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To evict or not to evict?
Emma Green shares a dilemma
On 6 October we rented out our flat to what seemed to be a lovely DSS single mother. On 22 October we started eviction proceedings. We had intended to rent our flat below the market rate as we live in an area of severe social deprivation and racial tension – the sad fate of many once proud northern towns. We actively sought DSS tenants unable to afford market rates. The young woman who came seemed very eager and excited, talking of putting in her new sofa and decorating the second bedroom for her one-year-old who was recovering from scarlet fever.
Please note there is also tuberculosis here. We were happy and felt a sense of contentment. However, she became the tenant from hell for the other people in the block of flats, watching TV without a licence in the early hours; with a noisy dog – not allowed anyway – who was left tethered to the sofa all day and a live-in partner (not allowed as agreement is only in her name), which culminated we understand in her throwing all her partner’s clothes out of the window closely followed by a brick- throwing contest with him stark naked at 4am. Even by the culture of our local area this was apparently an unmissable spectacle. A crowd gathered!
So I was angry: my middle class sensibilities kicked in and we started eviction proceedings.
I spoke to one of my best and wisest friends – Mo, who lives an honourable, quiet life with her family on the Dewsbury Moor estate not far from where Shannon Matthews used to live. She, in her gentle Northern Irish lilt, explained that for some people behaviour like that is normal and they know no different. They are almost certain to flit, without paying rent and then begin the cycle again. Another short term flat, more threats from authority, more flitting. I then realised that perhaps inadvertently we’d done them harm rather than good by imposing our middle class values on them and then being angry when they were totally unable to respond. Driving back, in the Yorkshire rain, I happened to see our tenants, holding hands, dog in tow and child in buggy, ambling down the road to the shop without any protection from the now vicious weather. I found myself crying. Yes, on one level we have an obligation by law to have them evicted, both for the sake of the other flat dwellers and because they are cheating the benefit system and are undoubtedly anti-social. But, and my heart is at the moment wrestling with this. They’ve been marginalised, patronised (by me and others) disastrously educated, and often in third or fourth generation unemployed families. Can I in all integrity evict these people, their little boy and their unborn child because their behaviour is unacceptable to me and to professional law makers and enforcers? What sayest Thou?
Since the eviction notice was served, we are told that they have now left the flat, without paying any rent, and their whereabouts are currently unknown.
Comments
Your article interests me, as I view this from a position of experience and love as a father come grandparent who has seen his son, my sons partner split and watch them reject help and love in a spiral of self destruction. My Sons ex partner, has two children a boy aged 5 years and a girl aged 3 years. I will call my sons ex partner by the name of Pat to protect her identity. There flat was filthy, holes in the wall, from fists , crayon marks along the walls and over the doors, carpets could walk or crawl away by themselves, furniture ruined, by uncontrolled undisciplined children, and pat addicted to watching soap on TV or playing computer games. She always had money for cigarettes, but never enough to cloth or feed the children, drugs were common place, as were stolen goods. Even after I purchased food on regular basis and gave money for the electric, Pat became in arrears with her rent, Strange when Housing Benefits were paying it. When the police raided the flat, she was found with heroin, in her handbag, and as a result eviction proceedings were taken against her. I intervened and tried to delay the process, and succeeded in securing a six months suspension for her to try and repay the arrears and fight the case of the heroin, as she insisted it was her sisters, and not hers. However, she would simply take my money and food, then I would not see her or the grandchildren for months on end. In fact in the last 11 months I can count on one hand how many times I have been allowed to see my grandchildren, and then for only a few precious minutes. Eventually she was evicted, and Social services refused to re-locate the children, as there is a desperate shortage of placements for the children, even though the granddaughter was on the at-risk list. The oldest child misses school so many times, or is taken out early, and all he can think of is murdering people, cutting there heads off, slitting there tummys and other such violent images, from constant computer playing adult games on the family computers. He is intelligent and so clever, yet been allowed to become ruined by a mother who has no idea on how to bring up children or accept responsibility for her action. Even after I secured a youth club placement for my grandson and a place in the football team, as well as play school for the granddaughter, pat never took them to one single event, preferring to allow drug dealers and drug users look after the children while she went out. It is not a case of education, as some people have said to me, she simply did not want help, pretending to want it, then when given, finding excuses for not accepting it. She choose this way of life as did my son, he in turn has been to my shame, in and out of prison so many times, he was drug dealing as well as a drug user. A thief, a lire, a con man and thought of no one other than himself, regardless of the times I and others tried to help him. These young mothers and fathers, need to accept responsibility for there actions, they need to realise that other peoples feelings and quality of life deserve respect, and to live in society responsibly applying to socially acceptable standards and rules. Other people have rights that arte constantly violated, because these unthinking irresponsible people impose there values on society, with no respect or care, with an attitude of, of stealing what they want, and demanding attention, without working for respect or earning a living. I employed my son, as no one else would give him a chance, he took home in access of £700 a week, yet he refused to pay his rent or taxes and was eventually evicted, in dept up to his head, with bailiffs looking for him. So please, please do not feel guilty, it is wrong to apply this vision of hell on all income support, single parents ect, as I myself was a single parent, I never missed a rent in my life, ran youth clubs and did what I could in society to help others. It is a choice, and they chose their actions, and must therefore accept responsibility without affecting the life style of others. I am very ill, an electric wheelchair users and have care persons help me live in my community, yet I have taken an active responsibility in trying to help these people, yet to my discussed over 90% do not want to be helped, but to just milk the system.
