Harassment ? Rented property

[pumpkin14]

Good day.

May I ask anyone who is familiar with harassment and what to do?

At the moment I and my family occupy a terraced house. We are above 6 months break close so we can move out any time after giving 6 weeks notice.

The situation is we moved into property in the end of September 2013 just after a month when it was bought by our landlord.
I wanted to settle in this house because I was due a baby.

After a month of tenancy we discovered that our neighbors smoke cannabis and what else I don't know because it smells horrid.
We started to report them to police because , well our neighbors smoke 7 days a week. And I would not dare speaking to them, because they look like that type of people that you want to avoid meeting on the street.
Finally, I gave birth to my child and we reported them to police again.
Police visited neighbors to give warning, but what happened next. That same evening neighbor was shouting : I will kill you, several times, facing our house. They were banging on the wall shouting : you ****ing immigrants go go! They wanted to come into our house but changed their mind because they did not know who was in our house at the moment.

Since then, police can not help, they advised to take a taxi every time I come back home.
Landlord refuse to let us out without withholding our deposit.

It affected my well-being a lot. I started to question where do I belong because I am of mixed race.
Of course I have depression plus my hormonal system needs to settle post partum.

In 5 month I never went out shopping (never went out at all), I abandoned gardening and other house duties. I don't want to go out because I am scared of neighbor's staff terriers.

But the main thing I am worried about, is my baby's development.
We can smell cannabis smoke every time they smoke.
I am a scientist and I have found 400 articles on one website along saying about destroying properties of cannabis and specifically for babies, compared to 5 only saying about possible good affects for HIV patients.

And it not so easy to find a home for family.
What should I do.

Regards,
PV

[Laurieloo2]

Re: Harassment ? Rented property

Hi,
i can not offer you any professional advice on this but only an opinion as I have had awful neighbours much like yours and I had to comment after reading your post. You need I continue what your doing with reporting them to the police, you should document on paper every time you call , every event that happens. Contact your local council and discuss the situation with them, do you know if you neighbours rent privately or are council tenants?? If they are council tenants then the council are obliged to take some sort of action especially where drugs are involved, you may need to be constantly on the councils case but it will be worth it. If they rent privately then you need to try and track down the landlord as he is liable for his tenants and all tenancies generally have a clause relating to being a "nuisance to neighbours" and sounds like they are massively breaching this!! I'm not sure how you find the landlord, perhaps check on land registry which costs around £2-£4 I believe or maybe consult an estate agent as I believe there is a track and trace facility where you can pay a fee to find where someone lives but you will need the name of the person first.

go to see a medical professional for your health issues, not being able to leave the house is a health related issue and having the doctor be aware if this and your depression will help you with the council / landlord. Also insist your baby is given a medically check up as your convened about the effects this could have on them.

if you have a 6 month break clause I suggest you move out now, find a place, it may not be in the area you want or smaller then u want but it will be better then living next door to that. Just look for a new place ASAP and leave there for your family's sake.

please don't ever think you don't have a place here because you are mixed race, unfortunately there are still plenty of racists bigots out there but there are also plenty of non racist people who would be happy to have you as neighbours/ tenants or anything else! I am white British born and bred in England and I'm married to a Turkish Muslim, our children are "mixed race"!

continue to call the police whenever necessary, contact the council, look for a new place as if you have a 6 month break clause you can hand in your 6 weeks notice now, your landlord can not threaten to withhold your deposit for an unlawful reason, do you knowing your deposit is protected in a government scheme??

good luck and do keep us updated, take care....