South Derbyshire District Council

We have listed below some of the types of problems tenants may encounter.

Give Respect Get Respect and South Derbyshire Tackling Antisocial Behaviour Together logos

Housing Services is signed up to the Government's Respect Agenda which means that we are committed to doing all we reasonably can to provide good services to tackle anti-social behaviour and contribute to creating a culture of respect through our housing management role and our broader involvement in neighbourhood management.

The legal definition of anti-social behaviour is acting in "a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as himself."

However this definition covers a wide range of behaviour and perceptions so here is a guide recommending what you can do and what we can do to work together to tackle unacceptable behaviour.

Nuisance complaints

South Derbyshire is a low crime area and this is reflected in low anti social behaviour issues.
Most complaints received by Housing Services are neighbour disputes involving;

one off parties or incidents of inconsiderate behaviour
dogs barking
loud music
disturbances in the night, often shouting
children causing nuisance by playing foot ball in the street and
parking issues

What should you do?

First, try talking to your neighbour.

They may not even realise they have caused a problem for you.

Try and do it when you are calm, not in the heat of the moment

If this doesn't work, contact the relevant Housing Officer

Alternatively, for incidents of anti-social behaviour that are on-going and are causing a regular nuisance to you and your neighbours you can record these on a diary sheet to demonstrate the problems you are facing and build up evidence against the perpetrators. You can download a diary sheet from the bottom of this page. When you have recorded a series of incidents please send them to your Housing Officer to help us deal with your case.

What we will do?

Your Housing Officer will visit your neighbour to discuss the complaint but will not say that it was you that made the complaint.

We do this to give them the chance to change their behaviour.

If there are further incidents we will ask you to fill in diary sheets to record the incidents and we will arrange an appointment to meet you to review the records and tell you what we will do next.

We may offer both parties mediation to try and resolve the problem. It can often help to try and see both sides and agree a way forward with the mediator.

In all cases we will use the lowest level of enforcement possible to resolve the problem.

Evicting someone from their home is the very last resort and we will only use this approach when all else has failed.

Serious incidents

Although more rare in our community, some residents may be victim of more serious or repeated anti social behaviour.

This can have a significant impact on someone's life and can include issues such as;

heated verbal arguments
threats or threatening behaviour
harassment
actual violence
intimidation from groups or individuals
criminal activity

In these cases, your first contact must be the Police.

If you are unsure about reporting incidents, please discuss this with us, don't ignore it.

We will work alongside the Police to respond to the complaint and take appropriate action against our tenants who are guilty of anti social behaviour.

This can include a range of measures such as;