After penetrating stories during the day, the switch is switched in the evening. Then I enjoy rest, reading or Netflix at home with my wife. But what if you can’t find that peace in your home? If when you get home it turns out that your neighbor has cut your bicycle saddle, scolded your teenage daughter and it says ‘teringlijer’ on your front door? What if you can’t sleep because you are rudely awakened to loud, incoherent screams and banging of his head against the wall?
There are people who experience this and seek help. They often meet understanding professionals. But if the neighbor appears to have a psychiatric disorder, professionals from municipal hotlines, housing associations and the police can also get stuck. After all, the neighbor with a mental care need, who now lives independently next to you, enjoys protection. Many and complicated legal frameworks apply if you want to get someone out of their home or have them accept compulsory mental care. Residents who experience this tell me about their powerlessness. They are advised by authorities such as the police to keep diaries, to make recordings and to continue to make reports. They have to do everything they can to get out of this annoying situation.
Sometimes, as a good neighbor, you see that someone’s mental health is getting worse. If authorities respond with “it’s not bad enough yet”, it can even have deadly consequences. Diana Gemert, for example, died last week in Amsterdam-East, after she set her own home on fire. Recently, her happy madness turned into a dangerous madness. The neighbors have noticed this for some time. They reported nuisance after report. In retrospect, the residents and the housing corporation believe that the care agency allowed the situation to muddle through.
In the Netherlands we prefer not to put people with a mental disorder away. We call this ‘ambulantisation’. Professor Hans Kroon of Tilburg University describes in his inaugural address: ‘Psychiatry and society: looking for connection’ the history of that policy movement. We find it more humane to give the ‘patients’ a place in the civilized world. In a psychiatric institution there is less quality of life, loneliness and lifelessness.
The complicated thing is that as neighbors you do not always know whether someone is known to the GGD and what care is or is not provided. Due to privacy legislation, housing corporations or community police officers do not always know exactly what they should do and what they may do. This hinders good communication between the authorities, giving neighbors who report nuisance the feeling that nothing is happening at all. That it “must get out of hand first” before the government does something about the situation. At the same time, residents are also concerned about their own safety and health. Addressing the problem is complicated and there are no simple solutions. What we must and can prevent is that neighbors only have to deal with nuisance and have to tolerate and accept everything.
Listening to their signals saves lives; sometimes literally.