A TWO year dispute between residents of a Tweed Heads West apartment block and visiting youth escalated on Thursday with claims a 31-year-old had a knife pulled on him and a 72-year-old man was threatened.

Residents of the apartment block say they are harassed and intimidated around the clock by the kids who hang out in, or near, their building.

They say the kids aged between 13 and 19 often stay overnight in the apartment of a 67-year-old tenant who ignores their concerns about the kids' anti-social behaviour.

The Daily News witnessed a heated confrontation between this man and other tenants on Thursday afternoon following the alleged knife incident.

Police tell them that their ability to act is limited as the youths are being hosted by the tenant.

A man who has lived in the block for 14 months said: "There's about 20 of them, but around seven of them are the worst, the toughies.

"The foot traffic going in and out of this place is non-stop 24-hours a day.

"The police do sweeps and come when we've called them, but as they say, by the time we ring them and they get there they've run away.

"I thought it was a nice quite peaceful street, but it turned out to be a nightmare."

The 31-year-old resident who says he was threatened with a knife by one of the "uncontrollable, disrespectful" youths on Thursday afternoon, said his father had also been accosted at 4am.

"They are wayward youth. None of them go to school," he said.

Affected residents include those living on either side of the block and the opposite side of the road.

"Someone's going to get hurt ... and it's going to be one of those kids," a resident from across the street warned.

School and youth liaison officer Snr Const Nathan Verinder said there were pockets of problem youth across the Tweed.

The kids were disengaged from the schooling system or had been suspended.

Const Verinder said until recently Murwillumbah was the worst hot-spot.

"There definitely is an issue," Const Verinder said.

"But it's not just a police issue. We need help from parents," he said.