I wrote before about my mother who has been given a council house. She was on the list since me and my brother were very young (about fifteen years!) but now we are both "grown up" and living away from home...I'm working and my brother is in college. Its a three bedroom house in a large estate. She wasnt given a choice about what house, neither did she even expect to be offered one, at this stage. However she is extremely poor, having lost her low-wage job last year, and having a mountain of debt. It's been difficult enough moving from private rented to corporation housing (no furniture, curtains, lights!) but still she was happy to get something a bit permanant where she could settle. However a couple of not-so-nice fellow residents have been making comments about the house and how theres only one woman in it. The three bed houses are significantly bigger, and detached, whereas the others are terraced. They can be intimidating, especially because my mother is on her own and quite "timid".
MY mother is afraid for two reasons;
(i) is it possible that these disgruntled neighbours could tell the council that there is only one woman in a three bedroom house and thereby get her evicted in favour of someone, for example, with small children? She would have been happy with a smaller place but this is what she was given!
(ii) if the neighbours remain intimidating, what can she do? Getting on the wrong side of these people isnt a good idea.
Sometimes I think the council must have been mad to build an estate with varying sizes of houses in it...a recipe for bitterness!
MY mother is afraid for two reasons;
(i) is it possible that these disgruntled neighbours could tell the council that there is only one woman in a three bedroom house and thereby get her evicted in favour of someone, for example, with small children? She would have been happy with a smaller place but this is what she was given!
(ii) if the neighbours remain intimidating, what can she do? Getting on the wrong side of these people isnt a good idea.
Sometimes I think the council must have been mad to build an estate with varying sizes of houses in it...a recipe for bitterness!