Advice on whether to move or stay - anti-social behaviour

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maggieO

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We bought our house in 2004 for 203000 (currently owe 150000 on a 5 year fixed with AIB) – the properties in the area are getting around 130000 at present but we recently added a kitchen extension to ours and feel it would fetch a little more (am awaiting a valuation but would estimate 160000).

I love my house and the area suits us but we have had ongoing problems with a landlord whose house is three doors down from us and consistently lets to anti-social tenants (there was a brothel there at one stage with a succession of drug dealers/money lenders).

The last tenants have moved out and we went into see the house and it’s in a shocking condition. We have contacted a local councillor and are meeting with him next week to see if anything can be done but to be honest I can’t see this being resolved. The landlord doesn’t care, from what I can see he wouldn’t have the means to bring the house up to standard and whatever tenants he gets next will be ten times worse that the ones we have had as no decent person would rent the house.

At this stage I really feel like selling up and moving but it would mean using up all my savings and an increase in our monthly mortgage payments. Houses I’m looking at are in the 250000 category but none of them has what our house has (open plan kitchen living room, sun in garden all day, close to school and work) but really for peace of mind and sanity I would like to move.

I just wonder has anyone got any advice for me. Are there avenues to deal with this landlord that we are unaware of. Should we bide our time and move when we have more equity or will we be too old to secure a mortgage then (we are early 40s) I just worry if a particularly bad family move in there is no way we will be able to sell so should we strike now when the place is empty. I think our house would sell quickly as there isn’t many good quality homes on the local market and what’s good is going quick. We wouldn’t mind renting while we look for something suitable.

Looking on line at boards.ie and similar sites it seems these kind of anti-social issues rarely get solved particularly if the landlord isn’t willing to co-operate.
 
If you like the area then you should put as much pressure on the Councillor as you can. Do any of your other neighbors have the same issue? The more signatures you can get onto a complaint the more sway it will have.
 
Don't panic and do something drastic. you could sell, buy somewhere else and end up with a different neighbor from hell.

By all means engage with the council but since they are not the landlords, I'm not sure from a practical perspective what they can do. However you can raise a complaint with the PRTB. See P 14 of the attached from FLAC

http://www.flac.ie/download/pdf/neighbour_disputes.pdf
 
Thanks guys for the replies - I just got such a shock when I saw the state of the house and the couple had four small kids in there - dont know how they lived in there, it was filthy and the furniture and beds were in a state. They didnt lock up when they left so we just went in to look. It affects about five other houses and the neighbours are all very upset and want it sorted now. We have contacted PRTB as well but from what I hear its a slow process and doesnt really help. We at the bottom of a cul-de-sac so we are kinda isolated and the residents commitee isnt very active so our issues are not of concern to the majority of the people. The councillor mentioned the HAPS scheme but the house isnt at a standard the council would accept for that and as far as I can tell its the landlords responsibility to get it up to standard also a friend had a family on the HAPS scheme move in near them and they were also very anti-social so I dont think its a solution either but we'll see what he says.

Moving would stretch us a lot at the moment and we would want to move to a good area obviously so as not to go from the frying pan into the fire - so the house would need to be in the 250000 mark.
 
You need to get your Community Garda involved also. Surely if there was a brothel/drug use going on the Gardai have already been involved?
 
Yeah they are Sue Ellen - with the brothel they couldnt have been more useless if they tried - all they did was knock on the door and reported back that nothing seemed out of order - I mean how could they tell from standing on the doorstep. The gang got spooked and and moved a few weeks later and I got a call back from the guards six months later to see how it was going!

With the dealing I guess you need proof - the house was raided once - to be honest we are fairly nervous about reporting things as you can imagine. Sometimes its easier to turn a blind eye and its not very blantant but know herion addicts are going down there and people coming and going so its obvious but we have no proof.

In my opinion the landlord may also be involved in criminality - for him to never have had normal tenants is just a bit of a coincidence
 
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