We have been experiencing problems with a minor group of the tenants in some of the housing association tents (mainly the kids 10-15 yrs old) since we moved into our house.

The latest fiasco is that the management company that look after the two children's play areas want the residents as a whole to pay for repairs to said areas. Basically the kids have vandalised them and the fencing around them, amongst other things.

Basically the local council although very helpful don't seem to have anymore power than us, joe public - but have informed us that we are not required to pay for repairs and that the playground management company are out of line.

However, I strongly feel that the housing association should be held responsible for tidying up the play areas and infact the street facing sides of their properties, which currently look unkept.

This is putting off prospect private buyers (a neighbour is trying to sell, so that they can move to a larger house) and ultimately negatively effecting house values on the estate. In addition the area becoming less of a nice area to live and you constantly (well I do) about leaving your car on outside your house, be it on the drive way or road - the reason being the kids have little or no respect for other peoples property which was demonstrated by a neighbours car being broken into and another car being grafitti'd end of last year.

Looked into antisocial behaviour orders, but without solid proof (photographic or witnessed by 2 or more residents) we are not going to get anywhere with this.

So who to turn to next?
I can't sell because I would have to disclose what has happened to the prospective buyer by law - which will put them off immediately.

The really annoying thing is that some of the H/S tents make a real effort to look after their houses and are as annoyed as the rest of us about the state others let things get too.

Anyone gone through this before?

Cheers, Alex

[Edited by DrEvil - 1/13/2004 4:34:00 PM]

Alex - have you tried the local council's (i.e. Borough) Community Safety Co-ordinator, or some title like that. The one where I work deals with problems like that and liaises with the Police/Local Residents/Local Councillors to try to solve the problems :)

Not saying it would work, but it might be worth a try :confused: either that or the local police's Community Liason (sp?!) Officer?

Housing Ass. are very slow moving in my experience :(

Hope it gets better soon :)

I blame single Mums as without a positive male role model the kids are free to do as they please, without fear of any tangible reproach from a figure in authority. Hence why later in life they grow up and have no respect for themselves or others.

I use to live near to an area that the following happened in. Housing association builds lovely new estate within 2 weeks there is burnt out cars all over the place. Within 6 months it is like Beruit. The problem was they virtualy filled the whole estate with single mums and what would happen is that there druggy boyfriends would steal cars to get to see their benefit bint who now lived miles away from them on a nice new estate. Once near to their place they would sell the wheels from the cars and then burn them out. With the cash they earnt they would go and score some drugs and they and the single mums would get high and let the kids run riot.

One possible reproach would be to aproach the H A and see if they wanted to buy your house from you and you could then put this down to a lesson learnt about the perils of badly planned social housing. Alternatively grass them up to crimestoppers.

That is absolute crap, i know a couple of single mums who's children are absolutely wonderful, infact probably the politest well mannered children i know.

Si

Who is to blame then, The H A?

Probably the families where the parent's don't give a monkeys, and that could happen regardless of relationship status, housing status, or anything else you could marked down as one set group.

At the end of the day there are good and bad in every sex, race, social group and discriminating against one doesn't sort any issues out.

Si

Alex you live in a Tent then do you :D:D:D

STi VII,
Do you know any single mums? and/or single mums living in HA accomodation? Just curious to know.

Not every single mum is some soverign ring fingered, sailor mouthed, old hag. I speak from personal experience here as one of my ex g/f's was single mother living in HA, and she was very very far from the normal sterotype people give to these types of people.

I do agree there are some, well, many who do fit the sterotype and yes I've encountered them and yes, had to deal with the crap associated with it to. However, somtimes normal non HA neighbours can be twice as worse as single mums.

I would say it is more down to a lack of education or some sort of learning disability that has led to these single mums being who they are and where they are.
The mistake that is often made is that when new estates are built Social housing is pushed into the crap part next to the main road or the elec pylons. Social housing should be indistingrishable from anyone elses house otherwise you are setting the system up to fail before it begins. A lot of the estates I see have all the H A people on one street, which is a way of creating a lot of problems in the first place.

Wurzel - LOL sorry was typing will I was thinking what to say, hence crap english/spelling etc.. :D

Jen - thanks, that is the route I've tried already, the Council's safety officer was helpful but seemed to have about as much power as me. The Police just weren't interested, although I really need to try and get the Police Community officer on the phone.

As for the other comments, yes certainly in this case and many others it seems the layout of the housing is part of the issue, ie they get the more basic looking houses on the estates and are all allocated in one area rather than disperced (sp!). As for single mums, well TBH that isn't the issue, although part of the minority in this case full into that category but that in itself is not the problem.

I'm going to visit a few neighbours and cage concern, I know the neighbours that are either side of the H/A houses are experiencing issues, but will check with other parts of the estate.

As for putting it down to a bad experience and selling up, well its an option, but an expensive one that I can't afford currently.

Cheers, Alex