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Buying Next Door to Social House

124

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    It doesn't mean they will be bad neighbours, it just means the probability of them being bad neighbours is much higher than normal.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,058 ✭✭✭✭Red Silurian


    I'd be more worried about the neighbour who splashed out 450k as a starter home. Statistically it's these people who are the largest cocaine users in our country at the moment



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I guess you could say that, yes!

    And I don't have a problem with owning it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    What absolute nonsense. I mean you are really grasping a straws now. Do you have any evidence to suggest that is the case? Something similar to the link I provided you would be fine. The average property in Dublin costs above 500k now. The type of people buying them would likely be in a high paid job and would have had to save up a decent deposit to be able to buy.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,404 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    How exactly was it dealt with?

    The council can talk to the tenant, and sometimes that works. They can send a letter with big words in it (scary!!!). They can refuse cosmetic repairs - but not essential ones. They can refuse transfers (ironic given that a transfer would make the neighbours happy). But that's about it. No judge will sign off on evicting someone just because they're burning rubbish.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,967 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Yeah I know what you mean. I was more thinking the size of the house (two bed terrace with a garden) and a young couple of a vibrant part of Dublin raising a kid than the prices. But yeah, not a lot could afford that, would have to be a couple doing well for themselves in a tech company or the likes.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,058 ✭✭✭✭Red Silurian


    Judges don't have to sign off on these evictions no more than a judge would be needed to evict from a privately rented home. All rental agreements contain rules that must be followed or else the tenant gets turfed out

    I can't say I have proof of who is buying Dublin's cocaine supply, no, but it is a long running prejudicial assumption that gets made. Much like jobless people having problems that would make them bad neighbours because they were jobless



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Well to the OP, if I was you and I had any other option I would go for that personally. There is too much of a risk element in moving in when you have a social tenant who will be moving in next to you. You have no idea who that is going to be. You might get lucky or you might not. If you don't, nobody is going to help you. The council won't care. Their goal is to house all tenants on the list. Your goal is to raise your family in a good environment. There is potentially a bit of a conflict in interests here.

    I grew up in a council estate and would not move into one again. Thankfully I didn't have to make that choice. I don't live in a housing estate so I don't have the issue of a social tenant moving next door either. All of my friends who grew up in similar situations preferred to move further out rather than into the estate they grew up in (that should tell you something). The difference with council estates in the 80's and 90's was they were where average working class people lived, with an emphasis on "working". Most people living in the estate were working at that time even though there was high unemployment. Nowadays it is people who can't even find a job in a time of record employment.

    Post edited by HerrKuehn on


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I have no idea how the Council dealt with my complaint after I made it. I'm not privvy to that information.

    All I know is he stopped, and the next time I saw him he apologised. Eviction was not suggested by either myself or the Council.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 191 ✭✭byrne249


    Did you ask him to stop before going to the council?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,298 ✭✭✭chicorytip


    The difference with council estates in the eighties and nineties was there were no major drug problems back then except in the flat complexes of Dublin. We have all seen the destructive effects drug dealing, drug addiction and drug related crime can have on poorer communities in our cities and towns.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,782 ✭✭✭Scotty #


    I'm not trying to talk anyone out of anything. The OP asked for peoples thoughts based on experiences and that's what they've gotten. It's not prejudice to say you've had a negative experience and if it were, then it's just as prejudice to say fire away, you've nothing to worry about.

    Or were we only to give positive experiences or something? Do you not believe that people can have negative experiences of after living next to social housed tenants?

    Your approach of simply telling people they're wrong is ridiculous and adds nothing to the discussion.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    This is very low level "anti-social" behavior though, it might not even be that, it could be just that he didn't realise he was causing a nuisance. IT certainly isn't what I am talking about when I mention anti-social behavior.



  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators Posts: 17,868 Mod ✭✭✭✭Henry Ford III


    Lively thread.

    My view is that moving into any high density housing is inherently risky. You'll be in close proximity with your neighbours.

    If they are bad your life will be difficult, and you've no control either. Moving out is expensive and the same risks potentially apply.

    Introduce local authority tenants to the mix and the risks increase.

    It's not easy.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    @Scotty # - I am not saying you made these comments, but - comments such as "Don't buy next to a social house" or "run away" or "why would you live beside scumbags" absolutely is trying to talk someone out of it. Yet the irony of it is, most of the people here making these comments aren't offering their opinion based on experience. They're offering their opinion based on a pre-conceived probability of risk.

