Stupid bint in flat upstairs floods us out...AGAIN...

Marcel

Marcel

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Marcel
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Thats only this room :( It was literally running off the bathroom light before.

We live in a block of 4 cottage flats.
6 o clock this morning my wife and I were woken up by a dripping noise in the bedroom, it was coming off the cracks in the ceiling in here, and off the lightbulb in the bathroom, and the walls were getting increasingly sodden.

We knock on upstairs, no answer, nothing. So we call the Housing Associations emergency number, explain the situation, they send someone out within an hour, who manage to get a response from her. He comes back down and says the plug was in and the bath was full, and there were towels outside the bathroom door, so when they opened the door, it just flooded out. So she must have put a bath on last night before falling asleep. (I heard her walking about at around midnight).

The thing is, this isn't the first time it's happened. In the 10 years we've been in this flat (she was here when we moved in), she's done it roughly 10 times before. Sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes in the bathroom. I think only once was it a plumbing leak (and she put a pan underneath it and went away for the weekend, knowing it was bad enough to fill the pan up within a couple of hours).

At least on 3 occasions the housing have had to break into her house with the police (or on their own), to gain entry.
Not once have we complained, we've just let it dry, and got on with things. suffered with no electrics till it's dried, and not said a word. She ignores us, hides out of the way.

This morning, we've had enough, we've been on the list for a 3 bedroom house for over 2 years now, and we're still waiting (this is a 2 bed flat).
We tell the housing we've had enough and we want something done, either kick her out, or move us. No joy.
They're going to send her a letter, that's it.
And as for our flat, we can apply in writing for some decorating materials, (naturally assuming we'd have to do it ourselves..again)....and that's it.

It's not just the flooding though. Every weekend, or school break, her daughter and grandson comes to stay. All hours of the night they're thumping about like bloody elephants, arguing and shouting (like a nice scally family does). They're throwing fags out of the back bedroom window, all over the communal garden (ruined the carrots I planted), and burnt my daughters trampoline.
Then he brings his scally mates round playing football in the garden (its not allowed), and we also caught them once trying to nick our kids toys. (We've caught them playing on them a few times).

I got a video and loads of photos this morning, and I'm gonna start writing it all up.

GRRRR she really does my head in. The other two neighbours are lovely, we all get on great, but she just doesn't seem all 'there' if Im being honest. Very dozy....and whats' more we know she won't even knock on the door and say sorry or anything. If it were me that's the first thing I'd do. She never has.

So....leak number 10 (I think, I lost count)....Wonder when #11 is going to happen.
 
Harsh dude. My heart goes out to you. If one thing can ruin a home it's awful neighbours. I know, I've had a few, but none so bad as yours. Does your HA offer an exchange scheme? might be a way out?

If they don't help then a quick phone call to the local rag with offers of photographs may help your cause in the short term.

you could, alternatively start a small fire, burn the flats out and just claim that you were doing it to dry the damp out. Worst that can happen is you get a letter from the HA. Apparently!

Hope it all gets sorted out chap, nobody needs that kind of stress!
 
Unfortunate - hope you manage to get some kind of solution to the problem, its terrible that your home is being ruined because she doesnt look after hers, surely this must be in breach of her housing association rules if she is effectively damaging her property and that of the other members.

Good luck, hope you get it sorted soon :thumbs:
 
What's really needed is some better filtering on the gene pool. :shrug:

Disgraceful that you have to put up with that sort of behaviour Bod, I hope you get it sorted mate.
 
Jeez Marcel
Ive had nightmare neighbours and I know how much it can drag you down when they dont have any consideration for you.
Ever tried eating your Christmas lunch while choking on the exhaust fumes from a jacked up old Fiesta xr2 backed up against your living room window? no fun!
There was no getting any help from the authorities for me, as I was a bit too 'mousy' for the area I lived in. The only peeps that ever got owt done were those with more mouth than brains.

Is it not apossibility to rent privately? Its what I had to resort to back then in order to get some normality back into my life!

My neighbours now are a dream (of course it helps not being adjoined to them, lol!). Id like something a bit bigger but Ive never lived amongst such nice people and I worry that if I move, I might end up with neighbours from hell again.
My heart goes out to you and I hope you can get something sorted mate!:hug:
 
Crikey with all that going on you (& the missus) deserve an award for patience :bang: - I don't think I could have put up with more than a couple of floods never mind TEN - not to mention all the other stuff with her poxy family - makes me appreciate my relatively happy existence & half decent neighbours etc - hope you get sorted sooner rather than later ...
Paul :thumbs:
 
Marcel, I think it's time you got your MP involved. The HA are clearly failing to maintain their duty of care towards a tenant (you). Hopefully with a little nudge from your MP the HA might just pull their bloody finger out and get her, or preferably you, moved.
 
