How to Deal with Anti-Social Behaviour
Posted on 17/07/2010
You’ve been settled in your Clear Lets property for some time now. You have a good relationship with your landlord and everything at home is running smoothly. Or at least it was until the new neighbours moved in.
Since they’ve arrived they’ve had parties, their dog barks at all hours of the day and night and you’ve tried to make contact with them but they’re not exactly approachable. So what do you do?
Well, what you don’t do is look for another property to move to. Why should you when you're happy where you are? No, your first point-of-call is to your landlord or letting agent at Clear Lets to let him know what’s going on. This is only after you’ve told the neighbours you find their behaviour disturbing (they might not even realise they’ve been annoying you). It’s also a good idea to keep a diary here of the times and dates when you’ve found your neighbour's behaviour particularly unsettling.
If the neighbours do realise you find their behaviour unacceptable and aren’t prepared to put a halt to it, then it’s time to contact your local authority ie Council's Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) team.
Since 2004 the Government in Scotland has made it an offence to either act in a manner that causes alarm or distress or pursue a course of conduct that does likewise. Officers from the Council will visit your home and monitor the behaviour of those in the neighbouring property. If they find it unacceptable they can carry out a number of options such as:
Issue a warning to your neighbour
Serve a fixed penalty notice on him
Report him to the police
Arrest him if he breaks an already-outstanding ASB order
Close down a place eg illegal drinking den
The range of ASB offences covers such topics as noise nuisance, hoax calls, waste dumping, car problems, graffiti and dog fouling.
If the behaviour is deemed as dangerous or criminal then you should contact the police in the first instance rather than a Council officer.
Recent statistics show the Council and Police are increasingly reliant on ASB legislation. For instance last year 56,000 fixed penalty ASB notices were issued in Scotland. More than two-thirds were in Strathclyde alone (up 41 per cent on the previous year).
A Strathclyde Police spokesperson recently confirmed the force were "committed to addressing antisocial behaviour across communities."
If you are at all worried about Anti-Social Behaviour, then please don't hesitate to contact any of the Clear team for advice.