    @byrne249 - No, I didn't. I went straight to the Council because he set a fire at 3am in the morning which had flames leaping up higher than the height of the back walls and could have set fire to adjoining properties. I also bollicked him out of it, face to face, on the same day as I reported it, because I am not behind the door on these things.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,058 ✭✭✭✭Red Silurian


    When you say you "went to the council" was that a phone call or a letter to the housing department of your local council? Or did you go about it a different way?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,058 ✭✭✭✭Red Silurian


    I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's all to do with high density housing and very little to do with council housing or council tenants. You could buy a house today and tomorrow your neighbour could sell to a council or investor or a drug-taking owner. There's just no way of knowing

    The alternative, in my opinion, is buying or building a once off house in the countryside, there's upsides and downsides to doing that but personally I wouldn't like it



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Well another alternative would be that the council/charity housing people with issues actually deal with them, instead of the hands off approach they have now.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    It's Category B, which SDCC defines as:

    Any behaviour which causes or is likely to cause any significant or persistent danger, injury, damage, loss or fear to any person living, working or otherwise lawfully in or in the vicinity of a house provided by a housing authority under the Housing Acts 1966 to 2014, or a housing estate in which the house is situated and without prejudice to the foregoing includes violence, threats, intimidation, coercion, harassment, racism or serious obstruction of any person. 



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Fair enough, just in my experience of anti-social behavior it would be fairly low level. It can get a lot worse than that and there are plenty of people who have literally nothing to lose.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 191 ✭✭byrne249


    Because you are claiming the council solved the problem. It would occur to me that your bollicking solved the problem, not the council. There was a massive bonfire with exploding canisters in it, extremely dangerous, on the green where I lived on halloween last year, with the fire brigade out to put it out, this is just one token anecdote of which there are many of the general behaviour associated with this particular estate. Regardless, be it on the property or on the green, it would be disingenuous to claim the council has some sort of power to prevent or discourage anti social behaviour like this.

    The implication that there is no extra risk in buying a house in Cherry Orchard, over a commuter town like Naas is simply not true. The anti social element of society falls within the subset of people who require social housing which adds inherent risk to buying beside a social house. That is all people here are saying.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    He wasn't too perturbed when I bollicked him out of it. But he'd changed his tune the next time I saw him after the council had contacted him. I know it wasn't my bollicking him out of it that made him not do it again, but you'll have to take my word for it. Or not, if you prefer.

    So in your world, the "anti-social element of society falls within the subset of people who require social housing".

    As if none exists outside of it and if you buy beside a private house, you're guaranteed to have a great neighbour?

    Thank you for a great example of the prejudice I've been talking abut all along.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,844 ✭✭✭ballyharpat


    Why do you continue to put words in peoples mouth, to misquote them, take them out of context?


    There is nothing rational about your attacks on so many posters. Each poster has given their opinion, other than 2 or 3 on here, including you, their experiences, or perception, is different than yours, they are not prejudiced, they are giving opinions based on experiences, therefore, not prejudiced, as your own wikipedia explanation of prejudice explains.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    My last quote from byrne249's post it was an exact quote. No misquote or misrepresentation here.

    There are plenty more examples on this thread that fit the definitions of prejudice that I provided (there are more than one). Many are NOT giving their opinion based on actual lived experience.

    You can keep protesting and saying "it's not prejudice, misquote, out of context," blah blah blah. As long and as many times as you like, but you can't change it.

    You are literally boring me now.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    In your own experience, living next to a social tenant, you have had some anti-social behavior. Luckily, he was reasonable enough. What would you have done if he told you and the council to F-off? What about if he started to escalate a bit as he is annoyed about you going to the council? Do you think anyone can do anything other than send a strongly worded letter?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    In what ways do you suggest they do this please? "actually deal with them " I mean?

    And what " issues" are you referring to ?

    The Council;s job is to put a roof over people's heads. Period



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    If council tenants are engaging in anti-social behavior, it is up to the council to ensure it is dealt with. For example, if someone is running a scrap yard out of a 3 bed semi-D, the council will need to get involved to get them to stop, if they can't then they should look for an eviction. If a tenant is making everyone's life a misery by engaging in threatening and abusive behaviour, the council has a responsibility to deal with this too.

    The council is well aware of the issues, they are just completely ineffective at dealing with them.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    re your last sentence. For E20 you can take them to court, without th services of a solicitor, for eg noise and other nuisance behaviour. You have to write first advising them of your intentions. In my ( considerable) experience that written warning has always been enough.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    "perception" is an .... interesting word in this context.. aka often hearsay



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    The social tenant I spoke of did not live directly next door to me. He lived in the terrace behind mine and one down. He wasn't exactly pleasant originally when I did speak to him, so I pursued it, as I told him I would. And I would have continued to pursue it, if needs be. I'm like a dog with a bone, didn't you know that? ;)

    The problem is, that his kind of behaviour is not exclusive to social tenants. The firestarter could equally have been a private owner, and what could I have done if he was a private owner? Not a damn thing. And I have had issues with neighbours who are private owners over the years as well. But at least with the council you have some recourse.

    Anyway I hope the original poster has made up their mind, and didn't write the house they loved off purely because of the blatant prejudice towards social tenants expressed by most here.

    I'm pretty much done here, I'm getting bored of repeating myself, and I'm not going to change my mind, or any of yours.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Well, when I was growing up, there was an absolute lunatic living in the estate who made everyone's life a misery. There is no way you are bringing him to court, I can tell you that. He was eventually murdered in fairly gruesome fashion. It is up to the council to do their job.

