Problem Log

Occasionally, for whatever reason, a dispute cannot be resolved over a cup of tea. On these rare occasions, you might have to escalate matters. What you do depends on you, the reason for the dispute and your situation. There are some things that you can still try. Allow things to cool off for a while, and then try again. Let your spouse talk to their spouse. Encourage your kids to play with their kids. Have a barbecue and invite a lot of neighbours including ‘them’. Have a meeting on neutral territory – perhaps accidentally meet them in the supermarket. There are a number of things that you can try, but you will know when nothing is working.

At that time it may be appropriate to talk to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau or maybe the local authority (especially if council tenants are involved). But if everything you try fails, you might end up in court, complaining to the housing association or council, or dealing with the police. If you do, you will need evidence and you will have to supply it. If your dispute ever reaches that stage, your evidence will have to cover an extended period, and will have to show an ongoing pattern of behaviour or activity that is evidenced over a period of months.

A complaint about constant noise cannot be upheld on the basis of one noisy New Year’s party, or one occurrence of a neighbour working on a car engine early one Sunday morning. To support your grievance you will have to show that the problem (whatever it is) has been going on for weeks, if not months. The way you do that is to keep a log or diary detailing the incidents that are causing the problem. Any log should also include your attempts to defuse the situation. (Remember, if the neighbours become abusive or violent when you try to make peace and resolve the issue, you should withdraw.)

If for example you were suffering problems with a very noisy and aggressive neighbour, your log might look something like this.

Saturday 14th January

05:00 Party at number 34 broke up at five am. Lots of shouting in the street as guests departed revving their engines. John Smith tenant at number 34 thought it was funny and was shouting and laughing when he sounded his car horn continuously for two minutes.

06:45 Had only just got to sleep, woken by loud knocking on my front door. Went to find John Smith, very drunk demanding to know if I wanted a fight! I told him I didn’t. He went away after five minutes called me a ‘blooming chicken’.

08:12 Sandra Smith (wife of John at number 34) seen by Mr Simpson at number 27, throwing empty cans and broken bottles over fence onto my front lawn.

11:25 pm Arrived home to find windows of number 34 wide open, with extremely loud pop music playing. Neighbours complaining – somebody had called police. Police arrived, there was an argument at number 34, music shut off. Music put back on at even louder volume as soon as the police left.

11:58 pm Police came back, Mr Smith arrested, music turned off again following arrest.

Sunday 15th January

08:00 Woken by sound of breaking glass. Got up to see Mrs Smith from number 34 standing on my front lawn with a half brick in her hand, found another half brick in my lounge inside the broken window. Mrs Smith apparently drunk and shouting insults and claiming I had her husband arrested. I called police. Mrs Smith later arrested after assaulting police sergeant who attended.

Monday 16th January

08:30 Left house to drive to work but found all four car tyres slashed. I heard shouting, then saw Mr John Smith standing at his front door with craft knife, he was shouting ‘Drive to work on them you rat.’ I called police. Mr Smith arrested.

Tuesday 17th January

05:00 Woken by loud music. John Smith now has a loudspeaker and microphone. He was shouting at full volume over the loud music. Lights on all along the road with people complaining about the Smiths. Mr Smith shouting through the speaker ‘Tom is a grass. Tom’s a coward who lets the police do his fighting. Come out and fight you devil.’ Smith had a wooden pole in his hand and I feared he would damage my car so I went out. I told him ‘I don’t want any trouble John, why don’t you go and have a cup of tea and we can talk about this tomorrow.’ He shouted ‘You’ll be dead by tomorrow.’

A man arrived and identified himself as William Jackson, council environmental health officer. He advised me to go indoors again. As I was going in through the door a car pulled up with excessively loud music playing and all windows open. The driver sounded his horn continuously. Police car drove up behind it (I later learned that they had been called by Mr Jackson), Billy Smith (son of John Smith) was arrested for drink driving. Mr Jackson advised John Smith to turn music down. John Smith refused, Jackson served a notice and Jackson seized the Smiths’ music system with police support.

A rather extreme case, but all of this would be useful evidence of the problems you have had to suffer. It clearly proves that there wasn’t one isolated incident such as a loud Christmas or family birthday party. I would suggest that you should aim to compile at least two months’ worth of evidence in your log. While you are doing that, you could still try the other methods to find a resolution. Think back to the example used of the broken prize flowers, and try to identify a root cause to the conflict with your neighbours. Did you run their cat over, or do your kids break their flowers? If there is a root cause, make every effort to resolve it. If the matter cannot be resolved in a friendly manner and you have to report it to the authorities, you will already have a body of evidence that points to a persistent problem.

If you are not the only person suffering, I would suggest that you advise other neighbours to ‘independently’ compile their own log. Don’t in any way conspire against an unpopular neighbour. Don’t sit down at a residents’ committee meeting and compile a neat collective log. Individual logs will be of more evidential value. Don’t show each other your logs or discuss your entries. Just note what you have seen and heard.

For example, Mr Jones at number 1 could report a noisy session with motorcycles that you knew nothing about because you were at work at the time. You might record some damage to your front fence that the people across the road know nothing about because they were out shopping at the time. The authorities will cross-reference all logs to see how extensive the problems are.

When compiling the logs only put in what you experienced, know, saw and heard. Don’t be tempted to make things up so it looks better for your case. If the problem subsides for a few days, then so be it, you will have an empty page or two in the diary. When it starts up again you can carry on with the log.

Is it me?

When you have recorded a few weeks’ worth of incidents, review your log. Take a step back and ask if it could possibly be you. Is there a chance that the only problem is that you are being particularly sensitive to something?

Review the log. If it contains a noisy party on December 24th (the Smith family Christmas party), then one on 14th February (the Smiths’ wedding anniversary), you have to seriously sit and decide if for some reason you just don’t like the Smiths and are looking for a reason to try to upset them. On the other hand if your log looks more like the example above, I think you are justified in taking it a stage further and asking the authorities to resolve the matter once and for all.