Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Rubbish in front garden
can anyone please advise
I have a house next to me that is divided into five flats. The bottom flat seems to have a high turnover of people moving out , they normally only stay 3 months . Every time they move out they fill the front garden with the stuff they don’t want when they leave. This sits here for weeks . Then just when it’s cleared , the new people move in and throw out all they don’t want . This included beds; sofas , a toilet , clothes, boxes etc.
The landlord is seen rarely . I when I did speak to him he said someone else had dumped it in his front garden , not his tenents !
I know haringey council have a complaints page , but this is a repeat issue, where I feel the landlord couldn’t care less , and thinks he can do what he pleases .
Is there someone I can contact about this ?
Many thanks
Tags for Forum Posts: rubbish
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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At a meeting last month the officers responsible for waste disposal made some firm promises.
Try the email contact provided by the council after that meeting (Hit the pink button below right to access the link to contacts sheet) - and cc your councillor/s.
This issue was one for which they gave no promised resolution timescale - but they have been effective in the past once an issue has been reported.
If you do report it along the lines recommended by Haringey, please keep a track of what happens and come back and tell us all of the result.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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Also, if this is an HMO (sounds likely), it needs to be licenced. Check this post out about the HMO licencing scheme in Haringey and possibly use this as a route to get them to reduce any anti social behavior. Michael Anderson said he does not hold out much hope, but my understanding from previous discussions with officers and Councillors is that this can be used as a route to alter the behavior of low quality landlords.
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You're probably right, Justin. Before I responded last time I checked Haringey's HMO standards from its standard HMO licensing scheme and they don't mention waste disposal. However, as I detailed in my comment on the post you've linked to, there are almost certain to be two additional private property control schemes in Haringey soon.
One of these, the Selective Licensing Scheme is geographically limited and because I can see where the original poster lives, I can confirm that it would not be covered by this scheme.
So, after your comment, I looked again at the third scheme, the Additional HMO Licensing Scheme. This one does have two clauses that deal with waste and would probably be of use in situations like the once being discussed here. However, I'm not yet clear if it applies to all HMOs in Haringey or only those HMOs not covered by the standard HMO scheme. Haringey's explanation doesn't make that clear. It would be odd if it didn't, because it seems to be the one with more teeth.....but this is the nether world of the Council, so you never know.
That scheme is likely to be approved by cabinet this month. I'm guessing that it will be be applicable to all HMOs. But even without that, the poster should proceed as I suggested above, without waiting for the new powers to come into force, because the Council already has powers to deal with this issue and it does use them effectively, if not always as quickly as we'd all like.
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Hugh. You are absolutely correct to try the tried and tested routes. The difficulty I have with these though is they are somewhat reactive- ie, you have to keep complaining if something happens and there is no way of preventing future occurrences. But you are right, Haringey to their credit do react positively when residents have a problem with issues like this.
What I am hoping is that the council will see sense and use the licensing as a tool (a stick) to drive better behavior by landlords by threatening to fine or remove the licence for consistently breaching any terms the council may specify (where it can do so). My understanding was that the council has within its gift the power to instruct landlords to take certain remedial actions, and indeed threaten removal of the licence if they continue to breach requirements to maintain their property appropriately.
As with many of these things I suspect there is much room for interpretation as to exactly what the powers actually are the council may wield, and we should make sure that councilors drive officers to use them constructively. With that, I will use this thread as an example to nudge one of our hard working councilors, Zena. I will also sent it to Gina and Sarah (our new Councillor), and lets see if they engage at all.
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I’m sure all residents are of one mind on this issue. Prevention is always better.
My understanding is that limiting ALL bad behaviour by landlords including waste issues was part of the thinking behind the new schemes. Zena was very much behind the changes.
I think they will make a difference. They will bring about behaviour change, but it will take time and the new schemes won’t be panacea. Enforcement, or reactive approaches, will still be required and even then the Council still won’t catch all incidents. You only have to look at the very tightly regulated area of planning to get an idea of the realities involved.
So let’s welcome the probable changes, but they won’t be immediate and they’re unlikely to mean that residents can stop being vigilant and proactive in improving the local environment.
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Permalink Reply by mflat on
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Check out this thread - https://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topics/neighbours-rubbish
I had a similar problem and contacted the recommended people in the thread. They got a hold of the registered HMO landlord and over the past 18 months, things have been much better.
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