speaking to the head of their environmental department and followed up my complaint with a letter at the same time as contacting the police control centre and requesting a visit from the police community officer.  I also made an appointment at my local MPs surgery.  Making a fuss, standing up for myself and making them aware that I wasn't going anywhere finally galvanised all the authorities into action but only after I shouted 'THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!!' for 11 months.

After some strong words from a fantastic police officer who basically took no crap from vile neighbours, a final warning from the local council and a specific letter from the management company (the flat is privately owned) explaining that they with the building company would retract the lease agreement I  am able to sit here in the peace and tranquility of my home and actually manage to listen to my television in peace!

I know how unbearable it is and soul destroying but please don't give up shout, scream and demand your rights as a decent, law abiding citizen.  It will get better.

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Yayyyy go lucy!!!! well done chick! This fills me with hope, that yes it could go on for a while, but you get there in the end. Peach and tranquility is what I dream of!

I am so pleased for you!!! x

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

I'm sorry but this is becoming really confusing. I'm completely gobsmacked at how housing and environmental health are giving us different messages.

We asked for tagging, they gave us the limited resources comment again and then it turns out although we’ve got tonnes of logs, log books and calls to housing….we haven’t got enough logs to env. health who decide whether it can get tagged.

We’ve rung them quite a bit, we’ve asked them to come round but it’s totally pointless because they’ll usually say if we’re not round by 4am then we aren’t coming. They don’t come and we’re up all night waiting for them. They often decide to finally go to bed at anywhere between 1am and 4am anyway so we’ve had to ring them saying it’s gone quiet. I find it farcical.

Anyhow, we’ve been told to log it with them if it’s after the housing hours. It turns out they haven’t been recording our logs or passing them to the housing. We’ve been chasing this up and they’ve apologised for forgetting to log our calls.

They’re currently banging, our living room mini chandelier is swaying slightly. It’s not as bad as they can be but it’s bad enough. We ring Environmental Health asking them log it and a clever lady on the phone tells us they’re not there to log even though the housing manager has us to.

If anybody can make any sense of that let me know because the whole thing is confusing me!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since typing this message, we’ve received a phone call. We are now on the waiting list for the recording equipment but apparently it only runs for three hours. Does anybody how this works?

This is a complete U-turn from that woman 10 minutes ago.

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

The recording equip I have records for 3 mins when I press the button. I was told that if the noise goes on for a few hours, to press the button again 3 hours later, so they can see the noise is still happening. I have been told to get 10 recordings but no more as this is sufficient for evidence.

It seems it is like a postcode lottery with some councils...such a shame. Hang in there TiredMan x

Re: Neighbours From Hell Above Me, Council letting us down.

Tired Man I can totally empathise with your situation and the run around you are given by your council, its a very common tactic used by council up and down the country.
Councils prefer not to take action as by law they cannot take an action upon themselves so in other words any one here who is making complaints to the council about a person in a council property you really dont have any hope of resolution, unless of course it is so severe and they are forced to take action because of unfavourable or unavoidable publicity.
The recent news of the government introducing new measures so that ASB perpetrators can be evicted more easily is absolute tripe, what are these measures and when will they arise???? More powers to the local authorities they say, well they have all the powers already.... they dont act and the put victims who suffer at the hands of their own tenants in the properties they own through arduous and frustrating processes and treat us the victims like perpetrators at times and all in the hope we will put up and shut up.
This is all politics and I am sorry if I appear negative but I know from experience how tactical councils can be and how they will only take action if it is unavoidable otherwise they will treat you like with contempt and make YOU FEEL LIKE THE NUISANCE for complaining.  As for the way the alert the perpetrator, well that is usually something that makes it more of a dispute between you and your neighbour and that will detract from what REAL ACTION the council have to take. 
The whole system stinks, the law is not on our side and to all of you out there posting, if you find anyone on here or on sites like Neighbours from Hell offering you advice via private messages be sure you know they are not acting on behalf of either councils or so called environmental professional companies wanting your business, not everyone is as they seem on the net...... I have experienced of someone posing a kind person offering help and trying to lure me into giving information...... so if someone seems EXTREMELY knowledgeable and professional take that information but be careful not to give them too much on a private message basis.  No one here should ever answer anyone who asks which council they are complaining about, that has been done here I can see... they may have an alternative motive which I suspect this one does!
Sorry for the long post, but please beware of what information you give over the internet especially if your problems become a legal matter!
Best,