Here is a cri de coeur from Jonathan (not his real name) who has called on the blog clinic for advice:
I’m having problems with tenant living above me with constant noise and disturbing behavior. Its very clear that this person has had some kind of mental illness. I’ve been to the council to try to get them to move me but with no joy.
The noise is constant through the night and day and is getting to a point where i will take things into my own hands. I’ve never had a criminal record but it is getting to that stage. I have recorded the sounds on camcorder as evidence and I was wandering if there was a legal route I could take to force the council to move me or him?
Hi John, my area of expertise is private renting not social renting, or neighbour problems, but I do know that it is very difficult to do anything about this kind of thing. I can remember vividly the case of the man who smashed up his neighbours vehicle becuase they refused to take seriously his complaints about their dogs constant barking! (Not that I suggest you do that!).
Does anyone have any ideas?
You could contact the Antisocial Behaviour Team at your local council.
You could speak to your local councillor for support.
If you live in social housing you may want to speak to your housing officer who may also be responsible for the person.
If the person does have a mental illness they may have a care co-ordinator or someone who is responsible for their care who may be able to support them if they are having difficulties or becoming unwell.
In the meantime, keep a diary of noise, volume, duration etc and impact on you.
Don’t forget you have a right for others to respect your private life and your home – not least under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act
The problem is that short of injuncting the upstairs tenant yourself (and I do not know if legal aid would be available for this, because if they’re also a Council tenant it’s very unlikely they’ll have any assets or ability to pay damages or costs unless they run a trade union), there isn’t much that can be done. Landlords are generally not liable for the actions of their tenants and a duty of care is unlikely to exist in any event (see X & Y v. Hounslow).
If other residents of your flatblock are being affected by this, round them up and all complain together. If the Council still won’t do anything, you may want to make noises towards your local paper perhaps?
Also, try contacting (sorry about the double post) environmental health and/or the Noise Abatement team?
If your neighbour is a social tenant then you can make a complaint to the landlord organisation and they could look into action for neighbour nuisance.
Also, It is a long time since I worked on a case with this, environmental health used to have this special equipment called TRL equipment. It is a recorder they can install in your property to measure the noise level with dates and times, this then counts as evidence for court cases (My apologies if this gear went out with the Sweeney)
JS is right, you could injunct (3 forms to fill in and a cost of £175) but as he also states not sure how far you will get, especially if he does have mental health problems.
I know how frustrating this can be. I just have heavy footed upstairs neighbours and it winds me up
A horrible position to be in
The problem you will have with taking any court proceedings is that if the upstairs tenant is under a disability you will not be able to pursue your action until a Litigation Friend is appointed for him. Nobody will agree to act in this capacity, so you’ll then have to ask the Official Solicitor to act, in which case they will want security for their costs.
environmental health or the NAT at the council probably would be the best bet and I would do that first to ensure there is a third party record of it.
I would ask / suggest popping upstairs to ask nicely as a first step before any formal action.
Seen this many times. My honest opinion? Move.
It takes ages for anything to happen even if you go down the offical route. But, if you really don’t weant to (or can’t) move, and the nexto of kin/social worker won’t help, then the only way you will really get any satisfaction is Envionmental Health. They have a duty to ivestigate noise complaints. However, they usually then try the following:
Give you practical advice about dealing with the problem.
Lending you noise measuring or recording equipment.
Try to persuade the person to be more considerate about times they make noise.
Asking the person responsible for night noise to stop making the noise immediately and, if the noise hasn’t stopped within ten minutes, giving an on the spot fine, or prosecuting.
If it continues s/he may be prosecuted.
Working with your landlord to resolve the problem, or making your landlord take measures to deal with noise nuisance (eg installing sound insulation).
Trust me, your best bet is to move.