“There is another issue, it’s my neighbours”.
“Ok, tell me about it.”
I’m Karen, and I work as the Communications Manager at Housing Options Scotland. Before working in this role, I worked directly with clients and helped them to explore their housing options.
People come to us for help with all kinds of situations at HOS but one that always struck a chord with me was when a client was having problems with their neighbours. It wasn’t always the first thing someone wrote on their ‘Get Help’ form. Sometimes, it wasn’t mentioned at all, but once you got chatting to a client you would find out more and then, there it was.
The reason my heart would sink for them was because I could remember that feeling of powerlessness when you’re living next door to people who don’t appear to care about the impact they are having on your day-to-day life. Have you experienced bad neighbours? If you have, I’m very sorry to hear that, and if not, I really hope you never do.
For me it was noise, at all times of night and day, and the design of my home meant there wasn’t a room in the house where we didn’t hear it, the garden included. But for some of our clients it’s much worse than that. Some clients can’t even feel safe in their home.
In my case, I owned my home and the neighbours making the noise owned their home too. The best route for me to take appeared to be the anti-social behaviour team at the council. I’d told clients in the past about this and now, here I was. I called one day, the lady on the phone was very helpful and she said we could have a visit from them if we wanted it, and they could approach our neighbours. I was hesitant, I thought a knock at the door from the council wouldn’t be received well. I decided to go to speak to them instead.
I’d spoken to them on the doorstep on several occasions, this time I asked to come in. I sat down in their living room, and I explained how their noise was affecting me. I asked if they could try to think about us a little more. To be honest, I was a frazzled new mum, getting very little sleep. I just wished the (large amount of) time I was awake in my house I wasn’t listening to their noise constantly. They listened, they were polite, although maybe not as sympathetic as I’d hoped. I didn’t leave with a great deal of confidence that things would change. I thought that they thought, I was a frazzled new mum (which I was) who had too high expectations of noise levels.
You might now be thinking as optimistically as I was:
“They know how much it’s affecting me, surely that has helped. They’re going to change their ways”
Sadly, not the case. Things didn’t improve. And despite it all, I loved our home. We had moved into it as a project, we decorated it ourselves. It was the home where we became a family. But when I had my second daughter, and we needed more space we decided it was time to look for somewhere new. On our first house search we were hoping for a little garden, a new location etc. This time round the key consideration was – neighbour noise. Six years living next door to noisy neighbours meant I didn’t want to take any chances. We were very fortunate to have the means to move.
I remember sitting in our new home for the first two weeks and I couldn’t believe the peace and quiet. I had a huge sense of relief.
Sadly, my situation is not unique. And for our clients, if they are living in a rented home they are relying on their landlord to help and support them. One thing the HOS team can do is listen. I know how useful that can be. I remember when I spoke to the anti-social behaviour officer at our local council it really helped just to tell someone what was going on and have someone confirm back to me that what I was describing was not acceptable.
Moving was the solution for us, but I know that’s not possible for everyone. All I can say is, if you’re in that situation, it can get better. Speak to the team at HOS. They’ll listen. And hopefully, this can help you to decide the best way forward. Contact us through our form here Get Help