Worst place you have ever lived?

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First place I lived with my now wife was a split level flat in a 4 story 70's block in south London. Looked respectable from the outside but that was about it. This was about 10 years ago.

First night we moved in we were woken by our immediate neighbour playing drum and bass so loud it was like your head was inside the speaker, he completely ignored all attempts to get him to answer his door. This would happen practically every other night by the time we moved out.

The head of the residents association wrote to the freeholder to complain that we were having loud parties so our Landlord got a letter from them and angrily called us up. We explained it wasn't us but our neighbour and invited him to listen to the noise he could hear through the wall as we were on the phone. So he had to respond to the freeholder denying responsibility and pointing them to the neighbour. That resulted in them sending the neighbour a letter telling him they would cancel his leasehold if they received any more reports in a 12 month period. Our neighbour attempted to break our door down after he got the letter. The head of the residents association knew it wasn't us causing the noise but wanted to force our Landlord into making the complaint so she didn't have to deal with it.

Same neighbour was a drug dealer. We would get woken up in the small hours by people who were off their faces and trying to buy drugs from him but pressing the wrong bell. He was also very active in the riots and was on the phone to his mates that evening claiming to have got a TV from richer sounds.

He was constantly smoking weed and because of the way the pipes ran it would fill up our flat with the smell and smoke. We spent a lot of time using expanding foam to block it because I am allergic and it triggered my asthma. I reported all of this stuff but nothing ever came of it.

A landlord bought the flat on the other side and started renting it to a woman who appeared to run a brothel, but not before replacing all the carpet with laminate so we could hear everything. You'd hear someone knock on the door, silence for about 5 minutes and then a rhythmic banging for another 5 minutes before leaving again. This happened all day every day. The older woman that lived there also took to singing songs on her balcony next to our bedroom in the small hours. Luckily this only started after we gave notice.

The head of the residents association controlled the communal heating to all flats and would only put it on for two hours a night in the winter. The flats were uninsulated and we were on the top floor so we had electric heaters running constantly.

Finally a group of young men in their late teens/early twenties rented a flat elsewhere in the block. They were all white van men and would attempt to park all their vans in the small residents car park even though they didn't have allocated spaces. If you went somewhere in the car (even for a few minutes) one of them would run down from their top floor flat and move their van into the recently vacated spot. This escalated with them getting letters from the freeholders telling them not to park in the car park so they did donuts on the lawn. One day we were all woken up by them screaming and shouting at an 80 year old resident because all their tires had been slashed (I'm not sure why they thought she had done it).

After we moved out our landlord attempted to charge us £1000 of our £1500 deposit for cleaning and the smarmy estate agent pretty much told me that they do this as most people relent because they urgently need the part of the deposit they will release and can't wait for the dispute process to work on the rest.

That's my only experience renting or living in a flat. 0/10 would not do again.
 
Capodecina
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A landlord bought the flat on the other side and started renting it to a woman who appeared to run a brothel, but not before replacing all the carpet with laminate so we could hear everything. You'd hear someone knock on the door, silence for about 5 minutes and then a rhythmic banging for another 5 minutes before leaving again. This happened all day every day.

When I was renting a studio flat in Muswell Hill the guy in the house next door seemed to run an escort agency or the like. Different girls walked in and out of that house constantly with the one similarity between them being that they were all gorgeous, at least 8/10s but often higher. It was quite normal for me to leave/come home to find some leggy 20-something Eastern European girl walking down the path of the house next to me. He could have been running a modelling agency, I suppose, I often wondered what it was.
 
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Bit of a toss up really.

Grew up in a village 8 miles outside Glasgow. Where we actually lived wasn't too bad - nice big house in a row of 4 in the middle of nowhere. The other 3 houses were owned by 2 retired couples and the older son of one of the couples and his family - all decent & friendly, inviting each other over for dinner, BBQs etc. The only slight issue being the younger (mid 20s) son of the couple next door running a 2nd hand car business from the house, meaning there were occasionally dodgy looking blokes turning up.

