AN ELDERLY couple has hit out at noisy louts who they say have been disrupting their sleep for five weeks.

Lorraine Barter is calling for more to be done to stop noise and anti-social behaviour in and around Harborough Road following weeks of sleep deprivation.

Along with her husband, Stewart Morris, 76, Lorraine has lived in the area since the 1980s.

In the past few years, she has been trying to raise awareness of the nuisance that houses of multiple occupation (HMO) can cause.

HMOs are shared by several different tenants who all rent rooms and share the property’s communal space.

The 83-year-old said: “We’re devastated by noise from within HMOs. At night, you have door banging and people shouting going in and out and we’re lying awake until three in the morning wondering what’s going to happen next.

“I get very tired and irritable when I don’t get enough sleep and so does my husband. We’re constantly sniping or rowing because we’re so tired.”

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She said the two of them have even gone weeks without any sleep.

“When you don’t sleep for five weeks, you start getting pain around the eyes and your legs ache. Going up in the middle of the night in the fresh air to tell people to quiet down wakes us up so much we then can’t go back to sleep.”

She added: “It’s an absolute miracle I have lived as long as I have lived keeping in mind these problems.”

Lorraine believes enforcing tenancy agreements in a stricter way could be a solution.

She said: “I know for a fact that tenancy agreements do say ‘No noise or ASB to your neighbours’ but when I complain to agents they say ‘we have told them, we texted and emailed them, we can’t stop them from making noise’ and it can go on all night.

“It’s absolutely pathetic, what’s the good of having a legal agreement if you can’t enforce it.”

A spokesperson for Southampton City Council said: “The council treats noise complaints very seriously and can investigate complaints about unreasonable noise and will take action to control noise if a statutory nuisance exists. Anyone who needs to report a noise incident should do using the form.”

The council added it is working closely with Lorraine and all parties to make sure the complaints are resolved.

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