Thank you EB, I don't know why I didn't spot that. I thought something was missing and couldn't see for looking.

 

HB

That was a misprint, but i can't find the edit option for that post. Looks like we can't edit our old posts here.

it is ANTIsocial behaviour.

please take note.

yes, it was a misprint)

- - - Updated - - -

Looks OK to me.

 

HB

Thanx)

agree, just copy what he has written then it will be clear to the council what you want and they wont be able to wriggle out of supplying the info because your wording doesnt use the exact terminology.

Ok, i see. Check my previous post pls. Does the wording make more sense now?

I would word it exactly the way stu007 did in his post, otherwise you're changing the meaning slightly. You want to see the policy for a) noise and b) antisocial behavour. [stu says the procedures will be within the policies.]

 

I would start it with Dear Sir rather than Hi.

 

HB

Thanx

Dear Sir,

Please provide me with your policy for:

a) Noise

b) Social Behaviour

Regards,

Mr XXX

@ pugilist

 

Simply read my post properly

I've just done so. It looks like you suggested me asking them if they have those policies at all, am I correct?

If this is the case, my message should look as follows:

Hi Mr XXX,

Please tell me if you have any specific procedures on dealing with nuisance neighbours :

1) Do you have any Noise Policy that you have to follow in case you receive a complaint

&

2) Do you have any Anti Social Behaviour Policy that you are obliged to follow in case you receive a complaint

Regards,

Mr YYY

If I am wrong again, is there any chance you could rephrase your answer to clarify the meaning of it?

my spelling mistakes are caused by me having multiple sclerosis and so I struggle to get my body to co-ordinate itself. Peopel do understand my "gibberish" becasue they bother to read it carefully and apply some thought to exactly waht is siad rather than just scanning over it and jumping to the wrong conclusion.

 

This doenst apply to just my words though, peopel HAVE writtenm out EXACTLY what you need to just copy out and you then paraphrase that as somehting that is totally different and carries no useful request. Look at what was written by STU and look at your version Stu says ask for a specific POLICY and you translate that to procedures with noisy neighbours where no council will have such things because there isnt a statutory regulation that applies should they decide to be jobsworthy over this ( and they will beacuse neighbour disputes are a legal nightmare).

Sorry for your condition bro..

It seems that I really misinterpreted STU's words. Most likely, that he didn't express his thoughts in a clear way!

Well, not I am really at a loss of what he wanted to say and what is wrong with my paraphrasing of his words..

renegadeimp said:

Pretty much. I'd either email it. Or simply go to the council offices and ask them.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Check your councils website though.

 

For mine its http://www.flintshire.gov.uk/en/Resident/Environmental-Health/Noise-Nuisance.aspx

Well, my initial message to them was through their website. So, I'll do it same way again.

stu007 said:

Hi

 

What you actually want to request is there Policy which will contain there Procedures and ask for both:

 

Noise Policy &

 

Anti Social Behaviour Policy. (note noise cones under this as well)

 

Could you clarify if the neighbour is a Home Owner / Private Renting / Housing Association or Council Tenant etc?

Hi

I remember her husband once said that he was renting. But u can't trust such fellas. He is almost always at home, same as his nuts wifie and the kid. He may be a Council Tenant, but I just don't know.

What do you think if I put it this way:

Hi Mr XXX,

Please provide me with your current procedures on dealing with nuisance neighbours:

1) Noise Policy

&

2) Anti Social Behaviour Policy

Regards,

Mr YYY

So you recon just one phrase would do, and no need to add any extra gibberish?

Hi Mr XXX,

Please provide me with your current procedures on dealing with nuisance neighbours.

Regards,

Mr YYY

What do u think is the best way to send the message this time: by post special delivery or via online form on their site?

Should I send them just a short message like this?

Thank you for your response dated xxxxx. Please provide me with the procedure which is set within your council for the things like that. I need to know what steps you are obliged to make when you get a complaint about a noisy neighbour.

Ok, I understand that. Are they restricted to come to my place at the time I specified and witness the noise? What prevents them from doing at least something? What prevents them from asking me to provide them with more evidence(log, diary, recordings)?

renegadeimp said:

You went wrong by putting in a lot of your own opinions and pushing them as fact. The council is right. They are very limited in what they can do now regarding nuisance neighbours, and if they were to do something, they would need weeks or months of evidence, and not just one or two nights a week random shouting or raised voices.

Well, but apart from my opinion were some facts, weren't they..? What i need from them is just send some letter to that address saying that it is not good to be very loud in the evening. Can the council do so? It is not a random shouting, it is a regular shouting or raised voices starting 10-11 pm.

ericsbrother said:

2 conjoined issues here and one is easier to get actionon than the other. Report the woman to the council safeguarding team and also report the person who responded to your letter for not reporting the matter themselves whilst you are at it. They are obliged to follow this up in a prescribed time but wont tell you waht their action is but do chase it up to make sure they have followed the prescribed path.

