Harassment
If someone who lives in your neighbourhood is harassing you, you can stop the harassment, and the police may be able to help. You can also go to court to prevent the harassment.
What counts as harassment?
Harassment can take several different forms, for example:
- visiting your home regularly without warning, especially late at night
- interfering with your post
- sending hate mail, texts or emails or making unpleasant telephone calls
- threatening you
- harassing you because of your gender, race or sexuality
- stalking you.
To be harassment, bad behaviour must happen on at least two occasions. The more times something has happened, the more likely it is to be harassment. The person accused is at fault if they know what they are doing is harassment, or if it obviously is harassment. The following are not likely to be considered harassment in the eyes of the law:
- a demonstration or public protest
- noise nuisance - for example playing music loudly or operating loud machinery
- doing something reasonable.
Harassment is often a form of antisocial behaviour. But if you are the only victim, you may need to do more yourself than if the behaviour is affecting many people.
Motivations for harassment
It is often hard to understand why harassment happens, but it may help you to stop it if you know the reasons.
Common causes include:
- anti social behaviour
- bigotry, prejudice and intolerance, because of race, religion, sexuality
- an ex partner or ex spouse who feels aggrieved (although this may often be classed as domestic abuse)
- mental health or substance use problems
- someone you have made a complaint about who wants to get even
- someone who is not happy about something that you are doing.
Harassment can't be justified, but sometimes there are things you can do to help resolve the problem. For example, if a neighbour threatens you because your loud music keeps him up all night, your music is part of the problem. Often more than one cause is at work. Try to understand the reason for the harassment, and that will help you to decide what is the best way of dealing with it.
Dealing with harassment
If you are a victim of harassment, there are lots of things you can do. You should start by taking practical steps to protect yourself. That may solve the problem, but if not, there are several other things you can try. The action you take depends on what the problem is, how bad the problem is and what, if anything, you have already tried to do about it. It is always a good idea to get advice. An adviser can help you look into your options. Possible solutions might include:
- negotiation and mediation
- an Antisocial Behaviour Order (ASBO)
- evicting those who've been antisocial
- applying as homeless if the harassment is so bad that it's not reasonable for you to remain in your home.
Related Documents
| More information on anti social behaviour is available in print or to download in our Tenancy Enforcement Leaflet. |  |