Is she a drinker, or does she have memory problems? either way it seems to me that what she needs is care.

What you need to do is go back through the years and find all the proof/details you can about previous incidents and take it back to the HA. Lay it all out and 'demand' that they do something for you.
 
thats just ******* ridiculous mate! Its about time they chucked her out! Can you not get a transfer to a house? I think with 10 previous flooding attempts its time to get moved!
 
Years ago when we first got a flat the neighbour above was bad.
His dog used to pee and would drip through to us. Music was loud till 3am. The whole place stank real bad. Constant swearing and real awful people around them.
Got so bad that on Christmas night at about 1pm i went up and knocked on his door. Asked them politely to stop it all but i was met with a barrage of abuse, even threats against us and the daughter. So i gave him 30 seconds to phone who he needed to come protect him (which he laughed at) so i pinned him down and tried to set fire to him with a box of matches. He begged me not to do it and said he would change as i hadn't realised how bad he was for me to go that far. Never heard from them again.
Had plenty of the other neighbours come and thank me after as they had all had years of him and tried complaining without getting anywhere.

The system will always let you down till its you do something then they'll have you. That is whats so bad about this country.
 
Ouch. Bad news mate :(

you've got to make a nuisance of yourself to the housing association until they do something about it. Constant vists, letters, phone calls, etc. Make it so they don't want to see you again!
 
Im really sorry to hear that mate, but I do love the term "BINT"
Its at times like this that I think "it is every mans right and duty to carry a firearm" Nowhere near as bad as your problem but annoying all the same.
Our new neighbours moved in about 2 months ago and 3 weeks ago decided to have the whole house re-wired, did they call to tell us that there would be banging and hammering on the walls for 2 weeks, no and so when me and the Mrs were working overnight we didn't get much sleep.
having had the work done they decided to go out and buy a puppy, then leave it in the house for 8 hours a day whilst they went to work. I swear if it doesnt stop yapping and whining soon i will not be responsible for my actions.
 
that is quite a nightmarish situation, having a bad neighbour. It's not easy to move out or resolve. :(

Good luck with sorting things out, Marcel.
 
That really is crap Marcel ... I can feel for you and your missus ... it must be so awful for you both !

Truly hope you get it/her sorted or get to move somewhere else pretty soon ... no real alternative really m8 ... and even then there is no guarantee you won't be worse off ...

There are some real ignorant pigs out there ...and you seem to have suffered your share !
 
The biggest problem you're going to have is that she's not going to be on a shorthold lease. It's an assured tenancy if it's HA (I believe) so different rules for eviction apply. They have to get it all approved at court level, which can take years to do, and an HA is unlikely to want to go to that trouble if nobody is injured/assaulted/etc.

I used to live in a council house and one of the neighbours was the local terrorist - he set fire to our dustbins (5 ft away from the petrol tank on my car), constantly threatened us, tried to break in, etc. Eventually he got moved out of the road and I believe is doing time for murder now.

Not to say I don't feel for you - I really do. What happens should a mini-Marcel pops onto the scene? Damp walls aren't exactly going to be an ideal environment for a tiddler...

Best advice is to put in for a transfer or private swap and hope that she's been behaving herself when people come to see the flat...
 
We've done that :( Apart from the waiting list, we're also on the list for an exchange/swap.

We also have two kids, 7yo girl and 2yo boy, sharing the other room, and they say its adequate as theyre both under 10. Once one of them reaches the age of 10, we can be classed as 'overcrowded' and bumped up the list.

It's nearly 5 o clock and this room still stinks of damp plaster. I've had the windows open all day and the air cleaner on full.

The Housing Officer basically said all they can do is send her a letter warning her, because she's aware of her actions (IE not demented)...I'd beg to differ myself, but....

Thanks for the replies and kind words everyone :) I know there are bigger problems in the world out there, but it's just annoying when other people seem to have just no consideration for others, that's what narks me the most.
 
Nasty one Marcel.....one flood would be bad enough, but ten. Hell - doesn't bear thinking about.

