A man who claims he has been plagued by noise from his upstairs neighbour for years has accused the council of doing nothing about recent disturbances.
Andrew Tidey says he has not slept in months due to the alleged banging on his ceiling and that his life is a “living hell”.
He claims his upstairs neighbour, Anthony Earl-Williams, is deliberately banging on his ceiling to force him out of his one-bedroom garden flat in Gospel Oak.
He has appealed to Camden Council to intervene – and says is contemplating legal action if it does not.
But Mr Earl-Williams, a former Hampstead and Highgate Conservative council candidate who describes himself as a bishop, insists the noise is coming from "archaic pipes" and he is not to blame.
And Camden Council says no other neighbours have complained about noise.
Mr Tidey has lived in the flat since 2000, and says his problems started in 2007 when Mr Earl-Williams moved in. At that point Camden Council gave him an incident log book to fill in and placed a recording device in his home.
The council wrote to Mr Earl-Williams in 2019 and again in 2021 telling him to "cease the noise nuisance" and warning of court action as he was playing his radio too loud.
Mr Tidey said: "He stopped after that but two weeks before Christmas, he started again. It's like he knows when I'm going to sleep as that's when it starts.
"I haven't slept for eight months. I can only sleep if I have alcohol or if I take sleeping tablets. I'm 69 years old."
The council no longer issues recording devices - and Mr Tidey says his pleas for action are now going unheeded.
He said: "About 10 years ago the council put a recording device in and then he stopped straight away so he knew they were doing something.
"But now they are not putting anything in, they are not helping me and doing nothing and he's enjoying it and banging around and I can't do nothing.
"I've been here 23 years and I'm desperate to get out. I'm trying to swap with somebody whatever, but the council won't rehouse me."
Mr Tidey said he was arrested and spent a night in the cells on June 20 after Mr Earl-Williams alleged he was banging on his door.
He was released with no charges "because it wasn't me and there was no evidence it was".
His friend Patrick O'Connor who lives in Belsize Park, stayed with Mr Tidey for three nights in July while his wife was away and witnessed the disturbance.
He said: "I heard him knocking about upstairs, I heard banging, it didn't sound like heating pipes to me. It's very annoying, I can see how it would grate. I only put up
with it for a couple of nights."
When approached by the Ham&High, Mr Earl-Williams said: "It's the pipes, we are the furthest from the boiler room. Truly it's the pipes. I'm an old Catholic bishop, I'm hardly going to behave like a hooligan."
Mr Earl-Williams said he told their housing estate manager about the pipes and that "she said she would see to it but it still bangs and it annoys me as much as it annoys Mr Tidey".
A Camden Council spokesperson said no other neighbours had complained about banging noises.
"When there is a dispute between neighbours we will always work with both sides to attempt to resolve the issue and we will continue to do so in this case,” they added.
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