Melin’s responsibilities

Our promise to you

If you report antisocial behaviour, then the Community Safety team will keep things confidential. We will make sure you know the name of the officer dealing with your problem and will respond to non-urgent issues within two working days and urgent issues within one working day. If you are reporting a criminal incident, then we will need police evidence in order to progress the matter.

What our Community Safety team will deal with

• Harassment
• Verbal abuse
• Intimidation (not staring)
• Drunken behaviour
• Criminal Behaviour, such as drug use, drug dealing, or vandalism (where there is Police evidence)
• Hate-related incidents

What our Community Safety team won’t deal with

There are some things that are in our power to help with, and some areas which are the responsibility of your Local Authority or the Police.

Noise

We have a new procedure for investigating noise nuisance. Noise disturbance must be excessive and regular. For example, a one-off noise disturbance like your neighbours having a noisy BBQ will not count.

If you are reporting noise nuisance then we strongly recommend that you use The Noise App which instantly records the noise on your phone.

1. If you are being affected or disturbed by a noise nuisance caused by a Melin resident, the first thing you should do is get in touch with us through our customer contact centre.
2. If you haven't already, our customer contact team will help you to get set up on the Noise App. We will also ask whether you have contacted the council (Environmental Health department) to report the noise disturbance.
3. Our customer contact team will then speak to our community safety team about your complaint.
4. A member of the community safety team will then get back in touch with you to discuss your concerns and to agree an action plan as a way forward.
5. We may need to get more evidence of the noise complaint from you, using the Noise App. On our end, we will activate your account on the Noise App, so that you can send us your recordings/evidence.
6. You may be asked to submit noise recordings for a fortnight, these recordings will then be reviewed by our community safety team. If there is a serious incident during that fortnight, we will review the recordings sooner.

CCTV

Any concerns about misuse of domestic CCTV (including Ring doorbells) needs to be reported to the ICO – Information Commissioner’s Office. More details can be found on the ICO website.

If you feel you are being harassed by any cameras, you need to report it to the Police for them to investigate the allegations of harassment. If the Police take any action, we can respond with the appropriate action.

Drugs

Drugs are a criminal matter and need to be reported to the Police as well as Melin.

Unless the Police confirm that drugs are being misused or sold from the property, as a landlord we are limited with what action we can take. If the Police execute a drug warrant and have a positive result (drugs found on the premises) we may be able to consider taking legal action such as an injunction to prevent the behaviour from happening in the future or prevent visitors attending a person’s address.

Dogs barking

It's natural for dogs to bark. Although, it can be annoying and upsetting when it happens often and for long periods of time, dog barking is only considered Anti-social behaviour if it's persistent.

This means the noise needs to be a frequent, daily occurrence, with continuous periods of barking.

We would suggest you try to speak to your neighbour first. They may not be aware their dog is causing a disturbance (particularly if they are not at home during the day when the dog is barking).

If you don't feel comfortable about approaching your neighbour, or you have tried and the situation hasn't improved, you should contact your local authority's environmental health team.

If you have concerns about the welfare of a pet, you should contact the RSPCA.

Staring

We are unable to act on a person staring, as it is very difficult to prove it is being done in a nasty way. We encourage you to report any concerns to the Police if you feel, you are being harassed because of the staring.

Our Community Safety team are also unable to help with disputes arising from:

• Children playing in the street or arguing.
• Everyday household events such as; flushing toilets, cooking smells, smoking in own home, washing machines, babies crying or playing.
• Pets straying across your garden.
• Problems arising from a conflict of lifestyles, such as shift work.