31st
Jul 2016
Brent Council raided a private rented property to uncover thirty one migrants living in squalor that had permission to be rented out to only seven tenants.
The officers were staggered to find up to six people crammed into each room and disgustingly, the only female tenant was living in a shack that was constructed out of wooden pallets and tarpaulin without light or heating.
The two crooked landlords responsible for the abhorrent accommodation had converted the property into nine bedrooms. They charged each of their tenants a weekly rent of £65 which made the landlords £100,000 per year.
Each of the bedrooms had makeshift bunk beds to optimise the number of tenants ‘shoe horned’ into the rooms.
The council found out that the tenants were from India and worked shifts.
Councillor Harbi Farah said: “We’ve seen pest-ridden slums and even beds in sheds before, but this is a new low.
“The shack looks like something you would expect to see in a Hollywood depiction of a shanty town, not Zone 4 of London. Criminal landlords cannot and will not get away with this.
“Our ground-breaking licensing scheme is helping us to tackle poor standards in the private rented sector and focus on the minority of unscrupulous landlords who refuse to comply with the law.”
Brent Council is well known for its landlord enforcement as they are bringing between 2 and 5 landlord prosecutions every week
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