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Long story short. I rent my home through a Housing Cooperative, privately owned housing association. I’ve never got on with my neighbours. When they moved in I went round to say hello and welcome them, the husbands first and only words to me were “want do you want you ****?” (See you next Tuesday). Since then I’ve exchanged less than one word with them.
They’ve always been noisy, kids growing up but always shouting at each other, constant slamming doors, they actually can’t close any door without it being slammed. It went through a phase of blazing rows, with the kids, with each other. Then the parents went quite, rumoured to be splitting, then just before Christmas they reconciled and they’re all loved up.
Now for the AIBU bit. The first hot spell we had they bought a firepit. Every night, come rain or shine they’ve been burning damp wood, very smoky, for hours. This was a slight improvement over the weed they smoke because it kind of masked the weed. They must have run out of damp wood about a week ago, so it’s just the constant stink of weed.
It’s now got to the point where the pervasive smell of weed is constantly wafting through our house and garden. If they manage to not fire up before 5pm then they are having a quiet night. 5pm until 11ish every day and all day over the weekend.
How do I go about raising this as a complaint? To either the landlord, council, police? It’s gone past being someone enjoying their home to becoming a nuisance. Other neighbours have mentioned it but are far enough away that the smoke is slightly dissipating, but we are getting it full force.
And no, I don’t need to smoke some weed to chill out, man!
First thing I'd do is start a diary. What, when, how long for, severity, what colour the smoke was (if visible, obs), how loud, etc etc. Whoever you report them to will want these details.
A friend had something similar and it was a total nightmare for her to the extent that she could barely live in her house, she was sofa-surfing for months to avoid the toxic atmosphere and noise.
Complaints got bounced between the landlord ("I can't do anything, they pay their rent"), the police ("it's a council noise complaint matter"), and the council ("any illegal behaviour is a matter for the police").
Eventually, the council got more involved because the back garden had become a dumping ground so they issued clear up notices (ignored) and then eventually went through the courts but that took nearly a year.
The family moved out a day before they were due to be evicted leaving the place uninhabitable. They'd pissed on the carpet in every room, torn and broken the furniture... What followed for my friend was another 3 months of noise while the house had a complete renovation.
As Cougar says, you'll need to keep a diary (an accurate one, no matter how tempting it is to fabricate issues) of behaviour and disruption but council and housing association first and just keep at it.
Move, anyone who calls you a **** on first meeting isn't going to get more neighbourly. And if you go down the complaints route, you'll then become emotionally invested in "winning". Even if you do eventually, the journey there involves getting massively frustrated at all unreasonable behaviour. Which is guaranteed to escalate.
If you know or can contact the landlord remind them when they sell the house they'll need to declare a dispute on the Property Information Form (TA6).
Report the pot smoking to the police.
Frankly, move.
These sorts of people won't take kindly to any form of letter, fine or reasonable discussion with them. At best they'll ignore them and at worst you'll wake up to find your tyres slashed.
Yeah I have to agree with the others. If you’re only renting I’d be moving out sharpish. Our neighbours are very similar rowing, loud, weed smokers but we have the extra joy of the fact they have two dogs who NEVER get walked and their only outdoor space is their balcony so we also get the fragrance of dog piss and poo. And some idiot is currently getting them looking after their dog, so three dogs with this one barking at every fly that goes past. If we weren’t owners I’d be moving and I wish we knew before we bought because even with the lovely three garages we have, it’s not worth it!!
Its a difficult one
I doubt the police will be interested in simple possession. They simply do not have the time and resources to bust every report of simple possession. Even if they are busted I doubt it would change much.
I would assume the leases have "good neighbour" clauses but is the nuisance enough to trigger this?
Can you get other neighbours on side? Multiple reports might help
Keep the diary, report to the landlard, try to get other neighbours to do the same
Complaints got bounced between the landlord ("I can't do anything, they pay their rent"), the police ("it's a council noise complaint matter"), and the council ("any illegal behaviour is a matter for the police").
- Is the landlord doing regular inspections to make sure they're not trashing the place?
- The police are correct in that antisocial noise is a council matter, it's what's known as a Statutory Nuisance. You will need to quantify this report, hence my suggestion of starting a diary.
- Burning potentially toxic materials is an Environment Agency issue. You will need to quantify this report, hence my suggestion of starting a diary.
On 1) You're probably dependent here on how much the landlord cares, it's not something I know a great deal about. There may be legalities they have to abide by here, I've no idea. I'd assume some sort of safety check would be required? :shrug:
On 2) I've had this twice. At the old house I had noisy neighbours; arguing parents and feral kids. (I actually called the police at one point because I genuinely feared for her safety. That actually proved remarkably effective.)
At the new place there was a broken grate in the road outside so any time anything drove over it it went crash-crash. It was a constant soundtrack day and night. I went out to see if I could shore it up somehow, a neighbour came out and told me she'd reported it to the council. I reported it to a local counsellor who actually came and stood outside my house for 40 minutes then emailed me going (I paraphrase) "jesus christ, how do you put up with that?!" It was fixed inside of two days.
