Residents living in a Belfast City Centre apartment block have expressed their frustration at the "constant drug abuse" within their building.
Homeowners in the Tannery Building off Castle Street say that over the past year they have had to deal with daily antisocial behavior in the apartments, as they come in from off of the street to use the location do drugs.
Used syringes, needles, blood stains and even human waste are regularly found in the stairwells of the apartment, with residents saying that nothing is being done to address the issue by their management company.
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Speaking to Belfast Live, a group of residents from the building said that something needs to be done urgently to deal with the anti-social behaviour and that they have been forced to awake in the middle of the night to try and remove them.
One resident said: "Over the past year we have had a problem with people coming into our apartment block and using the stairwells and emergency exits in order to do drugs.
"It has become a daily problem with people coming into the building at all hours of the day and nothing seems to be being done about it.
"Used needles and other drug paraphernalia are regularly found in the building and we have also had instances of vomiting, people going to the toilet and blood stains being found on the walls.
"Residents are constantly having to tell people to leave the building, which can be very unnerving to do with someone who may be under the influence of something.
"We have been reporting the issue for months but nothing seems to be done about it."
Residents say that people are coming in off of the street by either kicking open an unsecure door, or by following cars into the car park when the shutters open.
Another resident said: "There have been occasions when mattresses have been taken into the fire exit and we think that people may have stayed here for days doing drugs and the place was a complete mess when we discovered it.
"Some of us have been woken in the middle of the night due to the noise that these people are making and are having to go out multiple times to ask them to leave."
One homeowner in the building said that the current issues of drugs in the city centre area need to be addressed, which would have a big impact on people doing drugs in their building.
They said: "The problems with drug abuse are taking place on the street outside and the users are coming in here as somewhere to hide away and do their drugs.
"What we need is a place where addicts can go and safely do this while also having access to addiction services. This would have a big impact on the drug problems that we are seeing and stop people from coming into apartment blocks and other buildings."
Phil Stevenson of Charles White Ltd who manage the Tannery Building said: “This is a difficult situation with no easy answers. Sadly there is a drug and homelessness problem in this area of Belfast, which has led to people breaking into and taking refuge in the building.
"On behalf of everyone living in the building we are doing our best to keep it secure and the communal areas clean, but this isn’t the solution. We feel for the owners and tenants who have to live with the cost of this anti-social behaviour and hope that more will be done by the appropriate agencies to address the problem.”
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