The village however was an utter dive - really deprived area, the school I went to was rougher than a badger's posterior. Literally a fight every break, when everyone in the school would gather round cheering them on. Big fights being organised in the local park with the other school in the village etc. Lots of bullying (until I snapped and ended up breaking a kids nose)... lived there for 13 years until we moved away.

==

Previous place to where we are now was a bit of hole - Acock's Green in Birmingham. Rented house, had a few issues when we viewed it, which we were assured would be fixed by the time we moved in (garden was overgrown & full of junk - we were told that it would be cleared, living room stank of cat urine - we were told they were putting new carpets in, a few other minor issues)...

...obviously, we turned up on moving in day with a van full of stuff, to be greeted by an overgrown garden full of junk, and a living room that stank of cat's urine. They did send round a carpet cleaning company that afternoon, which helped a bit, but obviously didn't get rid of the smell completely - and sent someone round to collect the junk (after a week).

We had to push hard to get the gas safety certificate - eventually some random guy turned up, didn't speak a word of English, wasn't gas safe registered (or at least didn't show anything). Spent 10 minutes fiddling with the cooker and left. We reckon it was either the landlord or one of his mates he sent round just to shut us up. We raised hell with the letting agent, and after much arguing they finally relented and sent a proper engineer round, who disconnected the hob as it wasn't safe :mad:.

At this point we collated a list of issues with the house (I think we listed over 100) along with high res photos and emailed the details across to the letting agency. I also managed to find the landlord's home address and threatened to contact them directly, along with reporting them to the council for not providing a gas certificate in time, and falsely claiming to be gas safe registered if we didn't have a working hob within 72 hours - finally this did the trick and we had a new cooker installed a couple of days later.

Needless to say, we got out of there the day our tenancy expired. The area was pretty crap as well, undesirables roaming the streets constantly. Things randomly thrown at the windows several times while we were there. My mum had her car windscreen smashed while she was visiting (nothing fancy, 10 year old Astra estate, no attempt to steal anything, just "for the lols").

==

The area we're in now (still Birmingham) has gone downhill significantly the last few years too, was alright (for Birmingham) when we moved in, but these days there are so many feral kids wandering around, people blatantly dealing in the road, the ****s who insist on doing laps of the local roads at midnight on their ***** little scooters, a guy across the road had his car smashed in by a couple of lads with baseball bats, and the 50 year old ****head across the road is going through a midlife crisis and for some reason needs 3 Ford KAs which he's chavved up to the eyeballs, slapped an obnoxiously loud exhaust on and insists on revving several times a day and at whatever time he goes to work in the morning (between 3-6am usually).

WFH for the last few months has made me notice how bad it is, and I really can't wait to get out of here.

TL;DR; don't ever move to Birmingham, it's an absolute ****ing ****hole.
 
Soldato
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Karbon Homes

Been that for a few years now I think... can absolutely relate to your initial post, having grown up around some of those places (and luckily not been sucked in by them).

Hah.

Honestly I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner, everyone I've talked to that's dealt with them has nothing good to say. I actually missed a bunch of stuff out of my initial post, figured it was long enough and I'd be there all night if I tried to fit everything in.

Such a damn shame as the flats themselves were lovely inside.
 
Soldato
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Wealdstone, Harrow. Absolute **** hole.

Are you the Wealdstone Raider?

Moss Side was objectively a dump when I lived there as a student. I only occasionally had to run away from knife supported bank transfer requests.

Had you not heard of the reputation?

As I settled into RAF life my career took off...

Top pun-age :D

.... I was living with two ex-girlfriends and arguments and misunderstandings within the house were commonplace...

I too like to live dangerously.
 
Soldato
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Earth
Thornton Heath, Croydon. An absolute crap hole.

I lived here with an ex-girlfriend for about a year in 2006/2007. It has not changed from what I hear.

I think most of Croydon is crap.
 
