Ha! The Bitch is Finally Back!
I've worked out how to access my blog again - or rather, I worked out (admittedly somewhat slowly) how to request a password reminder. So the Provocative Cynic is back - and with a vengeance, due to all the vitriol I have built up over the years since I last posted......but, as it's taken me 'til 4am to get this far, the first 'new' post will have to wait for another time.
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Ranting about political correctness, hypocrisy and everything else - a veritable Victor Meldrew for the new Millennium.
About Me
- theprovocativecynic
- Ex-TV wunderkind, very interested in politics.
6 comments:
Hi, I'd love to know how things are going for you. We're suffering from noisy UEA student neighbours. They think we're out of order for mentioning to them "you woke us up twice last night" and then make even more noise the following night. The council have given me a contact at the UEA who apparently will give them a right telling off, but as we're having recording equipment fitted next week the last thing we want is to have nothing to record. Kent Management on Unthank Road who 'manage' (ie. collect money from the students) have been worse than useless. My girlfriend and I have been to hell and back and they talk to us like we're idiots, it's less than a decade since we were both students so we understand what student life is like. But starting parties at 2.30am on work nights and hoovering at 1.30am is unacceptable. We are also regularly bombarded with Will Smith and Leona Lewis (seriously!!) so loud we can hear the treble in our house. By the time they are issued with ASBO's they will be off to attempt to get employment and we'll have another bunch of idiots move in. Can't wait!
I've lost count of the amount of times we've sat there crying at 2am. I hope when these four end up getting married they have to endure the same noise, I also hope they look back at what they've done to us and gasp in horror!
Hi there - you really have my sympathies. Each time we were offered recording equipment, the "Anti-Social Behaviour Caseworker" warned our neighbours that it was about to happen and they then kept quiet for weeks. We also wasted weeks logging every single incident (over several months) only for nothing whatsoever to be done about it. (And when you have 6-8 students all causing noise at differing times, that's a lot of incidents!) This year, we refused the ASB Caseworker's idea of giving the new set of students a 'warning' on the basis that that would just piss them off, and possibly create a problem right from the word go - and so far things have been better. Having said that, I doubt that many people would consider neighbours falling quiet only after about 2am on a weekday bearable, but for us that represents a dramatic improvement. I don't know what the answer is, I'm afraid - other than to keep on battling and to speak to every single person in authority about it - from UEA to the Council, local councillors and your MP. Maybe an online website for the people of Norwich to document their experiences would finally shame the authorities into taking meaningful action. I'd be up for it, as I know that, even if this year hasn't been too bad, there's no guarantee that we won't be back in hell again next year. I totally blame the extension of the licensing hours and the smoking ban for this - as the students stay out at the cut-price weekday drining nights 'til 3 or 4am and then come home and start playing music or whatever at that point. Also, the bass on music (and even Playstations) is so loud now that the noise really travels - we have sometimes been driven mad by the noise from one student's Playstation at 4am from two houses away. I really wish you luck and can only suggest that maybe there would be strength in numbers as our experience made us feel that the authorities found it easier to discredit us as lone complainants than to deal with a large group of students all protesting their innocence and looking like amiable public schoolboys during the daytimes. I also think that the people of Norwich should be demanding an Anti-Social behaviour Service which actually operates during the hours when the problems occur, rather than 'til 10pm on weekdays! I don't know about you, but our student neighbours over the last few years have only ever been quiet at weekends, as they have to get up for their weekend jobs then! Let me know how you get on and good luck...
Cheers, i'll happily help you set up a website to deal with this, i've built a fair few in my time. I'll try and think of a decent URL today.
We have been working with Charles Clarke on our case, he has been very helpful, when he asks someone to do something, they do it. I can appreciate everyone thinks you're just a whinger. I always contact Kent management and the landlord now via post so I have records for the courts. The last one from C**t Management was both bitchy and sarcastic and showed how little they care for the community or local residents.
