Anti-social behaviour

Where there has been a minor dispute between neighbours, we expect customers to do what they can to sort things out between themselves. It's often the case that people don't realise the impact their behaviour is having on others. Where it's safe to do so, we encourage customers to talk to their neighbours and try to resolve an issue before approaching third parties like us or the local council.

If you're in immediate danger, please call the police directly on 999.

Contact us to report anti-social behaviour. If you're contacting us outside office hours, ring 0800 013 2653. The team will take a message, and someone will call you back to discuss what can be done.

What you can expect from us

If you report anti-social behaviour (ASB) we’ll log it with the ASB investigator in your area.

Where you report a potential hate incident the investigator will contact you within one working day. A hate incident is where motivation for the anti-social behaviour is due to the victim's inclusion within a protected characteristic. This includes their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

In all other cases you’ll be contacted within three working days. 

When the ASB investigator contacts you they’ll complete an assessment to determine the level of risk (low, medium or high). In medium and high cases we’ll consider whether additional measures need to be taken. This may involve talking with the Community Safety Manager and other agencies who can support our investigation or provide you with support. We can also consider using technical equipment to provide additional security or collect evidence.

After we’ve contacted you we’ll write an action plan which we’ll share with you. This plan will list how we’ll handle your ASB case and whether we need you to do anything. This includes gathering evidence we might need before we can take any action.

The action plan will include timescales for completion where possible and confirm that we’ll contact you again within 10 working days. If there are more incidents before we’re due to contact you again, please tell your ASB investigator.

If you’re reporting noise nuisance please collect evidence for a reasonable time period, usually at least three weeks. This could involve writing the incidents down on a diary sheet or recording them using a noise app. We’ll use this information to see whether the noise is a breach of tenancy or not. The factors that we take into account include:

• The time of day
• The type of noise
• The volume of the noise
• How long the noise lasts
• How often noise nuisance occurs.

Your ASB investigator will decide whether your complaint is valid and sanction the person who's responsible for the anti-social behaviour. They’ll take these factors into account before making this decision:

• The seriousness of the behaviour
• The impact upon the victims
• The persistence of the behaviour
• What other sanctions have been made for similar behaviour
• How long ago previous sanctions were imposed
• The personal circumstances of the person responsible and any mitigating factors.

After a sanction has been made the case will remain open for a time (at least two weeks). During this time it will be monitored to see if the sanction has been successful or not. When we determine that the ASB case has been resolved we’ll discuss this with you. We’ll write to you to confirm this and ask for your feedback.

Our anti-social behaviour service standard, which you can download below, sets out how we will respond to reports of anti-social behaviour. You can also download our anti-social behaviour and hate incident policy [PDF] - this is the policy our staff follow as they work on a case. 

The government has published a guide for social housing tenants who are experiencing anti-social behaviour. It explains who is responsible for tackling problems, and gives details of help and support available.

What we can't help with

There are some things we can't help with, because they're not considered to be anti-social behaviour. These things include:

• Children playing
• Babies crying
• Household noise caused by everyday living, e.g. reasonable use of television and music players, noise from electrical items like washing machines and vacuum cleaners at normal hours of the day, DIY during reasonable hours, using stairs, walking about and going in and out of cupboards and doors.
• One-off parties that are not of an exceptional nature
• Normal social events in gardens and outside spaces such as barbecues and celebrations
• Cooking smells
• Smoking cigarettes and cigars.

Other ways to get help

If you're not satisfied that organisations like us, the local police and councils have acted properly to resolve your concerns about anti-social behaviour, you can ask your local council about a process called the Community Trigger. The Community Trigger involves bringing together all the agencies involved to carry out a case review, address complaints, and seek a successful resolution. We'll support tenants with this process, and an action plan will be developed by the agencies to address the problems you've experienced.

In order for the Community Trigger process to be started, a complaints threshold needs to be met – this varies from council to council. Typically, it requires three qualifying complaints to have been made over a six month period.