I journeyed from my first home to several flats into my present home… let me tell you about it!

I grew up in a 3 bed semi-detached house, a standard council house at the time owned by my parents. They decided to move back to the their country of origin once they reached retirement. I got a council flat which I loved, for the first time I got to run my own place how I wanted to, I had a few happy years, had several immediate neighbours whom were no trouble until… THE BITCH FROM HELL had arrived!

At first I was perplexed at what had moved in, it was like a scene out of a TV soap series. I’ll spare you the details but it was a hellhole, it wasn’t so bad at first but wasn’t normal behaviour or movements but as their situation changed so did mine it reached the point where I was deprived of sleep limited to 4 hours per night from my usual 8 or 9; I was a deep sleeper. I also had the shits every night, their cigarette smell stank my home, my hair, my clothes, the carpet, curtains literally every fabric stunk of it, their butts were laying in my garden, the excessive noise at night was the worst. To help me sleep I took prescription tablets. 

This is about as much as I want to describe as the ill-affects these people had on me; yes I did complain in all directions, nothing happened to them. I went to my MP complained to them and got moved; reluctantly I might add, I was there 9 years the final 2 were horrendous, at the point I went to my MP I thought I was dying as I was so ill and weak and seemed like nobody cared not even my family; they saw how bad I looked and yet they did NOTHING! I later found out from my nice neighbour on one side my old flat that they were evicted 5 months after I had left, adding people in the vicinity thought it was a brothel as many guys would be coming in and out of it at night It still eats at me even today despite the efforts I have gone to for certain family members with no word of thanks or real acknowledgement. All I can think of is how can they get on with their life having happy times having good quality of sleep and are nutritionally well when I have been deprived of my Human Rights..!

3rd Home

I moved into a flat above someone who had experienced some anti-social behaviour and was evicted… lucky them!

She had quickly proceeded to making up stories about what I was doing in the flat saying I was making a lot of noise, she would have been sensitive to noise much like I was only that she was living with someone who had no issue with the level of noise I made which was next to nothing. We were friends at first so what made her start to make complaints to the authorities about me I don’t know, they also got the other tenants on my floor to make up stories they too I was on friendly terms with, one of whom was deaf and had his TV up loud that I could hear it in my living room and the other used to work nights before retiring that he is always up at night anyway. 

I did some digging and found out that she worked part time and I was working full time there was a noisy courier business stationed next to our block and this was very noisy for me to live with-sensitive to noise, so how she could have been having issue with me but not this businesses did not add up.  I also found out that most of the tenants in the other flats had complaints against her in the past and is named as a trouble maker, (she admitted at one point that she had a current issue with the neighbour directly below her whom I saw only once, she would exchange music blasting through the floor). She even had the cheek to call the ambulance on me saying I was shouting through the floor and crying that I was going to kill myself when I was quietly watching the TV this is how bad it was I was minding my own business and she stokes up tension the reason is because I’m someone that is not reactionary, she complained that I had shouted through the floor that she is a white trash which I didn’t I had long stopped communicating with her and it annoyed her because she couldn’t get me for anything. 

A noise box was going to be installed in her flat my good neighbour that I am still friends with today gave me the heads up they saw someone come in with the machine, at that point I didn’t care and just carried on as I normally would I decided that I was not going to change anything as I knew I was not doing anything wrong. The result came back that I was not doing anything wrong; at the same time I went back to my MP and told them what this woman was doing and whatever evidence I had I shared with them and got whatever action that had been happening to stop and tell her to stop complaining and banging my ceiling whenever I moved rooms, as she harassed me not the other way round. I was happy the council left me alone as I had enough at the last place and wanted a new life. I stayed in this place for about 3 years and asked the MP to be moved as the noise from the lorries next door was too much for me, most in the flats didn’t even have a job I was the exception. Luckily I moved elsewhere….

4th Home

I moved into upstairs flat not long after I started noticing banging during the night sometimes in the day, I deduced after a while that when I was decorating shortly after I moved in, they had a problem with my doing so at reasonable daylight hours, I’m not an early riser when I’m not working so I would do it around Midday; so totally reasonable. There was wallpaper on my walls so I painted on top of it some of it had raised designs so I had to beat the paint in to ensure it went on the nooks and crannies with a paint brush… they had an issue with this how stupid is that. I had paid over £600 to have carpets fitted before moving in as I didn’t want any complaints about me walking through the flat. The other thing was because I was bringing up my bike as my stairs had a curve which was difficult to navigate so I would knock it on the corner banister on the way up or down we are talking maybe two times on each way up or down the stairs. I didn’t have many people round no music nothing loud so to be having issues with essentially nothing, it was stupid on their part I complained the council about their behaviour they denied they had any issue with me, I even asked next door she thought I was antagonising them which I wasn’t I was going about my day this person was not right in the head, she had some complaints about her two dogs barking from her upstairs neighbour (I never heard them) so she had no sense of anything!

Anyway, back to the two idiots…. I later found out that the son was living there illegally, his girlfriend had chucked him out the mother was claiming benefits for herself so in essence committing benefit fraud as he worked as a council bin collector I found all this out from the local shop… I reported this to my MP whom got the council to investigate them and the ridiculous banging stopped, and after a short while they started stinking out my home with cigarettes and fried chips kept coming through my kitchen cupboards none of this happened before they were caught out and I couldn’t tolerate this after living in the hellhole for 2 years with this stench previously it was too raw and I had already had enough of all this stress I couldn’t be bothered to complain to the council they would have said it’s normal when they were not doing it previously they must have started doing this because of the fraud investigation against them probably stressed them out deservedly so. 

In any case this final act is what caused me up sticks and move to Scotland I was out of work for about a year at the time I left I added it all up and said to myself I had no kids, no parents in this country and no job of which was going on and off all my working lift at that point so decided I needed to try a new avenue, I also got a job 5 weeks after I had arrived in Scotland. After about 9 months of being in Scotland I had a succession of flats had bad/dodgy neighbours or dodgy landlords in and once again I had to take formal action some of which were again doing illegal activities in the flat; action was taken against them and I moved flats yet again.

The last flat was horrendous it was my saviour from the previous ground floor flat and an hindrance. I moved in a few months before Covid happened but in all I was glad I was there as the previous flat would have been worse because they were allowing the kids to run up and down the flat and stamp on the floor and mess about in the bedroom instead of letting him out in the yard. At least in the new flat there was no one above me I was in a maisonette.

I am now living back with my Mother whom moved back to my home town my dad since died and life is generally better I do not have problem neighbours but I do suffer the ill effects of living with the shits a couple of times a week now; but I know what causes it so need to control it. 

I know that people leave me be to live and do how I please as I was once able to, I WILL THRIVE! and not be in the survival mode I find myself to be in once again!

In conclusion…..

This post is to serve as a reminder that I must persevere with life and find a way through; I have been on a steep learning curve with much of this and I am optimistic that my future will be better and not be as my past has been.