The resident said his complaints were ignored

A Derby landlord has been ordered to pay hundreds of pounds in compensation after a resident poured faeces and urine into a greenhouse and “catapulted” slugs and snails being “catapulted” onto their property.

A report was published by the Housing Ombudsman Service, which investigated complaints from an unnamed Derby tenant to an unnamed Derby landlord, assessing whether the complaints were handled correctly.

The report, published in August, explains that the resident had occupied the property, a one-bedroom bungalow, since 2011, and has vulnerabilities known to the landlord.

In February 2019, the landlord informed the resident that it had made the decision to restrict his contact because he continued to send “inappropriate” and “unmanageable amounts” of communication, despite having received a warning about the contact in November 2018.

The landlord offered an appointment slot every Friday at the local housing office, and asked him to refrain from sending emails.

Between 2011 and 2024, the resident reported a range of ASB-related issues to the landlord, including allegations of one of his neighbours (Neighbour A):

• Causing issues with the communal gate
• Pouring faeces and urine into his greenhouse.
• Causing damage to his car.
• Throwing paper and food waste onto his property and the communal grass area.
• Catapulting moss, slugs, snails, worms, caterpillars, and earwigs onto his property.

In September 2024, the resident contacted the ombudsman. He said the landlord was “not doing [its] job properly” as it had ignored his reports of ASB for 11 years.

This included reports of Neighbour A “trying to kill [him] off” by attempting to set his recycling bin on fire, which was located next to a copper gas mains pipe.

The ombudsman contacted the landlord on December 12 last year and requested that it open a formal complaint about its handling of the resident’s reports.

The landlord wrote to the resident on December 16, saying they would not accept his formal complaint because he had not reported any instances of ASB (as per the contact agreement) within the previous 12 months. It also reminded the resident of the terms of the contact agreement.

The fact that the issues were recurring is not disputed, but the ombudsman says evidence suggests they were not continuous.

The resident described how he felt the landlord’s handling of the case negatively impacted his health.

Between September 15, 2023, and December 16, 2024, the resident sent the landlord approximately 185 emails in relation to ASB issues.

The emails included new reports of ASB and referenced historical ASB issues dating back to 2011.

The landlord did not respond to most of the resident’s emails, and the ombudsman says it saw no evidence that it logged his reports of ASB on its internal systems.

In normal circumstances, and in accordance with the landlord’s ASB policy, this would have been unacceptable; however, as the landlord had reminded the resident about the terms and restrictions of the contract agreement, the report could not find that it acted inappropriately.

Nevertheless, the landlord’s records show that it responded to the resident’s ASB related emails on four occasions. The report found the landlord’s actions in these instances “confusing” and at “odds with the terms it had outlined previously”.

It said this was a failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB and undoubtedly raised his expectations about its handling of his reports.

Overall, the ombudsman found maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the residents’ reports of ASB. This is because:

The ombudsman ordered the landlord to pay compensation to the resident to reflect the failures identified in the report, something which aims to “put things right” for the resident.

The landlord was ordered to pay the resident a total of £500 compensation, provide a written apology to the resident for failures identified, and to contact the resident to ask if he would like it to open a formal complaint about the communication restrictions.

It also ordered the landlord to contact the resident to discuss how his vulnerabilities may affect the current communication restrictions it has in place.