Soldato
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St Breward Cornwall
Mine was Dewsbury too. I lived opposite the train station. Nice small flat but horrible town! Had cars being broken into right outside my window. I phoned the police, they came and then asked me to drive round with them to look for the perps! :O
Yeh I was born there, not the greatest, had some awesome nights out there though in the 80s,90s ending up at pa, s nightclub then a curry at the sharma, or sometumes on to the frontier club in Batley
Up there quite regularly to see parents weird my holidays are reversed now I live here
 
Soldato
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Yeh I was born there, not the greatest, had some awesome nights out there though in the 80s,90s ending up at pa, s nightclub then a curry at the sharma, or sometumes on to the frontier club in Batley
Up there quite regularly to see parents weird my holidays are reversed now I live here


Frontier!! Ha ha! I went there a couple of times
 
Soldato
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Straya
Jeez, I've lived in some holes in London that are truly a three way tie of awfulness

Deptford, All Saints and Carshalton.

There are simply too many awful things about all of them to recount, but at the same time I had some of the best times in each ... go figure :p
 
Soldato
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I spent my first year at university in Middlesbrough. The twist is that I thought it was a great place while everyone else thinks it’s a hellhole! I stayed in student accommodation across the road from the uni, had good access to the town centre, made some good friends there (who I sadly lost touch with), found the locals ok and I was genuinely sad to leave.

It was a good few years back now so it may have changed now.

I lived in Middlesbrough for 11 years, it wasn't 'that' bad, as you say, decent town centre, decent people on the whole, a few degenerates, but which town / city doesn't have them? Best thing about Middlesbrough though, it's on the doorstep to some amazing places, North Yorkshire moors etc. I certainly didn't hate it.

Worst place i've ever lived was Moston, North Manchester, in the mid 90's, it was a hole :(
 
Soldato
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I lived in Middlesbrough for 11 years, it wasn't 'that' bad, as you say, decent town centre, decent people on the whole, a few degenerates, but which town / city doesn't have them? Best thing about Middlesbrough though, it's on the doorstep to some amazing places, North Yorkshire moors etc. I certainly didn't hate it.

Worst place i've ever lived was Moston, North Manchester, in the mid 90's, it was a hole :(

We decided to buy our first house in Moston :D. Lived there for 7 years without too many issues but it definitely had its moments.
 
Soldato
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Any rough part of any city can be hell, My Wife used to live in such a place and I remember the immediate sense of danger as cars are set on fire/vandalised and people getting taught 'lessons' by local gangs was a daily occurrence, yet despite they being right in the middle of it, her parents where the most honest and stand up people you could hope to meet..
 
Soldato
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Do people agree that many of the areas talked about are no longer as bad as they once were? Many of the most troublesome estates and tower blocks have been levelled and/or extensively redeveloped. Billions have been poured into urban areas over the past 25 years from both public and private purses. Many of the areas have transitioned from being areas dominated by heavy industry and it's downfall to part of the urban sprawl, with booming city economies and the associated price rises in housing (prior to COVID, at least).

I can think of several developments in Nottingham that have been levelled, plus the likes of Hyde Park in Sheffield, Hulme Crescents, Castle Vale, the Aylesbury and Heygate estates, and so on. Many were a disaster in planning and construction terms, and were probably doomed from the start. Throw in mass unemployment, drug use, lots of maligned personalities in the same living space with very little support, and they were never going to prosper.
 
Soldato
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I would say Stratford, London. Nice flat and the walls were thick enough not to get disturbed by neighbours but it was a crap area and we where virtually sitting on top of a roundabout so the constant traffic noise with a police car basting it sirens every hour drove me insane after a few months.

I also lived in Brockley in South London. Bad area but the street was actually quite nice. But we had a horrible young couple living downstairs that would complain at every single bit of noise we made.

Now i'm living in a nice house in Essex and decent neighbours now. Bought semi-detached to have as few neighbours living next to me as possible. Good move i feel
 
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