#23678

I came here to try and get an insight into ECs, as a tenant who has just had a complaint made about me. I got the line from the manager as ‘it has come to our attention that…’ blah blah. The anonymity bugged me because I talk to 90% of my neighbours, owners and renters alike, and then I had to wonder who was stabbing me in the back instead of just speaking to me about the issue (which I would have been extremely happy to work with them to resolve). I’m not a psycho or an anti-social nutbag, so it just seemed sly on their part to complain in such an underhanded way when it could so easily have been resolved by a simple conversation.

Anonymous complaints just serve to create hostility and suspicion, even if the complaint is valid. You look at everybody wondering who’s looking for things to whinge about behind their smile.

Call me old-fashioned (and I’m only 30), but I prefer the old knock-on-the-door-and-have-a-chat approach first and formal complaints as a last resort. In fact Fair Trading ADVISES people to talk about it as a first step before getting the committee involved. I wish more EC members would take that advice. Making complaints without giving the person in question a chance to sort it out first is almost guaranteed to create tension and dislike. They may not have even realised they were doing something wrong!

That’s what’s happened here once I discovered (through friends on the committee!) that the complainant in my case is my closest neighbour, who’s never given me the slightest indication that they were in any way bothered by anything I did. We’ve never said much more than hello but we’ve certainly never had any disagreements either. So now it’s awkward.