Advice please - What to do about Junky Neighbours From Hell?

yeah i've had similar. added to the injury was they had a kid of about 3 who they'd lock in his room while they went out and he would be screaming.

we moved.

I do unless they're actively trying to stop. Despite the one guy in rehab, sounds like the others possibly aren't and I guess nor is he if he's hanging around with them.

yes, it's a sucky approach, but ... it's the best i can think of. i mean, what's the alternative? fight them?

[stops, because he can feel an enormous rant about the death of society/the evils of post-thatcherite capitalism/why people = shit coming on]

I might phone the council tomorrow.

*he owed me money. you gotta do what you gotta do.

new neighbours/socialism/care in the community vs concentration camps - c or d?

If they start turning the place into a shithole, or cranking up music at all hours, call your local environmental health department and ask what they can do.

Complain to the police over any incident that affects you. Ask for and write down the log/incident number, so you can quote it at the landlord when you complain. If you think they are dealing, talk to the police about it.

Do not buy a baseball bat, buy a cricket bat, and some cricket stuff, stumps, balls etc. That way if you wind up using it you can claim that you just picked up the most convenient thing at hand to defend yourself (this assumes you are in the uk)

It does not sound "pathetic and middle class" at all. Having scum living next door, or in your near vicinity can ruin your life, which I and other people know from experience. It isn't a class-based issue.

thatcherism/friedmanism opened the door on the fraud of society and covertly idolises drug-dealing as workable model of free enterprise while all the time encouraging us to dump our shitloads of blame on the victims rather than the perpetrators.

Do everything you can to get rid of them. I'm not sure the best way of getting the police to take an interest, but I suggest going to the police station and asking to speak to a cop rather than just phone them up - personal contact will give your complaint more oomph and, hopefully, it'll be taken more seriously. Take more pics and show them to the policeperson too.

1. They won't touch your stuff
2. Cash

I actually used to live next door to a junky couple. They were nice. The guy helped me start my car a few time,

One day, the guy came over and said that "theres been some kids looking over your fence, so I'd lock away whatever they're interested in, mate"

Junk dealers, better than neighborhood watch...

Out of interest, why are you logged out? They're not ILX regulars, surely?

I dealt with this for years in the dope-plagued NYC of the 80s. One of my neighbors was a middle-aged school crossing guard who ran a junkie salon in her apt, admitting a stream of lowlifes into the building EVERY DAY. Another neighbor could regularly be seen on the adjoining roof outside my window, climbing into other people's apts. No doubt this guy stole my cheap stereo and then my B&W portable TV, but confrontation didn't seem like a viable option. Junkies got nothing to lose, but I do. So I got stronger locks and window guards, survived for a couple more years and then moved out.

i mean, that's what we want, isn't it? junkies to be cured so that they don't have to break in, nick your stuff and cause aggro to feed their habit. no junkie was ever cured by prison. usually it just introduces them to a couple of handy new habits.

you know, it's that decadent humanist socialist pie-in-the-sky nonsense about treating the CAUSE rather than the EFFECT innit.

Wonder how many responses that question would have got.

Yeah, I know. DNFTT. Back to training with me.

Don't engage with your neighbours directly. I asked my neighbours to turn down their stereo at 4 in the morning, and was met with threats of violence because they were drunk. Situations like that, just go straight to the police.

i still see old ladies waiting at the royal free bus stop at lunchtime saying that "coloured" people are a horrible thing to have to live with every day.

it's prejudice, impure and simplistic.

see you have to rid of this concept of "scumbags." junkies are not scumbags. they are SICK. as in ILL. if it's happening next door to you, then call an ambulance before you call the police.

The thread starter has people who appear to be dealing, and people who appear to be sussing out adjacent properties living next door to them at the very least. They didn't ask for this, it was landed on them. These people are not entitled to just drop into any area and start behaving like that. It's not OK. If they are addicts, it does not excuse acting like that. Basically, I agree with this:

so where would you have the junkies live? they have to live somewhere. calling them scum solves nothing, actually makes matters worse and goes nowhere towards curing them, which is ultimately what has to happen. maybe the financial bullet has to be bitten and we have to go back to specialised live-in treatment centres where addicts and go and be treated properly by experts, gradually rehabilitated into the world and regularly followed up after they come out again.

Although I have no problem calling people who ruin other people's lives "scum", and I have friends whose lives have been royally fucked up by scum neighbours, but when this shit lands on YOU, it suddenly isn't an issue of "how should these people be treated by society", it becomes an issue of "how do I get these people away from me before I get my house turned over".

Or, to put it another way. Surprise! Stelfox toallly otm.

if someone was likely to rob me or make me sick or ill etc. i'd want to find out why. if i couldn't then i'd just move. end of story.

(nb: specifically kate needs to shut up about me. works both ways. but i said i wouldn't go back there. and i'm not. so we should continue ignoring/hating each other and stick by it. absolutely fine by me)

also at various times in my actual "career" i've worked extensively and long-term with serial drug abusers and addicts, so i know how it works & you don't, so don't try it. go read the daily mail if you believe that kind of crap.

