WHEN YOU HAVE A CHILD RAPIST AS A NEIGHBOUR....

FRIGHTENED

TENANTS

MAN THE

BARRICADES

When  you have a child rapist as a neighbour, how do you cope, particularly when you are old and living alone?  People  in a block of former council flats in Carlisle have taken to barricading themselves in at night.

The situation has led to questions about the present approach to housing  undesirable people and whether the present landlord, Riverside Housing Association, is up to  doing the job.

The frightened people  live in Dixon`s Court, Shaddongate, and in the past they have put up with tenants jailed for drug offences and jailed for other serious crimes. But when they learned that one neighbour had been arrested and jailed for four years for raping a 14 –year-old girl , the barricades went up.

These frightened people  are not the only victims. There other frightened people in Carlisle who  have  abandoned their homes in despair and  gone away to live with relatives because of neighbours from hell or because of neighbours convicted of serious offences put there by Riverside.

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation is  far from happy with the present Riverside  policy and this week urged  city councillors to investigate that policy and also the frightened tenants of Dixon`s Court.

A Federation spokesman said:”These frightened people tell us that Riverside is not acting as a responsible landlord. There seems to be no proper policy for  housing undesirables.  Responsible tenants are suffering and should have a say in choosing their neighbours.

“Responsible tenants are often too scared to complain to Riverside in case they lose their tenancy. So, in that respect it is a hidden problem. And Riverside is not the best of organisations for tenants to deal with - far from it- as the Federation has found over several years”

Information about Carlisle Tenants`and Residents`Federation is contained in the first  entry of this blog, dated March 25 2013.