26 people found living in three-bedroom house in east London after council raid

 
Cramped: This windowless basement room housed at least seven people (Picture: Newham Council)
Newham Council
Tom Marshall25 June 2015

Twenty-six people were found living in a three-bedroom house in east London – including at least seven in a windowless cellar.

Council enforcement officers raided the cramped family home in East Ham last week and found 25 adults and one young child living there.

The cellar was only accessible from steep concrete steps in the back garden and had its ventilation duct-taped over.

Friday's raid was triggered by complaints from neighbours about loud music and rubbish dumped in the garden.

The tenants were from four or five families according to Newham council, which said the overcrowding was the “biggest we have seen for a while”.

Raid: Neighbours complained about rubbish in the garden before council officials swooped (Picture: Newham Council)
Newham Council

They were charged various rents totalling £2,340 a month, the council said.

One couple with a young daughter paid £180 per week - or £780 per month - for the ground floor front room, while those in the basement were charged £20 a week each.

Entrance: The access to the cellar (Picture: Newham Council)

The house, which had two toilets and no facilities in the basement, was only licensed for rent to a single family of up to seven people.

A spokesman for Newham council said: "The teams were let into the house by a resident. Inside they found a man who lived in the ground floor front room with his partner and young daughter.

"The man indicated that there were three or four other 'families' he was not related to living there and in total it was indicated that 26 people were thought to live in the house, including seven people in the basement.

Another bedroom with at least three beds (Picture: Newham Council)
Newham Council

"The basement had no windows, so no natural lighting and inadequate ventilation. It only had one access point through the back garden, not from inside the house."

The borough – which has the highest level of overcrowding in the UK – now plans to launch a prosecution against the landlord.

It identified a litany of "hazards" including electrical dangers and broken toilet facilities, including a taped-up waste pipe.

The Newham mayor, Sir Robin Wales, said the borough was “on the front line of the housing crisis” in a speech at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference on Tuesday.

Beds wedged against each other in one of the rooms (Picture: Newham Council)
Newham Council

He said: “The choice for many of my residents is stark: succumb to rogue landlords – who have no qualms about packing five people to a room and renting out homes without roofs – or leave London altogether, abandoning it to the wealthy and asset-hoarders, leaving our public services without the nurses and teachers we need.”

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