    It is fairly simple really, follow the rules and have the benefit of a council house. Break the rules sufficiently and be evicted. If this was a realistic possibility, people wouldn't mind the risk of living beside social housing as it would be resolved in a reasonable time frame.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Care to refute anything I said specifically? Educate me maybe?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,404 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    Unfortunately the councils hands are pretty tied.

    It is extremely difficult to get a judge to actually order an eviction from a council house. Because bottom line, the council are required to house those who cannot get housing elsewhere. No matter how bad their behaviour is. The council are the last resort.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,058 ✭✭✭✭Red Silurian


    Just in case I, or anybody I know, or indeed anybody on here, wants to make a similar complaint. The councils own websites are lacking in this detail



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,113 ✭✭✭Former Former Former


    Even if those of us who think that local authority housing is associated with more issues than private housing are indeed horrendously prejudiced and it's all lies... the OP would do well to consider what this widely held prejudice will do to the resale value of the house, should she want to sell in a few years.

    If she isn't getting it at a discount, she should be.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    @Red Silurian South Dublin County Council's website has all the required information.

    You can download their Anti Social Behaviour Strategy from this link.

    https://www.sdcc.ie/en/services/community/joint-policing-committee/antisocial-behaviour/



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Hold on a minute.

    Nobody said it was "all lies". That's very disingenuous of you. What was said was assuming a social tenant is going to be more troublesome than a private one is unfair, and yes, I believe its a prejudice.

    I don't see why you find it so hard to make that distinction.

    If a buyer wanted to go into this solely looking at resale value, well they can give same discount when they go to sell, that you're advising they look for now.

    Swings and roundabouts.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,113 ✭✭✭Former Former Former


    That's very disingenuous of you. 

    Bahahahaaa. Pot/Kettle, jesus.

    What I say doesn't matter. The absolute, unshakeable, undeniable reality is that a social housing tenant is many, many, many times more likely to be a troublesome neighbour than an owner/occupier. There is a very good reason that all the worst places in the country are social housing developments, not private estates. It's not the bricks and mortar that are different, it's the people inside.

    I live in Dublin 15 and I've been seeing the contrast all my life.

    You're upset because YOU as a former social tenant don't want to be tarred with this brush, and I understand that, I do. But it doesn't change the reality.

    It's all about probability baby.

    The OP is setting fire to a large pile of money if she isn't going back to the estate agent and saying "hey, you didn't give me the full picture, we need to renegotiate on price". But I assume she just walked away.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Again, not a former social housing tenant, and never have been. But you already know that.

    As for everything else, TL:DR.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,404 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    Short version: please learn about probability.

    Each individual social residence is either good or bad.

    But if you look at the proportions ie number of bad ones divided by number of residences) the social group has a far higher value.

    Prejudice is acting as though every single family that moves into a social house will behave badly.

    Probabilty is understanding that it's more likely that a socially-housed family will behave badly.

    Naivety is believing that there's anything meaningful which the council can do about it.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I fully understand probability. I made the point myself that many of the posters here are basing their prejudice on a probability of risk.

    Its also a fact that there are thousands upon thousands of families living in social housing who never behave badly. Who take pride in their homes. Houses that are social homes intermixed with private homes that you can't tell the difference.

    But all social housing / social tenants get lumped in together. See Former Former Former's last post before this, if you'd like a perfect example. "It's not the bricks and mortar that are different, it's the people inside."

    Interestingly, I asked a question earlier on which no one answered, about how many of the current generation who grew up in privately owned homes, will struggle to buy and will end up as social tenants in the future?

    Where do they fall on this scale? Do they now fall into the "should be avoided at all cost" "run away" "don't live beside scumbags" categories because they can't afford to buy?

    No need to answer. Just something to think about. Anyway, I'm done.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,113 ✭✭✭Former Former Former




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7



    Thank you. As someone living in a council property I KNOW you are right. As someone who grew up in the UK when post was council estates were mushrooming I KNOW you are right. Many of my school and church friends lived on such estates and went on to university and to love good and socially responsible lives. As most folk do.

    I often visited their homes and such lovely folk taking excellent care of their homes. Often not well-off ...

    The only bad neighbours I have suffered ( mild word!) have been rich folk in owner occupied houses with attitudes such as we see here.

    And I would be more concerned having read this thread for the mental and physical welfare of people living in council properties alongside some of the posters here. But know that most folk take as they find. Not as others accuse...

    Gossip and tall tales and rumour..

    And let us hope that the OP having seen the ...nest of vipers, figuratively speaking of course, has wisely gone elsewhere for better and more realistic advice.

    Signing off here the while.. Off to greener pastures.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭HerrKuehn


    Don't you live on an island off the west coast? It might not be comparable to social housing in urban areas!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,058 ✭✭✭✭Red Silurian


    Naivety is believing that there's anything meaningful which the council can do about it.

    As Loueze has pointed out this statement is completely untrue from his/her own experience



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,508 ✭✭✭Padre_Pio


    I'm buying in an estate. I checked the planning docs to see which houses were designated for council houses.

    I chose a house furthest away from them, tucked away in the corner.



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