Nasty neighbours

I have horrible neighbours. That I’ve had to report to housing for harassment of me.
Long story short I heard him talking about calling benefits agency about me . I have no clue how he could know about me or my benefits situation unless he has received some of my mail . This has terrified me I’m doing nothing illegal yet the thought of being investigated terrifies me . Does anyone have any suggestions please. Thank you.

Hi Michellecar

I was very sorry to hear that you have horrible neighbours and have had to report them to housing for harassing you. I too, in my time - though fortunately some years ago now - have had "nuisance neighbours" and have had to report them to housing (I am a council tenant.) Firstly, you've done exactly the right thing in reporting them for harassment. Secondly - and this is most important - do NOT assume that the person knows ANYTHING about you or your benefit situation! They themselves may have simply assumed you were "on benefits." You've told us that this person is horrible and as we know horrible people can say horrible things. To give an example one neighbour once told me he'd report me to the benefits office. Now this person knew nothing about my benefit situation or even that I was on benefits because I had not told ANY neighbour about this. I simply told him "You can report me to whoever you want as I'm not doing anything wrong." He responded that he HAD contacted them. To this I replied "Then why have I heard nothing from them about this?" These people are not pleasant and they lie and bluff. Do not be cowed by them. You've told us you've done nothing wrong so even if this muppet did report you then nothing wrong would be found. You should perhaps though report to housing what you overheard him saying if you haven't already. I reported to housing what the man said to me about contacting the benefits agency and about other things he said about or to me. He then received a visit from housing and then a very strong letter from them, and this resolved the issue. If there are any further incidents or comments make a note of them including the date and time, also tell housing about them. My own council has procedures and specially trained staff to deal with nuisance neighbours and your landlord may well have too. Also your landlord may have contacts with the police and other agencies, mine certainly does.

I hope this helps in some way and just to reiterate you've done exactly the right thing in reporting these people to housing. There's a very good chance they'll be able to sort this out for you though it may take a little time, it did for me and I had to make more than one report to the council but it worked. Good luck and don't give up!

Kind regards

Mr B