By JohnS on 10th December 2009 - 9:04
Advice for the future: please prepare sensibly before you let again,if you intend to do that. Go into your prospective tenant’s ability to pay the rent. Talk to and treat the tenant as seriously and carefully as you would anyone at Meeting. Do not act from sentimental motives. Please try to avoid patronising generalisations about working class and unemployed people, however plausible those might appear. Remember the testimony to equality. (I write as a now middle class-ish Quaker remembering an insecure and impoverished past and some relatives in dire circumstances.)Do not blame yourself, but take your fair share of responsibility - you should be able to exercise some judgement and foresight, even if the outcome of your actions is not wholly predictable.
By unsure on 10th December 2009 - 22:01
This individual, as well as ‘Pat’ and Shannon Matthews should not be thought of as working class… a formal term would be lumpen, who’ve existed everywhen and everywhere. Today, though, they’ve been sadly spoiled and indulged by welfare (I recall SM never had had a job). It reminds me of Lord Longford, a quiet pacifistic sort of cove, who took out a restraining order against a woman who was harassing him. I don’t know if she persisted, but if she had, the application of state violence (i.e. Police restraint) would have been implicitly supported by Longford; just as, I assume, Oliver would have supported forcible eviction.
By woundwort on 15th December 2009 - 14:12
And, of course, I meant Emma and not Oliver.
By woundwort on 15th December 2009 - 14:12
She wasn’t the wrong tenant for you, you were the wrong landlord for her. Don’t worry, this is not a critisim of you, but a reality of the services that different landlords can provide. It is unfortunate that your first experience of letting has been so discouraging. I am both a small private landlord (two flats) and a board member of a Housing Association (6,000 properties). There are things that a large landlord is able to do that a small landlord will find impossible. Such an example is the high level of support that your tenant needed. Though, if such support had been available, would she have taken it? It is a difficult balance trying to provide people with affordable accommodation and avoiding being let down financially. Unfortunately, those people most in need of affordable housing tend to be also those who most need living support.
By jgharston on 17th December 2009 - 15:17
If Emma’s description is accurate, there is one group for whom this was the wrong tenant - the neighbors. I for one would not liked to have lived next door.
By woundwort on 23rd December 2009 - 10:46
This whole situation is really difficult. I am a tenant now and have been on and off for ten years or so. During that time I have lived in places where the sort of behaviour that Emma talks of is commonplace. In one flat I had a neighbour below and had two children. The younger child of about 8 was regularly left with his thirteen year old brother whilst the mother worked at night. The noise they made was horrendous - jumping off furniture onto the floor and playing football inside. The mother often did not come back home until three or four, invariably drunk, often having forgotten her key and so ringing every bell in the flats (7 other tenants) in order to get in, regardless of the fact that we had been asleep and then she would scream and shout at the kids for not letting her in. Our mail went missing too, and all the tenants had the same issue - she was there when it was delivered and none of us were. When we complained to the landlord he told us that as she paid the rent there was little she could do; he certainly couldn’t evict her. His requests for better behaviour did not achieve anything. I did try to talk to the lady, but though I tried to be calm and asked her to please not ring our bell at four in the morning as I had to be up at seven, she just shouted at me as if I was in the wrong for complaining. I tried very hard to see that of God in her. I would have needed a microscope. I even pitied the landlord (though he was obliged to move all the other tenants because an inspection of the property had found serious fire risks), as when they left the place had been wrecked. It was almost predictable that they would stop paying their rent some weeks before they knew they were moving. Really it gives good tenants like us (*I* think we are good tenants)a bad name and I don’t know what you can do about it. They (and more importantly their children) need to be housed. Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but I am at a loss. So lucky that now my only problem is a man who will insist on feeding pigeons! caddi
By Caddi on 10th December 2010 - 13:03
I meant that the tenant had two children.
By Caddi on 10th December 2010 - 13:04
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