Council housing questions & short story

goofygoober

Hi guys I have a few questions I'm hoping you could help me with.

I'm living with parent in 3 bedroom house, we applied for transfer but got rejected due to arrears. Which is understandable, however, our neighbours(travellers) are treating us over stuff they thought we did. The gardai & community officer have been involved as the person next door assaulted my parent on the street, claiming she was guilty. Firstly the gardai told her if there was a crime committed she should have told the gardai. Secondly she gave her a stern warning about defamation of character / slander.

Some time has passed and there at it again. Dumb ****s made a plan to assault my parent next week when she goes to work. I heard this from my garden and called the station for advice. The community officer basically said nothing can be done until the **** hits the fan. Which by then it could be to late. So we know the day and time they plan to attack. We are prepared and will continue to live life as normal. If it goes down we'll call the gardai and they'll get what they deserve.

My question

Can the gardai tell the council it is not safe for us to live here and transfer us with arrears?

This house is to big for just 2 people.

I really do feel as if my life is in danger, I told the garda I'm going to record them the next time they're scheming plans loudly in thier kitchen with the back door open. I don't care if it's illegal, these people are saying crazy things like "if we can't get them out of the house we'll go in"
"We'll use the ladders and get in the top windows to avoid the dogs"

My mother is going for a cancer test soon she really doesn't need this ****. She is so under pressure she's considering moving country and ditching the council house with arrears. I'm not sure where that leaves me. I fear even walking to the shops because I get followed by gangs of traveller kids mocking me. I have gotten to the point of sleeping all day and keeping an eye out at night. I only leave the house once a week to collect food. My parent leaves all the time but only because she knows ill watch the house, which isn't fair on me.

All advice welcome.
PS: I gotta say the Peace at night has been good, I can always hear them through the walls during the day.

carpejugulum

Why is it in arrears?

goofygoober

carpejugulum wrote: »

Why is it in arrears?

Financial difficulties over the last 2 years. We have been repaying it consistently each week.

Mrs OBumble

goofygoober wrote: »

Can the gardai tell the council it is not safe for us to live here and transfer us with arrears?

This house is to big for just 2 people.

I really do feel as if my life is in danger,

Yes - if you really are consistently paying off the arrears.

Get the guards agreement to back you up, and then tell the council what you told us.

Kelly06

Log all the incidences with the Councils anti social / estate management section. Get yourself to a solicitor and send the council a solicitors letter outlining what is going on, they won't sit up and do anything until you do. Sending you a big hug cos I know what it's like, I was a target of antisocial behaviour and threats by these people for years and the council and the guards did nothing. It's a lonely place to be.

goofygoober

Kelly06 wrote: »

Log all the incidences with the Councils anti social / estate management section. Get yourself to a solicitor and send the council a solicitors letter outlining what is going on, they won't sit up and do anything until you do. Sending you a big hug cos I know what it's like, I was a target of antisocial behaviour and threats by these people for years and the council and the guards did nothing. It's a lonely place to be.

I do feel lonely and isolated from my community because of them. I don't put them down for being travellers, I do it because they're bad people. Leaching from society and being racist towards non travellers, it's ridiculous. We have been living here 24 years and the last 4 have been hell. Thank you for listening to my story and your advice (plus hugs lol).

Kelly06

My best advice is don't try to engage with them or acknowledge them in any way, if they knock at your door ( even children) don't open it. If they call out to you on the street don't even turn around. Don't try to reason with their "good" nature this is just a sign of weakness to them.

I don't know if you and your family member are male or female but females are not respected in their community so it is best for only male relatives and friends to try to deal with things. I have to say they are the most cowardly bunch of people I had to deal with in my whole life often having to defend myself or my property from 4, 5 or 6 of them with no one to help me they would stand around me towering above me with hurls and metal bars mimicking the action of caving my head in brave men! I caught one of them in their own one day after smashing a window in the house and I followed him in my car and dragged his fat little arse down off a wall he was trying to climb over and roughed him up a bit to which he start balling crying. I'm ashamed I did this to a 15 year old but I was a woman on the edge and I had suffered greatly at their hands and besides the point I'm female, am 5 foot and weigh 9 stone so I felt it was a fair fight !

The guards don't come when it's trouble with travellers they wait till it's over and come then to clean up the mess. The powers that be will not help you untill you make them do it by sending a solicitors letter so get €100 from somewhere and start the ball rolling !

goofygoober

Kelly06 wrote: »

My best advice is don't try to engage with them or acknowledge them in any way, if they knock at your door ( even children) don't open it. If they call out to you on the street don't even turn around. Don't try to reason with their "good" nature this is just a sign of weakness to them.

I don't know if you and your family member are male or female but females are not respected in their community so it is best for only male relatives and friends to try to deal with things. I have to say they are the most cowardly bunch of people I had to deal with in my whole life often having to defend myself or my property from 4, 5 or 6 of them with no one to help me they would stand around me towering above me with hurls and metal bars mimicking the action of caving my head in brave men! I caught one of them in their own one day after smashing a window in the house and I followed him in my car and dragged his fat little arse down off a wall he was trying to climb over and roughed him up a bit to which he start balling crying. I'm ashamed I did this to a 15 year old but I was a woman on the edge and I had suffered greatly at their hands and besides the point I'm female, am 5 foot and weigh 9 stone so I felt it was a fair fight !

