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~Overview ~
I live in a ground-floor apartment that uses shared access for three other adjacent properties. I share a central pathway and refuse storage areas with all three neighbours, as well as shared garden spaces. I rent from a prominent local housing association, and I believe my neighbour directly across (the problem neighbour) does so as well - finding out such information has been difficult. I pay my rent via housing benefit.
One of my neighbours has become a serious problem, making intrusive, privacy-breaking and obstructive changes to his and the shared property, and has been threatening and malicious in person. The housing association has been useless, and has also (as I discovered today) been doing myself a financial dirty for several weeks now. All input and leads into resolving this thornrow of a situation welcome.
The problems:
Problem A)
My nextdoor neighbour has positioned at least two cameras pointing directly into the shared areas of the property. One views the back garden area and the concrete pathway directly outside my front door and my bin space, while the other views the front entrance path that everyone uses to access their apartments and take their bins out. I have done some reading on this topic and every source I have found states that cameras pointed into shared or another person's property are illegal.
I have raised this issue with the housing association - they claim that the cameras do not cover "[my] area", a statement in wild contradiction with the basic facts of the case. Needless to say, I have no desire to continue to be filmed by a stranger's private cctv while I and any visitors enter and exit my property, take the bins out and other activities. Every source I have read has stated this is illegal - since my housing association is being very foolish, how best should I proceed?
Problem B)
Said nextdoor neighbour has also afixed a robust spring to the front gate of the shared pathway that causes it to slam shut automatically. This makes taking full wheelie bins in and out of the property a farcical task, as it's difficult to prop the gate open long enough to drag one through the tiny space and it slams shut otherwise.
I have raised this with the housing association again, including noting that the gate is not said neighbour's own property and asking if they have made any inquests into modifying it (from my reading, it would require notifying all neighbours who also use the property of the change and attaining their consent/not get vetoed). The association has provided no such information, and has instead claimed that they consulted the other "neighbours" (there is only one other) and they have stated having no problem (this neighbour is friends with the problem neighbour).
To capstone off this situation, said neighbour pushed a poorly written note through my letterbox full of abusive language. I had removed an earlier spring he installed, since it directly prevented me from getting my bins in and out without engaging in a hokey-cokey dance at 6 in the morning; his response was to replace the spring with the stronger one and pen aforementioned note. The housing association has not even bothered to comment on this. All of this follows an earlier incident when, after I spoke to my neighbour about his dog's mess which had been accumulating in the shared garden, he had attempted to become violent with me and has been personally unpleasant and nasty in person since.
Problem C)
The housing association itself has been cheating me on my rent for the better part of a month. I have only found out about this today. My housing benefit was being paid directly to my bank account; they went out of their way several months ago to redirect this benefit to themselves without my asking them to do this. I told them explicitly not to do this and to redirect that money back into my account, as I had already set up a direct debit.
They claimed to have complied with that, but I now discover that housing benefit has not been going in to my bank account, while cash has been going out of it. My housing benefit information states that it is still being paid direct to my landlord, yet the assocation's website does not account for this when display my rent arrears/credit - if this was accurate then I should be in general credit, since I have been in effect paying double rent.
Since this is deeply deceitful of the housing association on several levels and arguably constitutes fraud, it pushed me on discovering it to reach out to any community I can find on how to resolve this thorny situation, including problems A) and B). This community looked like the best of the bunch.
All advice and input 100% welcome. I am looking for all possible inroads into resolving this situation - restoring my privacy, restoring ease of use and access to my property, receiving some form of justice for the abusive note and general threatening environment, rectifying the monetary situation and in general bringing the housing association in order so that incompetencies of this scale do not reoccur.
Thank you, LPSP
I live in a ground-floor apartment that uses shared access for three other adjacent properties. I share a central pathway and refuse storage areas with all three neighbours, as well as shared garden spaces. I rent from a prominent local housing association, and I believe my neighbour directly across (the problem neighbour) does so as well - finding out such information has been difficult. I pay my rent via housing benefit.
One of my neighbours has become a serious problem, making intrusive, privacy-breaking and obstructive changes to his and the shared property, and has been threatening and malicious in person. The housing association has been useless, and has also (as I discovered today) been doing myself a financial dirty for several weeks now. All input and leads into resolving this thornrow of a situation welcome.
The problems:
Problem A)
My nextdoor neighbour has positioned at least two cameras pointing directly into the shared areas of the property. One views the back garden area and the concrete pathway directly outside my front door and my bin space, while the other views the front entrance path that everyone uses to access their apartments and take their bins out. I have done some reading on this topic and every source I have found states that cameras pointed into shared or another person's property are illegal.
I have raised this issue with the housing association - they claim that the cameras do not cover "[my] area", a statement in wild contradiction with the basic facts of the case. Needless to say, I have no desire to continue to be filmed by a stranger's private cctv while I and any visitors enter and exit my property, take the bins out and other activities. Every source I have read has stated this is illegal - since my housing association is being very foolish, how best should I proceed?
Problem B)
Said nextdoor neighbour has also afixed a robust spring to the front gate of the shared pathway that causes it to slam shut automatically. This makes taking full wheelie bins in and out of the property a farcical task, as it's difficult to prop the gate open long enough to drag one through the tiny space and it slams shut otherwise.
I have raised this with the housing association again, including noting that the gate is not said neighbour's own property and asking if they have made any inquests into modifying it (from my reading, it would require notifying all neighbours who also use the property of the change and attaining their consent/not get vetoed). The association has provided no such information, and has instead claimed that they consulted the other "neighbours" (there is only one other) and they have stated having no problem (this neighbour is friends with the problem neighbour).
To capstone off this situation, said neighbour pushed a poorly written note through my letterbox full of abusive language. I had removed an earlier spring he installed, since it directly prevented me from getting my bins in and out without engaging in a hokey-cokey dance at 6 in the morning; his response was to replace the spring with the stronger one and pen aforementioned note. The housing association has not even bothered to comment on this. All of this follows an earlier incident when, after I spoke to my neighbour about his dog's mess which had been accumulating in the shared garden, he had attempted to become violent with me and has been personally unpleasant and nasty in person since.
Problem C)
The housing association itself has been cheating me on my rent for the better part of a month. I have only found out about this today. My housing benefit was being paid directly to my bank account; they went out of their way several months ago to redirect this benefit to themselves without my asking them to do this. I told them explicitly not to do this and to redirect that money back into my account, as I had already set up a direct debit.
They claimed to have complied with that, but I now discover that housing benefit has not been going in to my bank account, while cash has been going out of it. My housing benefit information states that it is still being paid direct to my landlord, yet the assocation's website does not account for this when display my rent arrears/credit - if this was accurate then I should be in general credit, since I have been in effect paying double rent.
Since this is deeply deceitful of the housing association on several levels and arguably constitutes fraud, it pushed me on discovering it to reach out to any community I can find on how to resolve this thorny situation, including problems A) and B). This community looked like the best of the bunch.
All advice and input 100% welcome. I am looking for all possible inroads into resolving this situation - restoring my privacy, restoring ease of use and access to my property, receiving some form of justice for the abusive note and general threatening environment, rectifying the monetary situation and in general bringing the housing association in order so that incompetencies of this scale do not reoccur.
Thank you, LPSP
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