Anti-social Behaviour

What is anti-social behaviour?

Anti-social behaviour (ASB) is behaviour that causes harassment, alarm or distress to another person, such as:

• excessive noise, particularly late at night (parties, music, musical instruments, loud gatherings)

• drunken or rowdy behaviour in the street or within buildings

• drug dealing or drug use

• insulting or aggressive behaviour and verbal abuse

• vandalism and graffiti

• domestic violence

• garden nuisance (for example: not keeping the garden maintained or dumping stuff in the garden)

• fly-tipping

• misuse of communal areas, closes, gardens or public spaces / loitering / smoking disruptively

• nuisance from vehicles

• pet and animal nuisance

• other criminal behaviour like hate crime

What Anti-social behaviour is not:

 While excessive noise late at night is considered to be antisocial behaviour, "living noise" is not. Examples of living noise include:

• doors closing (fire doors and close doors slamming should be reported to the factor, landlord or HMO unit for adjustment)

• babies crying

• children playing

• toilets flushing 

• DIY noise that is taking place at reasonable hours (7am to 9pm)

We understand that this sort of noise may annoy some residents, but it is a part of everyday life and is not anti-social behaviour. 

What action can be taken?

Noise and other anti-social behaviour can make your life a misery. But you can do something about it!   You can:

• Prevent it

• Sort it out with your neighbour

• Record & Report

• Get support from Kersland Street Neighbours

Prevent it

We have signage you can place in the close of your building, which is very effective. You can ask us for a ready-made sign or print up and laminate one yourself.  The signs contain expected conduct and who to contact in the case of issues and are actively provided to landlords in the street.
See Signage you can use.

Sort it out with your neighbour

Where possible, please try to first resolve issues with your neighbours with simple communication. If this fails, you should move onto the other options and let The Association know there have been issues.

Record

• Keep a simple diary of all events including the action you took. 

This sounds a bit tedious, but if the problem continues, an accurate record of events will mean you can get things resolved more quickly and effectively.

• With noise and antisocial behaviour complaints, take sound/video recordings if possible.

Report

• If it is an HMO or private rental, contact the Landlord or Agent immediately and also follow up via email. If you don't know who the Landlord or Agent is, ask the WhatsApp group or use The Association contact form. 

• Call the police
  on 101  - for non-emergency, like party noise, drunk behaviour, etc
  on 999  - for an emergency, such as violence, fire etc. 

Ask for an incident number, as this ensures it is treated as an official complaint.
Always take a note of the date, time and incident number

• Report it online to the police. Again, you will get an incident number, so record this and keep any email response from the police.

• Report it to the university.
  If a problem is being caused by a student of Glasgow University, then for immediate attention, call security on 0141 330 4282. Otherwise email complaints to student-conduct@glasgow.ac.uk. For students of other universities, then find contact details on the relevant website.

• Involve the Local Authority Noise Nuisance Team 

Please note: if it's recognised that there is an ongoing problem, ask relevant parties to enter into an Acceptable Behaviour Contract. Click for more on this. This can sometimes resolve the problem without the need for further intervention.

Get Support from Kersland Street Neighbours

For an urgent problem e.g. a noisy late night party going on right now - send a WhatsApp message to the Kersland Street Neighbours group, regardless of the time. This will alert other neighbours, who can keep a look out as well. If you know the exact flat location, please let others know. Very often neighbours can hear late night parties and would like to complain or call the police, but are unable to determine the exact flat and building. 

If not urgent - contact the Association by filling in the website contact form.  
If you have had to report a noise or antisocial behaviour complaint to the police, please let us know about it. Make sure you include the date and time of the incident, any actions you took, and the incident number if it was reported to the police. We will log these and support you. Having an accurate record helps us when we're talking to a landlord, Glasgow University or the Council. 

If you don't get an incident number from the police, ask them afterwards for one at https://www.scotland.police.uk/secureforms/contact/. If you are unable to resolve issues and they continue, we can provide support and guidance on the next levels and procedures to take, and provide you with contacts and support from other neighbours associations. 

Please remember, going through the right procedures to report an event and (if the police are involved) getting an incident number, makes it quicker and easier to sort things out.

What we can't do

• Support you without evidence, such as police incident numbers and witness accounts.

• Take action without the cooperation of victims and witnesses. 

What has the Kersland Street Association done?

• Where residents have reported incidents to the police and made the association aware of the incident numbers, the association logs it and in certain cases will write directly to the landlord and agent. In extreme cases may involve local councillors, the university and make representation at licence application meetings.

• You can see some examples of our work on the latest projects page. 

Useful links

Scottish Government  Antisocial Behaviour Act
https://www.gov.scot/publications/antisocial-behaviour-etc-scotland-act-2004-guidance-antisocial-behaviour-orders/

Environmental Protection Scotland - noise leaflet
https://www.ep-scotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/EPS-noise-leaflet.pdf