The person who responded to my letter is the Director for Commissioning – Enforcement & Safety. Hell knows what it means.. Should I report him to the council safeguarding team for refusing to take any action? He didn't tell me what other options I have apart from going to court and doing everything by myself.

ericsbrother said:

As for the noise, you keep a diary and note what the noise is and when. If after certain hours the threshold for waht is noisy changes so timings important as well as frequency. Borrow a decibel meter if you can, the couincil may well have some. If you want to buy one they are not expensive at the lower quality end but work as well as a snazzy one but dont have a data logging capability so pen and paper at the ready when you use it.

It is very strange that they didn't offer me to keep any diary.. They just don't want to do their job. I can just record the sounds coming from behind the wall every night at the same time – starting at 10-11 and ending around midnight or 1 pm. It is not from the neighbours above, above is only the roof, but it is a on the side. I don't know why they think that the noise comes from the neighbour from above.

Good evening everyone!

Here I wanna share my experience with you and may be get some useful advice. Here is the text I sent to the Council via their internet site form:

I'd like to report you a regular and continuous shouting of my neighbour at night time. Every night after around 10 pm or 11 pm a very loud shouting of a woman comes through the wall from my neighbour's (the address is xx xxxx Road xx xxxx). Sometimes she shouts for no obvious reason, sometimes she shouts at her husband, sometimes she shouts while talking to someone over the phone, and sometimes she shouts at her little son, beating him up occasionally(I may provide you with an audio where you can clearly hear sounds of hitting, her shouting and his screaming). The woman is either mentally handicapped or she abuses alcohol. Whatever the reason, but her behaviour is obviously antisocial. She is a rowdy and inconsiderate neighbour. She just prevents me from sleeping. It is an absolute nuisance. I want you to make her stop or restrict the nuisance. Please inform her that she must not and have no right to shout or even speak in a raised voice at night when people try to have some rest after a working day. The woman is most likely unemployed and has no clue that people need to sleep at night. Now the shouting happens every single day after 10 pm or 11 pm and may last for hours. I can't bear it any more. This must be stopped.

In around a week's time I got the following response from them:

see the attached picture

What would you do next, if you were me? In my opinion it was a sheer runaround, a reply without substance. They just don't want to do their job, and I pay more than a hundred pounds of council tax every month. The only thing I asked of them is to let the neighbours know that it is not good to be loud at night. As the noise is not of intermittent nature, but a regular one.

What is the best thing to do next? Reply them and try to explain to them that it is not a normal noise, or move to another step and file a complaint about the Council?

we can advise you but we cant protect you from your own idiocy. Now get a plumber in and then tell LL that the leak has been found and fixed and you are owed £xx for doing his job for him. then you say that you will be using the new meter readings for the next month to calculate how much of the massive bill you have paid is down to his laziness and that you expect him to refund this.

What you cant do is not pay TW as you are contracted to pay for all of the water that passes through the meter. You might persuade them to adjust the amount they collect each billing period in case of hardship but you are liable and the LL owes you a duty of care so he has a liability.

as for agents- well they work for LL so if he has the hump over their lack of movement on this then he can chase them for the money he has paid you. That is how it works.

I can't disagree with you, and will do exactly as you advise once the agency refuse to cooperate.

TW will definitely give me the leak allowance.

Btw, I don't even know my LL, I'm only dealing with the agency.

involve ofwat.

Thank you very much indeed.

This is what I'm going to do, in case i'm unhappy with how the issue is sorted.

Be wary. For non-payment TW will take to Court and if successful and amount is over £600 they will employ High Court Enforcement Agents to enforce it. This is done by a different department to who you are dealing with now and most of the process is automated.

Good to know it. But my first bill is only £186..

YOU are responsible for the bill so stop trying to be nice and do something about things. You can reclaim the money from LL/agents later but do something proactive now or stop moaning and looking for reasons to avoid the inevitable.

Yes, you are right. Once the nice steps are done I'll switch to more decisive actions. By the way, just now I've received a text from the agent: "I will come back to you end of the day". So I'm waiting for the end of the day.

As for the bill - I don't think I'm gonna pay it as it is now. I do not agree with the amount and going to dispute this bill and the next one. And TW know that I have the grounds.

Have you checked the meter number on your bill is the same as that on your meter?

Yes, I've just double checked it. It is the same.

well you shoud eliminate anything you can before you spend your money but I would still be tempted to pay for someone to have a good look at everything and then bill the LL if there is a leaky pipe.

