What is ASB?
Here are some examples of what we will investigate as ASB:
- Hate motivated behaviour
- Violence or threats of violence
- Verbal abuse (such as shouting or swearing at someone)
- Criminal damage
- Harassing someone for any reason
- Being very noisy or rowdy
- Taking or selling illegal drugs
- Nuisance from pets and animals
- Using a home for illegal things like prostitution
We all have the right to enjoy life in our own way, as long as we don't harm the people living around us. Some things your neighbours do may irritate you because you would do them differently, but that doesn't mean they are unreasonable or harmful. Here are some examples of what isn’t ASB:
- Noise from children playing, or babies crying
- Personal disputes such as falling out with neighbours
- Normal living noise such as opening and closing doors, going up and down stairs or people talking
- Smells from someone cooking
- Noise of a vacuum cleaner, washing machine or DIY
- Clashes of lifestyle, including cultural differences
- We want children to have active, healthy lifestyles and don’t treat ball games as ASB. We won’t get involved unless the children are causing other issues such as verbal abuse or criminal damage.
We encourage our customers to live amicably within their community. Lifestyles and personalities can be diverse and tolerances differ, and sometimes people fall out with their neighbours. This can result in disputes with neighbours which may include:
- Dirty looks
- Comments in passing
- Disagreements over bins, or parking
- Lower tolerance to kids playing
When customers tell us about something that we don’t class as ASB, we’ll always try our best to get neighbours to see things from the other person’s point of view. If this doesn’t work, we can ask an organisation that are experts in dealing with neighbour disputes to get involved. This is a free and confidential service. You don’t have to speak face-to-face with your neighbours if you don’t want to.
We've popped together some examples of times where we won’t take any action:
• The alleged perpetrator is not our customer or a visitor to our properties
• There isn’t enough evidence or support from victims and witnesses
• The alleged nuisance is caused by reasonable everyday behaviours, such as living noise
• We believe that the complaints are malicious
• As a landlord, it isn’t something we believe that we should be involved in In these cases, we will offer advice and guidance to encourage customers to manage the situation themselves. Disturbances caused by household noise will be covered in our Housing Management Policy
If you're experiencing ASB, please get in touch and we will support you by:
- Being open and honest about what we can do
- Telling you what you can do to help the situation
- Telling you who else could help, such as the police or local council
We've also popped together some tips on how to report ASB as well
Check out our ASB policy to find out more about our approach to ASB