Anti-Social Behaviour
We want everyone to feel safe and live peacefully in their home, and we recognise your safety may be affected by anti-social behaviour (ASB).
Anti-social behaviour can have a serious impact on your life and we take any reports of disruptive behaviour very seriously.
We expect all residents to ensure their actions and the actions of their visitors of household members do not cause ASB. We ask our residents to be considerate of their neighbours, such as not making a lot of noise especially late at night, but also to be tolerant of each other too.
Please note, if there is immediate risk to the safety or wellbeing of yourself or anyone else, please contact 999 immediately for emergency assistance.
What is ASB
ASB is considered any act that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress.
The main types of ASB we see are:
- Vandalism
- Criminal activity such as theft in the building/communal areas
- Violence or threatened violence
- Taking drugs or drinking alcohol in areas of the building that you share
- Drug dealing inside our building or grounds
- Drunken or disorderly behaviour in or around any WPH property including our offices
- Frequent, very loud noise which is not caused by reasonable everyday activity
- Out of control animals
- Graffiti
- Abusing other residents, our staff or contractors
- Intimidating behaviour including written, threatening behaviour
- Discrimination or harassment
- Hate crime incidents based on race, sexual orientation, belief, gender, disability
- Misuse of common parts or misuse of your home
What is not considered ASB:
We typically don’t investigate one-off incidents (unless there’s a crime or abuse reported to the police or another agency) or routine daily sounds and activities that may be a result of different lifestyles.
This may include:
- A crying baby
- Strong cooking smells
- Children playing
- Normal domestic noise like doors banging, going up and down stairs, or washing machines and vacuum cleaners etc, in reasonable hours
- Personal dislikes/arguments on non-housing matters
- Family disputes
- One-off parties such as BBQs, birthday or Christmas parties
- Minor personal differences such as dirty looks or disputes between children
- Incidents e.g. missing items, where it cannot be proven
- ASB that is caused by an unknown person that is not in a WPH building
How to Report ASB
Please contact our Customer Services Team by phoning 0208 749 7112 or by emailing customerservices@womenspioneer.co.uk to report an incident of ASB. This report will be passed to your Housing Officer to investigate further.
If you or someone else is at risk of immediate harm, feel threatened or unsafe, or witness a crime, please contact the Police who will be able to investigate this as a criminal matter.
Your Neighbours
If you have a problem with your neighbour, it is important to try and resolve it as soon as possible. Your neighbour may not be aware that they are causing a problem, so talking to the individual may support in resolving your issues. If you have spoken with your neighbour and your attempts to resolve this amicably have failed, please contact us. We can speak with all parties involved and may be able to offer mediation to resolve the conflict.
Reporting Criminal Activity:
If the ASB is classified as criminal activity, we will expect you to report it to the Police in accordance with legal requirements to report a crime.
The following ASB actions are criminal and should be reported to the Police:
- Theft
- Drug selling
- Hate crime incidents based on race, sexual orientation, belief, gender, disability
- Violence or threatened violence
- Drunken or disorderly behaviour in or around WPH properties.
The police are responsible for responding to crimes. If you feel at risk or witness someone you believe to be at risk of harm, you see something illegal, or there is an emergency, call the police on 999.
Reporting Noise Nuisance:
You can report certain noise issues or ASB activities to your local council. This is a responsive service.
The council has departments who investigate noise nuisance and can implement Noise Abatement notices, which are legal requirements to reduce or cut out the noise altogether. They can also issue fines. The council have teams that are available 24 hours and can respond to these complaints any time of the day or night.
In some instances, you may be experiencing noise which you do not feel is a result of your neighbour's actions, but an issue with the property itself. You may feel that this is above the normal level of sound transference between converted flats.
Our Property Services team can conduct a sound test to ascertain if these levels are within the acceptable range, however a feasibility study will be conducted before a sound test is completed of which the team will review the age, type and construction of the building.
Further tests may be necessary and the team will look into this further. Please report this to our Customer Services team who can direct this to the Property Services team for investigation.
How we Manage Reports of ASB
There are different types of actions we can take when you report ASB, these actions will be dependent on the nature of the ASB you are reporting and the actions that have taken place previously.
We will always aim to resolve the ASB.
We may ask you for more information, if it is related to noise from your neighbour, we may ask you to record diary sheets or use our noise recording app so that we can understand what you are experiencing and what the appropriate action may be. If you have experienced or witnessed a crime, we will ask you for any crime reference numbers (CRNs), details of local police, or other agencies or organisations who may be involved so we can liase with them directly in our investigations.
If it is confirmed ASB has taken place, we will interview all parties involved as part of our investigation.
Please be patient while we conduct our investigation. We will make every effort to keep you informed through this process. Once we have concluded our investigation, we will contact all parties with the outcome.
Partnering with Resolve ASB
We have partnered with Resolve, the UK’s leading community safety experts. Resolve has decades of experience responding to ASB and Community Safety issues confidently and effectively, positively serving our local communities.
We are proud to partner with Resolve, working together to proactively support our residents' facing difficulties with ASB. We are committed to ensuring our residents live in safe and peaceful homes, responding quickly to reports of concern, and acting where necessary.
Find Out More about ASB
If you want to find out more about our approach to ASB, what is classified as ASB, and how we work with other agencies to support safety in our communities, please visit out tenant guide for more information.