Hah. Famous last words...

i agree - but its really fucking hard. as i said, i moved away. sometimes though, its very difficult to see where people with these "problems" have been driven/coerced to it. some of the junkies i know are from priveleged backgrounds. driven to drugs by the stress of the need to achieve.

exactly! the same thatcherism that keeps us all locked up in our "very basic personal levels," shit scared of what's outside (which is useful 'cos then you can stay in and watch, oh, sky 1). the "need" to "achieve" (and who inculcates that in us? oh yes, the media again) and the greater struggle to hang on to it. from our perspective it's the struggle to hang onto our possessions, our home. from their perspective it's the struggle to hang onto life. it's ugly but it's two sides of the same free enterprise coin.

but isn't it rather obvious that being affronted "coloured" people living next door is entirely different to having actually problematic neighbours with actual anti-social behaviour? ie one is prejudiced reaction to outsiders, other is reaction to behaviour of outsiders? those old ladies' problems are that their neighbours are "coloured", not their neighbours actual behaviour, which is surely the crux of this issue?

Why should this usual 'don't call them this, don't call them that' shite come into it?

This guy is living with dangerous neighbours who happen to be drug addicts and possibly dealers. Most likely theives as well.

The problem to be addressed is not "what should we address the people as without incurring wrath" but "how do we resolve this shitty situation caused by the SCUM next door."

(And moving out of ones old house and letting them get on with it is not really a viable option, is it?)

Yes, so why was the word "chav" used about a hundred times in the inital post?

and you wonder why your husband just lies on the couch when he comes home?

and you wonder why your husband just lies on the couch when he comes home?

troll.

and you wonder why your husband just lies on the couch when he comes home?

It doesn't sound like it.

They've been taken to task now about their unwise choice of words. How on earth is that more important than their lives being ruined?

"Chav" meant something once - it is a meaningless term now.

because this isn't that thread, and because it was just another snide slight from a bitter twisted git who gets a kick from poking everyone else's sensitive areas.

and also because the pattern happens every single time, follows the same boring path rigidly and to the timetable. and because your vitriol has nothing to do with the thread's theme, and everything to do with fighting the same little personal battles again and again. for all you bluster, i find the 'compassion' you're enjoying beating people over the head with here absolutely unconvincing. its just another reason to take potshots at others, and its as ugly as it is transparent.

i mean, how would you like it if people dragged up the painful things you've shared with all of us here, just to make a nasty dig? or are only some things 'sacred'?

chick, you might like to answer the issues i've raised on this topic instead of being Stasist.

exactly.

For crying out loud, I'M poor, I live in a council flat in a pretty crappy area, so do many of my friends.

xpost

marcello, i think focussing on the 'chav' use at the beginning is missing the wood for the trees. if the poster had said "a bunch of junkie-looking types have moved next door, they haven't done anything but i don't like em and want to get rid of them" then, yes, that would be reprehensible. but the poster is responding to actual anti-social behaviour and the suggestion of criminal activity, ie is behaving in totally reasonable protection-of-self-and-family manner.

of course, drug addicts should be treated like sick people and not criminals, i entirely agree. they should be rehabilitated, 'cured' if possible and cared for if not. hell, i believe, to a certain extent, in the decriminalisation of drugs, if only because prohibition isn't working and because the criminalisation suports gangsterism and violent crime attendent with this very prohibition. but that isn't the crux of this particular malady - the poster has no way to effect such a social change, and is therefore asking for practical suggestions to help his experience.

That is indeed what "ned" means, but that's a word and concept that's been around for decades - "chav" is not an equivalent

after that i didn't see him again for about six months when i saw him coming down park end street. he was clean and utterly charming, though clearly vulnerable. i rang up dr ******* to make sure he was receiving proper follow-up in the community, and yes he was taking his medication, turning up for regular counselling, on cold turkey/methadone programme, etc. etc.

now i could just have called him scum, ranted and raved as he was ranting and raving outside our door that night, called the police and he would have been out of the nick in three months and back on the street/in our block using. but i thought there were better methods one could use if we didn't want this to keep happening every night.

so it was a combination of self-protection and external help. everything in balance.

so my advice to the original poster is: you got off on a relatively good foot with these neighbours, so try persuading. odds on they know fully about the pit they're in (just because they might not have a degree doesn't mean they're incapable of thinking or recognising). you just need to be patient and tolerant.

it isn't ideal advice, and you might not find it particularly practical in the short term, but the alternatives don't, i think, bear thinking about.

in which case we are all sick - no?

Answers

Your country should adopt communism, and you sir, are a cunt.

(mullygrubber xpost)
no, that badiou way of thinking applies to lawyers and politicians. you can't really apply it to doctors. "wouldn't it be better if we had a society that didn't require doctors and hospitals?" = "wouldn't it be better if we never grew old or ill or died?"

it isn't ideal advice, and you might not find it particularly practical in the short term, but the alternatives don't, i think, bear thinking about.

