For the past few years, well for most of Olivia’s life if I am honest, I have unfortunately had to put up with different types of anti social behaviour.  Anti Social behaviour covers quite a wide range of acts that can cause nuisance or disturbance to other people and can be committed by a varied range of people, not just the stereo typical types you tend to hear about or think that is who causes it.

Anyone can be affected by this, but it how you choose to deal with it that can make the world of difference to the situation and unfortunately, speaking from experience, ignorance is less than useful!

So for anyone suffering with this situation here are are some of my tips for dealing with anti social behaviour.

• Is there anything you can do yourself to resolve the situation? Can you approach them? What do you want to say to them and is it possible to reach an amicable agreement over the situation?
• Start a diary of all incidents, write down dates, times, how it makes you feel, and any descriptions or the incidents ie type of music, dogs barking, etc add in as much detail as you can and if possible pictures/video evidence to support your case. This can be done before you approach the people in question or just as a record.
• Assess the situation, exactly how serious is it and are they breaking the law? This will help you to decide who to contact of you need to take this further.
• If in a rented property either council, housing association or private contact your landlord or relevant department to see how they can help. This is more useful for council and housing association properties if the cause of the nuisance is also in one of their properties as they have to deal with them. If not they can give advice and support.
• If the situation can’t be resolved contact either your local citizens advice bureau or your local councils environmental health department.
• Contact 101 for police for non emergencies or in extreme cases call 999 for police assistance.