Originally Posted by
McD
Before I met my wife, I bought a flat, in a block that some were owned and some still council. was told the usual 'neighbours are all lovely' chat, which was true for some of them, couple of nice ones.
Next door on one side was a couple where the wife was into drugs, and her brother would arrive at any time of the day, and stand outside and shout her name until she'd either answer or he'd finally give up because she was out. For some reason he'd never try to door buzzer/intercom. Whilst i never saw anything violent from him, he was a big bloke, and often used to tailgate people into the building (not me tbf), which would be intimidating for some of the single women he'd follow in the door.
Then there was the family above me, where the parents would disappear every weekend leaving 2 teenage kids, who would have a party from Friday night to Monday morning (my now wife ended up phoning to police at 4:30am on a Monday morning once).
And the jakey on the ground floor, and his mate, who used to sit drinking in the street, winding their dog up and let it run wild in the street, and ended up fighting another jakey with knives in the middle of the road.
Other people using our communal bins as an easy dump (especially the recycling one, so our bin would often not get emptied because someone had dumped their regular rubbish in it). You'd regularly see debt collectors trying to get in, and often accosting you at the door trying to find out if you were the person they were looking for, rubbish launched off of balconies, deliveries were always a pain because they couldn't get into the building, the communal areas used to be well kept by the council but that was severely cut back on, then trying to blame and charge owners for issues with drainage issues in the communal area.
I worked backshift at the time, and it got to the stage where I was telling my wife to not go out or take the dog out when she went home, and that I would do it when I got in as I genuinely feared for her safety.