On 3) The old house had a commercial unit across the back street and they took to burning all manner of shit. Orange smoke, plastic smells, gods only know what. The EA advised me to contact them - I was given the direct email address of the local enforcement officer - every time it happened. So I did. Eighteen times over the course of several months. But they finally stopped.
There may be legalities they have to abide by here, I've no idea. I'd assume some sort of safety check would be required? :shrug:
Certainly not in Scotland. You can inspect, you do not have to. If you want to do an inspection there are certain legal steps to take
In terms of what the landlord can or can't do presumably both you and the neighbour have the same clauses in your contracts so maybe look there to see what counts as a contravention that the landlord would act on
Smoke from garden fires (or smoke more generally) - if it's a nuisance- is a council issue and they can issue an abatement order. Interestingly they can issue that against person who is causing the smoke - or - they can instead issue it against the owner of the property involved. So one approach you could take with the Housing Coop in the suggestion that they'd be the subject of the abatement order if you were pursue one.
As above - getting an abatement order is contingent on the amount of smoke, how frequently, and over how long a period of time and how 'reasonable' the smoke is considered to be. For instance smoke from houses that are heated by fires would be considered more 'reasonable' - in that it serves a need- than just burning stuff in your garden for fun.
I'd actually agree with everything @RichPenny wrote above.
Having seen what my friend went through (including because she was staying at mine a fair bit just to be away from her house and the appalling neighbours), it caused her months and months of stress and disruption.
Complaints run the risk of escalation and then they'll just go out of their way to make your life miserable.
Neighbours can make or break a place. The nicest house and location can be rendered a total misery if you have arsehole neighbours. Likewise, a good community spirit can uplift even the most deprived neighbourhood.
Unless you're a bigger, nastie, more evil **** than him and liook forward to living in a little box with properly nasty thugs and a one hour walk a day I don't have advice beyond suck it up or move
Neighbours can make or break a place. The nicest house and location can be rendered a total misery if you have arsehole neighbours.
Totally agree.
In my last home, we had a dickhead of a neighbour. Addict, but still a nasty piece of work who was threatening my opposite neighbours(registered childminder, so kids there pretty much throughout the day.. In fact i even left the flat one morning to find him threatening to stab the childminders hubby.
He had his hand at his back pretending he had a knife - he didnt
I grabbed him by the throat and shoved him into the close wall and issued a few 'promises' of my own.
They were really nice folk and were in the process of selling up when dickhead managed to do everyone a good turn by overdosing and that was that.
I arrived home one day to find my tenement neighbours holding an impromptu 'Glad you are dead party(kind of sad really)
Im not suggesting you do the same or take strong action because this guy was basically one guy with no mates or anyone who would back him up, and your neighbour has grown kids/nasty mates etc.
So moving should be a serious option if the council don't/can't act on your diary info, and tbh complaints like this, especially as they are a family/kids etc might only issue a warning and that will be that until they grow bold enough to start their nonsense again.
I consider myself pretty lucky now where i am and all my neighbours are really nice
About 10 years back we had a dickhead move in next door (rented house, we owned ours). Was there for about a year, him and his family made most people's live's uncomfortable due to constant rows/parties/threats. Private landlord was just as bad - lived a fair way away so didn't seem to be remotely bothered. Council issued the same advice as above (it was actually the council I believe who'd placed this family in the house - found out later they'd been evicted from every house they'd ever been placed in) about keeping a log of everything that happened. Police were involved almost on a weekly basis and something must have triggered with them as after about 10 months the police contacted the landlord and basically told him to evict them. Through a combination of the police (who were brilliant) and the council (who were useless) they were eventually thrown out the house on the day we had to submit to the solicitors whether we'd had any issues with the neighbours (we'd decided to sell and move months earlier) - no, no problems at all as the property next door is vacant! As mentioned above, this family had supposedly been moved around by the council and apparently that had been their last chance so council support for the sponging morons ended there.
OP - short story, move so you don't need to worry about it. Find a house to rent somewhere nicer or even better with no close neighbours. Let the idiot neighbours self destruct.
We're kind of in the middle of a similar situation. We own our ex-local authority house in a nice estate on the edge of the town. We've lived here for 28yrs and really love the place. Just as Covid kicked off, new neighbours moved in to the council house two doors up. They seem pleasant enough, with a young family but the hubby immediately began covering the outside of the house in CCTV security and erecting a huge gate and other security features on his driveway. Okay, no problem, he's a petrol head with stupid wee fast hatchbacks and he's precious about them.
Then he built a workshop in his back garden and it soon became apparent that he's modifying cars and racing them. Pretty much every day is a constant barrage of angle grinders, welding machines, hammers. The family who's in the same semi as the new neighbour is now talking about selling up and moving, its gotten that bad.
I'm actually kind of terrified of taking action against the guy. What if it all blows up in my face and turns into 'neighbours from hell' territory? I don't want to move, why should I have to because he's an inconsiderate arsehole?
I wish you luck OP. Hope your situation gets resolved in your favour.