We're also in the process of prosecuting the landlord for reasons i'd rather not mention here. All I can say is the dodgy landlord has been turning 2 bedroom houses into 4 bedroom houses and ignoring all building regulations and creating real problems with noise as a result, so even when our noisy neighbours are quiet we are still being disturbed. We will have our day in court soon and I shall make sure the press are there to report it. Hence the fact our neighbours won't be able to be quiet when the recording equipment arrives. I'll go into more detail once we've got the recordings.
Sadly our neighbours like to party on Monday, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. They did put a note through our door once to say they are having a party which was fine, we went out for the night.
Have you spoken to other residents on your street? We know the lady across the road from us has been disturbed by them during the night. I keep meaning to pop round next door but one, but they rarely seem to be in. Maybe like us they dread going home and try to stay away.
I don't think any of our neighbours are intelligent enough to get a part-time job, if i'd never seen them i'd think they were a bunch of Vicky Pollard's.
I'd also recommend downloading this >> http://www.allyoulike.com/?p=8590
Great that you know how to build websites - would be interesting to see how much pressure could be built up by using one. Also good news that it looks as if the authorities are pushing ahead with court action - let me know how you get on! Glad to hear you're in touch with Charles who really is genuinely interested in these cases and keeps in touch with us too. We ended up terribly isolated (and thus being portrayed by the Council and UEA as lone whingers) because all the other houses in our row are student houses, and they have a "code of honour" where they don't complain about each other. While you still have other non-student neighbours to back you up, you still stand a chance of being taken seriously. That's actually one of my main worries as, with all the buy to lets and the huge tax breaks available to landlords, I think more and more people will end up as the only working people in an area and then won't be able to get anyone to do anything about the all-night partying. The days you suffer tie in neatly with ours - PoNaNas is the Monday student night, and Thurs, Fri and Sat are either there or Mustard - with 3am finishes or worse......We then find that we get a lot of noise not just from endlessly slamming doors, stamping up and down stairs, screaming and playing music - but also from them sitting outside smoking and screeching. Once it got so bad that other neighbours from further afield phoned the Police but although they came out, because it seemed as if someone was being attacked, they didn't use the drunk and disorderly legislation, even though they said the student was off her head. The only other time they came out was when someone called them and said that if something wasn't done, they would go round and throw a brick through a window. It's crazy. Norwich has one part-time noise nuisance officer who only works nights on Fridays and Saturdays and spends all his time at Riverside.The neighbourhood wardens and Community Support teams go off duty at 10pm - before the students have even started making a noise - so I can't see what the authorities ever hope to achieve while their commitment to doing anything about this remains so pathetic. Meanwhile, more energy seems to go on protecting the owners of the very expensive houses with moorings from the "inconvenience" of fishermen than ordinary citizens from endlessly-disturbed nights. We really did get a feeling that the importance of your case depended very much on how expensive your house was....Anyway, best of luck with your fight and I'll wait to hear how you get on with interest!
Don't get me started about the screeching, why can't they just talk. A couple of weeks ago they were screaming so much their voices kept cracking. This went on for about 3 hours before I flipped and told them to shut up. Although they did shut up and then went out it still resulted in me having another sleepless night coz i'm so angry and also waiting for them to come home and wake me up again.
This all seems totally unnecessary and stupid. The UEA, the letting agents and the landlords are making a packet out of our misery, fortunately they are the only students down our road as far as i'm aware.
Our neighbours play the same games as yours, by pleading innocence and being very apologetic to your face, as soon as the front door is shut they are off again. We have considered renting our house and renting elsewhere as selling at the moment seems to much like hassle, but we love our house and don't believe we should have to tolerate this. We've never heard a thing through the wall of the other neighbours apart from the occasional living noise (to be expected).
Oh well, must take a deep breath and wait for things to take their course. If only I knew when our student neighbours had their final exams, i'd have the biggest house party ever the night before. You'd all be welcome.
The holding a party the night before finals also appealed to us - though it seems that most of them don't have exams these days :-( Know what you mean about being unable to sleep after they finally shut up, too - you're so full of adrenalin by then, that you've got no chance! They're all obviously deaf when they come out of the clubs and can't even tell that they''re screeching and shouting.
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