rooftop housing association our experience as a tenant of rooftop: Rooftop housing are a housing group operating mostly in the west midlands . Like most housing associations they have there good and bad points. They seem to be o.k at doing the everyday things like unblocking drains etc. However, when it comes to anything more than this they are sadly hopeless. I would like to share with the reader our story of living under a rooftop tenancy .
We moved into a ground floor flat in 1998, after a good start we realized the sound proofing was TERRIBLE , we could hear everything...
The flat is essentially a large house divided into two ...the next tenants were a 16 and 17 yr old couple .. the first day the boy came round and asked "did we mind loud music"... not wanting to be prudish I said simply that if we had a problem we would tell them.....BIG MISTAKE... weeks of drum n bass passed ... conflict started ... the next news was he was up there with his mates 'chopping firewood' .. I had just got in from work so I tried to ignore it ... hours later it was still going on .... the next day I came home to find he had smashed our bedroom window all over our bed ..... the next day we had more 'firewood chopping' .. I couldnt take it any more so I knocked on the door and asked what was going on .... 4 of them piled out and kicked me unconscious...
It went to court (JUVENILE COURT) and he got a slap on the wrist ... but my point is if he was a JUVENILE then why should he have been given a flat where noise is an issue.ON that occasion I diddnt bother contacting the then EPHA now rooftop... he was moved on
the next tenant came and went without much of an issue... she hated our dog and we diddnt much like her sons skateboard ... but nothing major...
the next tennents were THE NEIGHBORS FROM HELL, the first day they moved in they threw all their sandwich wrappers straight out of the window into our garden, and from day one it was unclear who was supposed to be the actual tenants . the one guy and his missus moved in but would regularly leave and then others lived there ....a pattern of drunken brawls , one locking the other out etc developed .. and all the while they threw loads of rubbish in our garden .. we eventually went to rooftop to complain .....keep a diary they said .... so we did ... for three months we recorded all the times the police had been , all the fights ... climbing up the drainpipe etc... this had the effect of making them turn on us .. they would regularly bang all the doors simultaneously... drop weights .. settees ... flood us etc etc etc... rooftops response? ... well apparently it was OUR FAULTS, for using racist language , we are not and have never been racist ... anyhow .. this went on and on and on until my partner had a complete mental breakdown .. this wasnt pretty and the 'people' upstairs could as he said "hear every word" .. so naturally they made it worse , one day my partner was in Worcester and they saw her and followed her round the shopping arcade (4 men) calling her names etc... nice... every time we used our garden they would be at the window ..one of them the guy who lived with the 'single mum' was a real bully... anyhow after months and months of prognosticating rooftop did ....erm NOTHING, after we threw some of the rubbish from our garden on their doorstep (not rooftop the neighbors) he kicked our door in and assaulted me ,,, rooftop still did ...NOTHING... next news we went out and came home to bleach thrown all over our clothes... the police came ... the guy was hiding upstairs ..listening .. the police said to us out in the garden that there was nothing they could do ...(heres the good bit) themn inside they told us they knew he was up there listening and actually they were going to arrest him in the morning... later that afternoon he was whistling away at the window (no doubt thinking he was so clever) ...the next morning he was marched out half dressed and the next time we saw him he was saying I'll see you in court ..bla bla bla ... needless to say he lost the case , and got a slap on the wrist .. but more importantly it made them move as he wasnt supposed to be living there anyway ...still rooftop did NOTHING
the next tenants were better , but argued and shouted all the time , we would put music on to drown it out .. and then WE got a letter from rooftop telling us to stop our music...we then got a complaint about our washing machine and television .. they couldnt get it through their head that it was the soundproofing ...mainly because we talked very quietly...
the anti social team at rooftop seem to make their own rules up as they go along. Their attitude is that if you complain ... your a moaner .... if you dont , the say all is well
have you had a similar experience with rooftops 'anti social behavior team'? if so please tell
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