I think it is better to offer the LL a choice either to arrange someone to have a good look at everything himself or that will be done by myself, and I will send him the bill.

But i'm a bit concerned about my next steps in case he tells me that he will not pay that bill...

I want to try and do everything in an amicable way. Once I receive a reply from TW, I think I will writr to the LL something of the sort:

They started sending me reminders to pay the 1st bill, the 2nd one is coming, and it's going to be huge too, because the average daily consumption is around 600 litres. What I need from you(the agency) is that the leak be repaired, only after that I will be able to claim my leak allowance from Thames Water. It's been a long time since I reported the problem, but it is not solved yet.

Yutning the stopcock off stops the flow but as yoyu haventy actually explored the possibility of the meter serving the wrong property or more tha one property try ir again ad let the neighbours know beforehand so they can tell you if their water has gone off when you do it.

this is hardly possible. anyway - no point asking the neighbours about that, because they are dodgy enough, and not too stupid to act against their interests..

Are you sure they're not billing you for unpaid water before the start of your tenancy?

They seem to try this when the previous account holder goes missing without settling the final bill.

I'm not sure, but the bill doesn't say anything of the kind. The diagram of water usage shows that i'm using 550-600 litres everyday.. I can access it on my Thames Water account online.

Here's the message I sent to TW today via their online form:

Dear Thames Water,

Thank you for the letter from your Customer agent A*** T**** dated 3d October 2018. I

notified the agency I'm renting from about the necessity to sort out the leak. They sent a plumber to

confirm that there is no visible leaks. Now the agency told me that they will contact Thames Water

to deal with it. They want to arrange a visit of your plumber with special pressure testing equipment

to be able to locate the leak. For some reason they didn't manage to reach you over the phone for

several days, so here's the contact number of the person dealing with this issue:

Name: A***(S*** Lettings agent)

Number: 0794*******

Or call here and ask for A***: 02084******

I know what you mean and have no intention to wage a war against Thames Water.

My idea is as follows:

i'll write them a letter, via email or by post, informing them that i do my best in trying to make the LL to sort it out as soon as possible.

TW themselves said in their letter that my consumption is unusually big. I don't want a war neither with the LL, nor with TW. But when I get a reply from TW I'll act the way you suggest - tell agency that i am billing them for plumber.

Have you tried turning the stopcock off for a day when you are at work and then looking at the readings ( should be the same) ask your neighbours immediately afterwards if they have has water problems that day and you might find an answer to your conundrum.

 

at my previous house my next door neighbours stopcock and meter was in my garden and more visible than mine so easily confused, esp as I didnt have metered water

Yes, i tried turning the stopcock off for a day when im at work - the readings were the same.

But i didn't ask neighbours about anything, as they have their own meter just in front of their entrance gate.

Yes, I am the account holder, and the bill came in my name.

I am renting from an agency - it is a 6 months' contract started June 2018.

I can prove that I contacted the agency in due time and reported them the matter.

Well, I understand, that for Thames Water it is easier just issue me with bills and bombard me with reminders, but i do not have a slightest intention to pay for something, that i didn't use.

I'm going to ask them to put the account on hold or smth of the kind, until the matter is solved.

Do you think it is a reasonable thing to do?

What would you do if you were in my place?

I hardly use the water in the house

- it is literally couple of washups a day,

couple of toilet flushes,

several showers a week,

washing machine once a week.

Same thing with the other tenant.

We don't use 600 litres a day.

Everyday, according to the readings.

So why on earth do I have to pay for the water loss that is happening because of the LL(agency) don't do their job properly??

Updating

We didn't meet on Monday, as I came home early, and the agent was not in the office, because he thought I would come back from work later in the day. So he said he would call them on his own then. Well, since then I hear no reply from him. I sent him a text 2 days ago asking him if he had called to the water board, but still no response.

What I'm thinking to do now is to write a message to Thames Water, telling them to contact my agency and get all information about the attempted leakage location by the agency's plumber. Let them agree with the agency about sending a man from Thames Water.

What else would you write to them, if you were me? Should I tell them, that i'm not going to pay the bill until they sort the leakage issue out and recalculate the bill and issue me a leakage allowance?

We agreed with the agency that i would come to their office next Monday and we would call Thames Water together.

Just now I've received a text from Thames Water, reminding me that my payment is due.. my first bill - 186 pounds for 2 months

I doubt he will rip up floor boards without obvious signs of a leak.

My suggestion was to first report suspected leak to Water Co, not LL

Water Co should have access to layout of your supply connections.

Identification of leak/liability can be easy to determine.

That was what I did in the first instance. But the Thames Water redirected me to the LL.