Difficult neighbours - victimisation?

[linzeloo]

I'm hoping someone might be able to help me. I've lived in a rented apartment for 3 years with my husband and am feeling very low about our rental situation. The surrounding neighbours constantly complain about us to our landlord and rental agency regarding minor things and its getting to the stage where we dread coming home as the atmosphere is so unwelcoming. We are a fairly young couple and feel like we're being victimised because the surrounding neighbours are all retired and involved in the committee and we're the youngest residents.

They have a very bad reputation for being bullies and we have since heard quite a few stories about residents moving out because they couldn't take the 'nit picking' attitude.

They also feel they can let themselves into our apartment without knocking, then state we didn't hear them at the door. Is this trespassing and what can we do about it?

We love our home and are reluctant to leave. We are trying to find a place to buy but the current market is against us even though we're working hard to find somewhere in our budget. Until we can find a place, we don't want to feel unwelcome where we are.

Does anyone know of any advise bureaus or organisations that might be willing to listen?

Our agency is useless and tend to side with the neighbours, as does our landlord. They are also on 'the committee'.

Examples of what they complain about are anything from loud noises (we are not def and have tv on normal) to having parties (we have a couple of friends around for dinner every weekend. Its quite civilised actually but getting increasingly embarrassing when we receive complaints our guests have been noisy when leaving our flat).

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

[rory32]

I have moved your thread to the Residential and Commercial Lettings Forum as I feel you may get more response there.

[MrShed]

It is not the most helpful advice, nor the advice you want to hear I'm afraid. But it definitely sounds like the situation is WAY past the point of no return. My only real advice is that moving would be the way out. This sounds like im taking the mick, which I'm not meaning to its a genuine question, but why would you want to remain there, nice as the property may be, if the living situation with your neighbours is unbearable? You can certainly prevent them entering your property etc, but you cannot prevent them from complaining, especially in situations as described as they are very much opinion-based complaints, and you cant stop people(not to put too fine a term on it) being complete t**ts!