The flat we are in now has the benefit of being built in the 1950's when they first started seriously playing with concrete in house building and wanted to use it anywhere they could. Trying to hang a picture on the wall requires a hammer-drill, but we get pretty much NO noise from upstairs through the concrete ceiling above us! Where we were before was a bit more of a problem with neighbours. The boyfriend of the girl in the flat below us (who turned out to have long term mental health problems) decided to stop taking his medication. Went a bit doo-lally and barricaded himself into the flat - we were woken at 6am by banging and crashing sounds from below as he broke up the kitchen cupboards to nail across the front door. about half an hour later the shouting, swearing, and generally holding loud conversations with himself (the girlfriend had got the hell out a few days previously although we didn't initially know this!) and half an hour after that my other half decided it was bad enough to call the Police. In the end it took a dozen Police in riot gear to get him out, but only one man in a white coat to tell him he was being locked up for his own (and our!) safety! THEN we found out that he'd done all this before...hmmm!

I truly hope that one way or the other your situation gets sorted marcel - and I'd echo what's been said above - make a nuisance of yourself with the HA and inform them that you're going to contact your MP.
 
I say wait till midnight and kick the door down, a couple of taps on the back of the head with a spade and chuck her in the bath again with the taps on.

The conversation with the inept morons in the morning might be different then ;)
 
:lol:

Well I normally hear her thumping about at about 1am every night. It must be when she gets home from working in the local pub.

Last night I heard her about midnight.
This morning at 6 we looked outside, and her living room curtains were open, her bedroom light on, and her bedroom windows open. So I had a feeling she might have died in the bath or something. Especially when stood outside, I heard her alarm clock go off....

Was kinda hoping, but no joy...lol
 
omg, why would you even stay there Marcel, after 10 floods??? That' s just crazy if you ask me. Look at the damage you got going on there, my goodness. That' cant' be healthy either,any mould going on through the walls?? I would get that checked eh! sorry to hear about that, hope things get sorted.

Jules
 
I hope they dont, but do either of your kids have any health problems they see the doctor for, asthma, anything like that, if they do get your doctors to write a letter saying this isnt helping the condition, just a thought, it might help, it might not. I would also agree speak to your MP or someone higher up.
 
Well I have asthma (this room is our bedroom), and my daughter *had* asthma when she was younger.

The first time it happened, this was the spare room (we had no kids).
We had to throw away the carpet, and the spare bed, it was covered in mould.
We then had treatment in this room for damp and mould.

I'm gonna start formulating a big list and letter to present to them shortly, giving them 7 days to address the issue. If not, I'll be repeating it with a CC to the local MP, then another 7 days I'll repeat again with a letter to the local press.

It seems they're willing to sit back and let this woman just get on with things.
We had water dripping off the light fittings this morning, and they haven't bothered to send an electrician or anything. My own common sense knows not to use the lightswitch (and with the recent rewire we had, I know it will now trip the power should anything become unsafe), but still. Surely it's unacceptable that they came out this morning, stopped the source of the leak and that was it?

They haven't offered us anything to dry the room out, no electrician, no one to check or anything. We were simply told to put things in writing, and they would send a surveyor out to assess the damage to see how much worth of decorating materials we would be entitled to.

A joke really.
 
Bod

They have a duty of care, apply the pressure and accept nothing less than what you need.

A dehumidifier is a must to get the rooms dry.
 
send her a bill including legal expenses (made payable to me (I'm a "Lawyer") - you'll get 80% of your £2000 legal expenses back)
 
leoedin said:
send her a bill including legal expenses (made payable to me (I'm a "Lawyer") - you'll get 80% of your £2000 legal expenses back)
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lol

Oops sorry mate, I've already hired this guy

hutz_pointing.gif


I hear he's one of the best in the business :D
 
Marcel said:
Well I have asthma (this room is our bedroom), and my daughter *had* asthma when she was younger.

The first time it happened, this was the spare room (we had no kids).
We had to throw away the carpet, and the spare bed, it was covered in mould.
We then had treatment in this room for damp and mould.

I'm gonna start formulating a big list and letter to present to them shortly, giving them 7 days to address the issue. If not, I'll be repeating it with a CC to the local MP, then another 7 days I'll repeat again with a letter to the local press.

It seems they're willing to sit back and let this woman just get on with things.
We had water dripping off the light fittings this morning, and they haven't bothered to send an electrician or anything. My own common sense knows not to use the lightswitch (and with the recent rewire we had, I know it will now trip the power should anything become unsafe), but still. Surely it's unacceptable that they came out this morning, stopped the source of the leak and that was it?

