Neighbours’ hell with drunk pest
Residents in a Rutherglen flat block have been left with “nowhere to turn” as a disruptive neighbour continues to make their lives a misery.
The man who stays at Woodend Road is accused of urinating and leaving excrement in the close after repeatedly returning home drunk.
It is also claimed the resident has left a large rubbish dump outside the property and caused fires in his kitchen on “numerous occasions”.
His neighbour Maureen Murphy has endured three years of anti-social behaviour in her four-year stay in the building and has had enough.
“It is horrendous,” she said. “We don’t know where to turn to.
“He’s a nuisance, it’s anti-social behaviour, he comes home drunk and wakes us all up by pressing on the buzzer, his house is dirty, he urinates in and outside the close.
“I get woken up at 1pm in the morning regularly and I’m sick and tired of it.
“We have spoke to the council, an anti-social behaviour officer and the housing department and we have got nowhere.
“We want to know what action is being taken against him because they are entitled to tell us what they are going to do about it.”
Another resident, who also stays in the block, did not wish to be named but said she had to be taken to hospital following a fire in her neighbour’s flat.
She explained: “He urinates and other things in the close, which I have had to clean with rubber gloves and anti bacterial wipes and my neighbours also.
“He stockpiles food rubbish and rotting food in his house and the smell is rancid and overpowering when he opens his door. We have had environmental health here as his windows were thick with flies and bluebottles inside and in the winter.
“He loses his keys and buzzes us continuously on the outside buzzer for hours late at night and in the early hours of the morning stupid drunk. He lies in the close too drunk to use his own key in the key safe to get in and shouts and sings all night.”
She continued: “We are all entitled to know what the council’s procedures are for dealing with nuisance neighbours and at what stage these procedures currently are. It is nonsense and deeply disrespectful to the decent tenants who are suffering with this for the council to hide behind data protection.
“I can only assume that they have done nothing to address these issues and I have every reason to believe that the problems will continue and escalate. I am at my wit’s end here and my health is suffering. The council should be protecting its tenants not its data.”
Despite countless attempts by neighbours to ask South Lanarkshire Council for updates on how they are resolving the issue, executive director of housing and technical resources, Daniel Lowe said there was no evidence in which they could act on.
He commented: “I can confirm that the local area housing office have been making interventions in order to address issues that have been reported.
“The anti-social investigation team have also investigated reports of anti-social behaviour but without corroborative evidence we have been unable to progress any action against any individuals.
“If residents are experiencing antisocial behaviour, they should call the council’s anti-social behaviour hotline on 0800 389 1105 or Police Scotland on 101.”
Labour councillor for the Rutherglen South ward, Margaret Cowie, is backing the residents and hopes to arrange a meeting with them and the council soon.