That doesn't seem opaque to me. I was just wondering seriously – not trying to wind you up – if by "persuading" you mean "persuading to seek medical help". I would suggest calling the police if a crime is being committed and calling an ambulance if there's a medical emergency. I have no love for the police but surely it doesn't make me a capitalist collaborator with the Institutions that Repress Us (forgive me for putting words in your mouth) if I suggest seeking professional help if one thinks one's safety's at risk?

xxpost

Whoever suggested getting a cricket bat instead of a baseball bat - that is one of the most skewed seriously fucked up pieces of logic i've ever read here.

because:

A) beating their brains out with a bat when they come to steal your stuff won't change a damn thing, and would make it way way worse.

B) buying a cricket bat and equipment so you have an excuse to bash their brains in is as bad as one of them breaking in to your flat.

The problem of hard drug addiction is a problem with society as much as it is with the individual. The society is ill. As is the individual. Getting a few people sharing a flat removed will do nothing except remove it from your area. Instead it'll be a different ILXor making this thread. If you want to get rid of this problem in your neighbourhood then get at the issue deeper. Yeah, this might sound unrealistic and idealistic and not a short term solution but people have to get more involved and care more about the people and problem or it will not go away.

On a more serious note: Report them to the RIAA for turning their flat into a hub of downloading music (or child porn). Watch how quickly they are removed/raided...e.t.c.

I do not think marcello is otm here at all, really.

If it comes to it you have the bat to hit them with to defend yourself. Ok fine. But what chills me to my very core is when people suggest buying a cricket bat instead of a baseball bat to make it easier to defend yourself against being implicated from the crime you commit by hitting them with said bat.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

(xpost)

I agree totally with what you just said as well. But my problem is that crimes should be treated evenly and the system should be just if it is going to work. None of this "buy a cricket bat then we wont have to charge you" business.

Come on what can you practically DO. They're threatening your safety and security. The society's sick, yeah, yeah. But, what would you DO? Talk nicely to them? Marcello's example is admirable, but unrealistic.

While you're waiting for society to change and these arseholes to sober up, how would you protect yourself, your loved ones and your posessions? Call me a capitalist, bourgeoise, middle-class so&so, but I wouldn't stand by while these shits take from me to feed their squalid habits.

Looking threatening is 3/4 of the battle. It's that or a fucking kitchen knife.

i'm not saying people should 'have a chat, old bean', or that people shouldnt feel angry or scared when under threat, this is perfectly natural, but the last thing you want is to be waving knives at bats at people that might actually be pretty capable of taking them off you and using them against you

(Sorry.)

As someone pointed out upthread, I'm not really so concerned with the political ramifications of my neighbours' behaviour, I just want practical advice on how to deal with the situation. Marcello, I sincerely appreciate the example you gave of how you dealt with a similar situation, but I really can't see how applying the 'Marcello Method' would work in my situation. At the moment these ne'er-do-wells are wide eyed, anti-social, aggressive nutjobs who would, I'm sure, find it extremely patronising were I to knock on their door, invite myself into their home with my plummy accent and advise them on how best to conduct their lives. If they think it's appropriate behaviour to break into the flat above theirs and steal, then they're beyond reasoning with, IMHO.

So, I suppose I will just wait until something REALLY* bad happens, then pursue the matter with the police in person. And get a chain lock.

Re someone's point upthread about all junkies being scum, that may be true personality wise, but someone who can afford to maintain a habit without breaking into other people's property is surely preferable to someone who can't.

* I don't know how to italicise.

Mark's described what my neighbor situation was upthread--I had the bar installed after the burglary, but it was several months more before the squatters were evicted, and luckily my door held against prying the deadbolt and attempts to kick it in. (There probably wasn't enough room in the hallway for anyone to force it.) The police had absolutely no effect on the people causing the problem, even though they spoke to them at the time.

Some other advice I was given that may be useful: document any incidents--date, time, problem, etc. Keep your landlord informed. Don't invite anyone inside your place. Store valuables elsewhere if possible. If you are being robbed, or you know your neighbors are, calling the police and telling them that the burglars are on the premisis will bring them faster.

Hope this helps.

Get the number of your local police station and use that rather than calling 999, it'll be faster.

Don't get a bat. You'll wake up in the middle of the night with some junkie waving it over your head shouting "gimme your money!" This happened to my brother's gf when she lived in Manchester. Except it was a lump hammer he was waving.

Got back from a weekend away to find the door handle of the entrance to my flat had been partially pried open ie the lock/handle had been forced abount an inch from the door. I don't really understand how this could have occurred without someone stupidly having left the front door open (we share the front door entrance with the tenants in the ground floor flat). So... I'm phoning the local constabulary tomorrow and getting xtra strong locks fitted.

The scum next door will not prevail.