They haven't offered us anything to dry the room out, no electrician, no one to check or anything. We were simply told to put things in writing, and they would send a surveyor out to assess the damage to see how much worth of decorating materials we would be entitled to.

A joke really.
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sorry to hear about this predicament mate, i've lived in a housing co-op place for the last 5 years, (2 bed flat) most of the time it's been ok with the exception of a couple of bad neighbours who have come and gone, at the moment i have got a little s**t who lives underneath me, who is on his own with 2 young children, at the moment he has had a couple of warnings from the housing co-operative, for noise loud music and generally shouting his mouth off at his kids, i feel sorry for the kids most of the time as he's always swearing at them, which does'ent sit well with me at all, i understand we all tell our children off, but effing and blinding at them is not on in my book, as there only about 6 and 7 years old.

although your in a housing association place you do have certain rights with your local council, if you get in touch with them they should send you out a log book to keep dates of noise etc, also the housing association are by law obliged to make any repairs to your flat and make good any damage done by neighbours or anything else that could cause damage to the property, particularly where electrics or water are concerned, point this out to them and if you still get no joy get in touch with the housing association ombudsman at WWW.HOUSINGCORP.GOV.UK it will not be an overnight solution but the sooner you get the ball rolling the better,hope this helps and good luck.
 
Slightly different situation, I know (and I cannot condone this behaviour at all hehehehe) but when we were posted to Ternhill Barracks near Market Drayton in Shropshire(?), the barracks were in such an appalling state that we asked for something to be done. No budget for improvements or renovations we were told, just get on with it. This was the same building that was bombed by the PIRA when 2 PARA were based there, and there was a good deal of subsidence and cracking in the (repaired) structure of the building.
In addition, the previous battalion, who sound like the Woyal Relsh Fusileers, appeared to have kept thier regimental mascots in the ground floor rooms as the whole place was infested with fleas.
"You'll be alright," we were told: "Fleas don't bite humans..."
Faced with this kind of dullard mentality, some of the lads did what we could to improve things, but one night we'd had enough. Someone went round before the weekend and told everyone to clean out any expensive electricals or things of a 'personal and irreplacable' nature.
That weekend the building mysteriously burnt down. Sad.
We all moved into nice, clean portakabins a month later.
I was on course when all this happened and I have no idea who the arsonist was, honest guv...
 
tut tut, incriminating post there soldier!
 
Marcel,

I also live in a Housing Association and I know how bad it is to get anything done by local Councils or Housing Assocaitions.

They wont offer to do anything to your property until you ask them to do repairs. They run on budgets that are tight usually (non profit making organisations).

Until they are told of problems, they dont normally do anything. So when you said the upstairs had been flooded, they came and dealt with that situation. If you tell them you cannot use your electric, they will come and sort that out but until then, I bet they dont know there is a problem.

These people are either not the brightest and guessing that they need to fix the problem or just look away and hope you deal with it yourself. I would start peeling wall paper off the walls and seeing the extent of the problem and say that the flood has caused it to start falling off.

Also play on your Asthma. It WILL get you moved. Also use the stress this is putting on you and your family. STRESS will also get you moved as this is a major thing nowadays and everyone has a duty of care to someone who is suffering stress.
 
The really dozy ones are the ones at the HA. What on earth are they playing at allowing that level of damage over such a long period of time? :thinking:
 
Thanks for the replies :)

She passed my wife outside and just held her head down and ignored her. A simple "Sorry" wouldn't go amiss.

I rang the housing again today, and explained that we had a leak, they sent someone out, who stopped the leak then buggered off. She said "So what did he do in your flat after that?", my reply "Eeer, nothing, he just left".

I said we haven't seen an electrician to check the bathroom light or anything, and this room still stinks of damp plaster, its playing havoc with my asthma (which it is), and there's damp patches all over the walls (although not as bad as yesterday). She did initially offer to send someone out on Monday or Tuesday until I mentioned the electrics and she's sending someone out to assess it tomorrow afternoon.

I've had the windows wife open all day, and the heating on almost full, and this room still stinks :gag: It's like a really rich smell of damp carpet and plaster.
 
You need to get the carpets lifted if you haven't already.
 
keep playing on health issues especially the kids as much as possible. hope you get something sorted soon.
 
Claim off her household insurance for a new computer and loads of stuff. If they query it just chuck a cup of water over it (unplug from mains first)
 
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