Continued anti social behaviour in my area is making me worse :(

danicali

Hello. I am new on this forum but nice to "meet you all". I have come here in hopes of support and I hopefully can offer some as well...

Anyway, I am 52 years of age and I live in a smallish village and some of the locals consider me an outsider since I moved here, and I've suffered ongoing, off and on, anti social behaviour by a few of them.

First off, I will say that I was recently diagnosed with autism - yes, this late in my age - although I guess it's considered "high functioning" whatever that means... I also have bowel disease which leaves me unwell many days each month so I am on long term ESA at the moment. I also suffer anxiety, panic, and post trauma from years of severe abuse by an ex partner.

And all I've wanted for so long was just to live in peace. But it never seems to happen. Over the past few years, in my social housing flat, I've had the following happen:

- Rubbish left at my doorstep or around the outside of my flat
- A sudden mouse problem which I believe was done purposely via my letter box when I was out
- Moving my bins around or to the back where it's hard to get them, using my bins when they have their own, taking out the other neighbour's bins for them but always leaving mine
- Accepting parcels for me then not bringing them over to me, and even though I've asked them to please not accept for me, they continue to do so. It takes me 3 to 4 days to get my parcel from them as they don't open the door
- Knocking on my door and running away, and this has recently started happening in the middle of the night and terrifies me
- Damage to my car, suspected messing underneath it (my exhaust fell out from the bottom and later my heat shield), and car aerial stolen twice while it's been parked in the drive
- Partially blocking my car in its drive so that it's really hard to get out
- Smoking just underneath my bedroom window so my bedroom fills up with smoke
- Making lots of late night noise that wakes me up and I can't get back to sleep so I spend so many days exhausted, dizzy, unwell due to lack of sleep. I've missed appointments, etc because of this
- Destruction of the key safe box outside my property, had to change the locks

I have spent a few hundred pounds on cameras and other things to try to cope and protect myself, and while the camera on my window ledge seems to have helped with the messing with my car and bins, I am still being messed with and the noise in the middle of the night is driving me crazy. It just cost me another £100 to install a peep hole camera at my front door given the knocking at 4am and then again at 5am

I have told the housing officer, many times over the years, about these incidents, and she has done NOTHING at all. I've asked to be rehoused, that has been flatly denied me. So I am stuck here.

What upsets me the most is that I am a nice person and I've never done anything to these people so why would they mess with me? I feel I am targeted because I am a lone female without a male partner, and also as I said, not from the village. 

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions?

[Deleted User]

I had problems with my previous neighbours but nothing like this. I ended up moving to a bungalow due to medical reasons but it was partly because of the noise.

Have you tried contacting your local MP?

Also if you aren't happy with your housing, take a look at this site here - https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/

Your housing has a duty to stop things like this, it's ASB and it shouldn't be allowed. It can make people's health worse and even turn into violence if the person they are doing it to reacts. People who do this to others disgust me.

Pippa_Alumni

Hi @danicali, welcome to the community and thank you for sharing this with us. I'm so sorry that you've had to experience these things on top of managing your health, it sounds like you're having a really tough time.

You've had some good advice from @WF2k above. However, if you're getting nowhere, perhaps the housing charity Shelter would be able to advise/ help you advocate further. Please do keep us updated: we're here to listen, and we'll advise where we can. 

telscope

I have had problems with anti-social behaviour in the past. In the flat where I used to live I had loud music & dancing going on by a girl in the flat above, but as soon as I reported it to my landlords & they mentioned it to her when I was going to get monitoring equipment put in, she went quiet for the 2 weeks & as soon as I had the monitoring equipment taken out she started again. I just had no choice but to move to a better area. I was getting the loud music again where I moved to, but this time the monitor equipment wasn't mentioned to the guilty party & the loud music could be monitored as required. The man got a ASB warning. He keeps it up, or goes back on his warning & he could be out.

danicali

WF2k said:

I had problems with my previous neighbours but nothing like this. I ended up moving to a bungalow due to medical reasons but it was partly because of the noise.

Have you tried contacting your local MP?

Also if you aren't happy with your housing, take a look at this site here - https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/

Your housing has a duty to stop things like this, it's ASB and it shouldn't be allowed. It can make people's health worse and even turn into violence if the person they are doing it to reacts. People who do this to others disgust me.

Hi. It's funny you say what you said about turning to violence if the victim reacts. I was just talking about this today with a friend of mine who also happens to be a former copper and he agreed that people have been criminalised for finally snapping and fighting back. I am not a violent person, though, but I admit to having the odd fantasy where I do act violently towards who I think is doing this, which is why I didn't go for the fake cameras - I want to catch him. I want proof that he's the one doing this. Complete loser, this bloke. The grown son of neighbours. And I don't know if the parents are aware of what he's doing. Sometimes I think they have an idea.

[Deleted User]

Yeah I had many thoughts about my previous neighbours, I likely the property that I lived in but they made it too hard for me to stay there.

Try and see if your mp can help if you haven't already? If you get nowhere with them, complain to the housing ombudsman. You sound like you've tried other sources of help. I was also advised to call the none emergency police number to report things, it's logged then.

danicali

Hi again... thanks for your messages. I did tell police about the 4am knocking via their email system and they said they would  send some officers over for a chat about it, but they haven't come yet and now it's been two weeks. i also told my housing officer about it, as I've told her about other incidents. She never does anything. Part of it is that I don't have proof it's him with the knocking incident or with my car issues. You need solid proof for them to take action, which I understand. And I've tried for a few years to be rehoused, but haven't been successful. And yes, other people seem to get rehoused for "lesser" reasons. But what can you do. I've also written to my MP a while back about the anti social behaviour and they never followed it up with anything. So I think it's just down to catching him on camera. Or just by having cameras everywhere around my property and hope they deter anyone from doing anything else. But you do feel quite abandoned and alone, yet you aren't allowed to defend yourself as that's a criminal act. Anyway thanks again x

[Deleted User]

See if the housing ombudsman can advise you? It's a shame no one will come forward and say they've witnessed him doing things, I'm sure someone must have seen what he's doing.

Do you have a cam that overlooks your door?

danicali

i've got a camera in the upstairs window that over looks my car and bins now... and that's helped a lot since i bought it. the new camera is my peep hole camera so if anyone comes to the door it starts recording. 

[Deleted User]

ahh ok. Shame you can't catch him at it.