Summary: Ms X complained about harassment, noise nuisance and hoarding causing rodent infestations by her neighbours. Ms X has not raised formal noise nuisance or rodent complaints with the Council since May 2023, with matters before this being outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to investigate. Ms X’s complaint about harassment has been considered by the courts and is therefore also outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. We did not find fault with the Council for matters within our jurisdiction.

The complaint

1. Ms X says her neighbours have threatened and harassed her meaning she has not lived in her home.
2. Ms X complained the Council refused to investigate or acknowledge her complaint about her neighbours and have done nothing to address her concerns. Ms X says because the Council did nothing she had to wait for it to go to court where her neighbour was found guilty of harassment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We cannot investigate a complaint if it is about action taken by or on behalf of any local policing body in connection with the investigation or prevention of crime. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, Section 26, paragraph 2 as amended)
5. We have the power to start or end an investigation into a complaint about actions the law allows us to investigate. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been mentioned as part of the legal proceedings regarding a closely related matter. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended, section 34(B))
6. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
7. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
8. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Ms X and the Council had opportunity to comment on my draft decision before I made a final decision.

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What I found

What happened

11. In May 2022, the Council said it would be closing Ms X’s complaints about noise nuisance and the living arrangements, hoarding, causing rodents, by two of her neighbours. The Council said it had found no evidence of either accusations despite noise monitoring equipment and visits to her neighbours.
12. In December 2022, the police contacted the Council to ask for any documentation it held about complaints made by Ms X about one of her neighbours, Mr Y. The Council responded to advise the only person to complain about Mr Y was Ms X and she did not provide any relevant evidence to support her claims.
13. In February 2023, Ms X made a formal complaint about loud thumping noises at her property for a number of months caused by pile driving. Ms X also complained Mr Y was playing loud music. The Council passed the pile driving complaint to its Environmental Health department.
14. The Council responded to Ms X on 27 February 2023 to advise it had found no evidence of a loud thumping noise and had received no other complaints about this. The Council said it had previously investigated Ms X’s complaint about music from Mr Y and had never found a statutory nuisance. The Council told Ms X to register a new complaint on the noise app to provide recordings for further investigation but at present it would not install noise monitoring equipment again.
15. In March 2023, the Council liaised with Ms X about its decision not to install further noise monitoring equipment. The Council explained it needed some evidence of noise to justify installation of the noise monitoring equipment given the lack of evidence obtained in the past.
16. The Council detailed that it had considered previous complaints by Ms X about her neighbour Mr Y harassing and provoking her, which the Council had directed to the police. The Council said it had also investigated complaints by Ms X about her other neighbour, Ms Z, about hoarding, noise and her wellbeing but despite investigating Ms X’s concerns it found the complaints were unfounded.
17. On 3 July 2023, Ms X made a formal complaint to the Council. Ms X said:
• One of her neighbours, Ms Z, was constantly moving furniture at night, had barking dogs and was a hoarder. Ms X said Ms Z’s hoarding was causing a smell and mice infestations.
• The issues with Ms Z have been ongoing since at least 2019.
• The Council stopped offering noise monitoring equipment and instead told Ms X to use the Noise App.
• Her neighbour attacked her when she went round to ask them to turn off music. Ms X said the Council issued her with a Community Protection Warning because of this.
• Her other neighbour, Mr Y, has caused vandalism to her property and threatened her. Ms X said the police has taken this matter to court and the Council has failed to act.
18. On 16 July 2023, Mr Y moved out of his property.
19. On 4 August 2023, the Council issued a Stage 1 complaint response. The Council said:
• It had installed noise monitoring equipment into Ms X’s property on several occasions but found no evidence of statutory noise nuisance. It has since told Ms X to use its Noise App and explained how to do this.
• It’s Environmental Protection team has reviewed Ms X’s case and seen no reason to pursue action against her neighbours.
• If Ms X is feeling threatened by her neighbour, this would be a matter for the police.
• It has completed unannounced visits to both of Ms X’s neighbours and never found evidence of drugs to justify it taking any action.
• Ms X had never provided suitable evidence to support her claims about welfare concerns over Ms Z.
• It had previously considered all Ms X’s complaints at both Stage 1 and Stage 2 and the through the Community Trigger process and these complaints had not been upheld.
20. In March 2024, the police took Mr Y to court and the court sentenced him in May 2024.
21. Ms X brought her complaint the Ombudsman on 6 May 2024.

Analysis

22. The Ombudsman can only investigate complaints about matters brought to our attention within 12 months of a person being aware of the issues. While we may look to exercise our discretion to investigate matters beyond 12 months, we would need a good reason to do so.
23. Ms X has been aware of the issues with her neighbours for many years. Ms X has also been in contact with the Council about these issues. Despite this, Ms X did not bring her complaint to the Ombudsman until 6 May 2024. There was no good reason to exercise our discretion to investigate Ms X’s concerns beyond our 12-month jurisdictional limit. This means, I will only consider the Council’s actions from 6 May 2023.

Noise Nuisance

24. Ms X raised historic noise nuisance complaints about her neighbours, Mr Y and Ms Z, with the Council from 2020 to 2022. In response to Ms X’s complaints the Council installed noise monitoring equipment on six separate occasions. The Council did not find a statutory noise nuisance on any of these occasions. The Council’s consideration of these complaints is outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman as explained in paragraphs 22 and 23.
25. Because of the failure to identify a statutory noise nuisance, the Council closed Ms X’s complaints about noise nuisance in May 2022. The Council said Ms X could continue to record noise nuisances on the Noise App but it would not install noise monitoring equipment again. The Council’s policy does not require it to install noise recording equipment into a person’s home but, rather, presents this as an option to investigate complaints about noise nuisance. The Council has made a decision it was entitled to make to restrict access to the noise monitoring equipment given the lack of evidence presented in Ms X’s complaints. I cannot find fault with the Council for this.
26. Ms X made a further noise complaint to the Council in February 2023 and providing recordings to the Council in March 2023. However, since May 2023, Ms X has not registered a formal noise nuisance complaint meaning the Council had not carried out any noise nuisance investigations. The only contact from Ms X about the noise nuisance with the Council is within her formal complaint correspondence. This contact does not raise occurrences of new noise nuisances but instead complains about the historic noise nuisance. Within the Council’s complaint response it directed Ms X how she could raise noise nuisance complaints and use the Noise App. The Council provided a suitable response to the Ms X and I cannot find fault.
27. Since the Council has no noise nuisance complaints to investigate, I cannot consider it acted in fault.

Rodents and Hoarding

28. Like the lack of noise nuisance complaints, Ms X has not made a formal complaint about her neighbours hoarding or about rodents since before May 2023. As Ms X has not raised any formal complaints about these matters, the Council did not need to investigate. I cannot find fault with the Council for this.

Anti Social Behaviour

29. The Ombudsman cannot investigate matter which has already been considered through the courts.
30. In March 2024, the courts considered a matter about Mr Y, with Ms X as the victim, brought to it by the police. This court case came about following directions from the Council for Ms X to raise her concerns with the police and following the subsequent police investigation.
31. Since the courts have already made a decision on this matter, which was also subject to a police investigation, with only minimal involvement of the Council, this is out of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to investigate.

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Decision

32. I have ended my investigation as there was no fault in the Council’s actions and the bulk of Ms X’s complaint is out of jurisdiction for the Ombudsman to investigate.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman