Owning your own home

I ask because our flat backs onto an LA block and we do get kept up reasonably frequently by loud noises, whether music from cars / flats, arguments etc etc. Enough to make me think about avoiding it if I move.

When we moved to the estate where we are now, I visited the place without the estate agent about five times at different times of the day to see what it was like. I suspect it varies from location to location massively; where I live now is peachy (touch wood), where we came from kinda sucked.

Sorry, no offence intended!

Yep, we have some of all that, but I'm not sure it's disproportionately high given the concentration of people (lots of high rise blocks). The rubbish and state of the streets is more down to the couldn't give a fuck attitude of Veolia, and Lambeth's inability to manage them, than anything else. Noise isn't really an issue, certainly not in my street. Reading the "bastard neighbours" thread, it seems that it's Victorian houses poorly converted into the flats they were never meant to be are much more of a problem. Nice to be surrounded by families too.

I was about say crime isn't an obvious problem, until my 13 year-old ironically had his phone stolen off him at the bus stop about two hours ago :(

Personally, I'd live here over what I'd get for the same money in a bland, anonymous residential street at the other end of Brixton - any proverbial day of the week. But I do have the aforementioned dog, just in case... (kidding).