The guards don't come when it's trouble with travellers they wait till it's over and come then to clean up the mess. The powers that be will not help you untill you make them do it by sending a solicitors letter so get €100 from somewhere and start the ball rolling !

Oh god that story. Some people tell me it's "character building" - **** that. They don't even know what it's like. I have seen animals act more human than my neighbours. The kids are worse.. The samaritans are great for unloading the stress but doesn't actually fix the problem. (stress is effecting my bowels causing me to loose weight. I am 6 foot weighting at 59.9kg), people refer to me as "the skinny fecker". I do not interact with them at all. It's gotten so bad we don't even answer the door if we are not expecting someone. I am on job seekers allowance and i can't leave without of fear for me, my home and dogs. I got offered a 2 day a week opportunity to work at what I love and I turned it down because of this.

The gardai offered a mediator to sit down with us & them to sort this out, I thought he was joking, there is no reasoning with this family. We feel it will just escalate things.

I have had major problems in life which I overcame but this one I feel like I'm going to end up in a wheelchair. I know this all might sound paranoid but I know the difference between unreasonable paranoia and reasonable paranoia. I think I need counciling.

Is the solicitor €100? How long do you think it will take? Did you get sorted in the end?

Kelly06

goofygoober wrote: »

Oh god that story. Some people tell me it's "character building" - **** that. They don't even know what it's like. I have seen animals act more human than my neighbours. The kids are worse.. The samaritans are great for unloading the stress but doesn't actually fix the problem. (stress is effecting my bowels causing me to loose weight. I am 6 foot weighting at 59.9kg), people refer to me as "the skinny fecker". I do not interact with them at all. It's gotten so bad we don't even answer the door if we are not expecting someone. I am on job seekers allowance and i can't leave without of fear for me, my home and dogs. I got offered a 2 day a week opportunity to work at what I love and I turned it down because of this.

The gardai offered a mediator to sit down with us & them to sort this out, I thought he was joking, there is no reasoning with this family. We feel it will just escalate things.

I have had major problems in life which I overcame but this one I feel like I'm going to end up in a wheelchair. I know this all might sound paranoid but I know the difference between unreasonable paranoia and reasonable paranoia. I think I need counciling.

Is the solicitor €100? How long do you think it will take? Did you get sorted in the end?

sent ya a pm

the_syco

Consider doing some weight training. Find doing weights after a sh|tty at work does wonders, and may help you with your stress. And you don't need anything expensive. Two 2L bottles of water can be your weights. Although it may not help the situation with the neighbours, it'll help you stay sane!

TheDoc

Won't derail into a "Guards bashing" thread, but always find it amazing how they cannot be pre emptive. Was frequent incidents in the estate of my girlfriends sisters, and the Guards frequently called, told they cant do anything.

The people in question are well known drug dealers in the area. And while the guards do frequently raid the place, the family are notorious. The kids are scum and act like they rule the roost in the area.

Property related, the girlfriends sister is looking into moving. They have a son of 8 and a daughter of one. The son can't even play on the green without being hassled by the local scum. The property pricing in the immediate vicinity of this house has plumetted.

sirens and squad cards at night, frequent raids on the house, intimidating gangs on the road and green, same gangs loitering intimidating people going into the shop. Sure only recently was gonig into the local shop to pickup smokes and when I declined to buy some teen smokes, he threw a dig at me from behind, then I end up in the local cop shop for "assault".

I really feel for the family in this case. The sister in laws fella is a good bloke, whos proper old school and wants to just go out and start bashing in skulls to clear them out. Only last week the dirt thought it would be gas to pour acid on the cars in the area, ruining them.

The only reason I say this, is that the "rumour" is the house they are in assisted by state payments in terms of either rent allowance of a council house, even though the area is not council owned in terms of property. But there was a spell in the mid 00's where councils were taking up property here and there, in the middle of housing estates to clear down the list, looks like this was one of them.

You'd think in instances like this, where you have a notorious criminal family in council housing, that they would simply be turfed the **** out, to allow another family in desperate need get a roof over their heads.

**** like that drives me crazy living in this country.

Kelly06

They do evict people from council housing for anti social behaviour but it's a long and difficult process. It falls on the people around the problem tenants to keep complaining and logging all the incidences of antisocial behaviour with the council this obviously puts a lot of pressure on people that are already living in fear.

Often the older teenagers and young adults are the ones causing the problems. If it's the case that there are also young children who have no involvement with the problems in the house then the council is fairly powerless and the only recourse they would have is to get exclusion orders to have the problem teenager / young adult removed. It can be a very difficult situation.

If this family are even half as bad as you say then hopefully sooner rather than later they will be caught and locked up.