Episode 1 The Housing Enforcers

Hello, will you just let me in?

DOG BARKS 'The law says everyone has the right to a safe place to live.'

I wouldn't keep my dog there is the honest truth.

'But for thousands of people across the UK, the reality can be more hovel than home.'

Yeah, this is falling to bits. There's nothing I can do.

'In the battle for decent housing...'

We've just got conditions that are just appalling.

I don't know how the people are coping, to be quite honest.

'..it's local housing officers who are on the front line.'

If somebody had have died here,

you would have been standing in Coroner's Court.

'I'm Matt Allwright, and I'm back with the housing enforcers.'

-15 people in this house?

-15 people in total living in here.

'I'll be with them as they tackle problem properties and slum conditions.'

It really does look shantytown.

Yeah, it's not up to standard.

'As they deal with dodgy landlords, nightmare neighbours

'and everything in between.'

Oh, my God, straightaway there's the smell of dog muck.

You never know what you're going to find.

'Doing their best to help those in need of a happy and healthy home.'

-Give me a hug.

-THEY LAUGH

That's the one...

'Today we find what could be Britain's filthiest home.'

The overwhelming smell here is disgusting.

Here we are, standing on a house-high pile of faeces and cider cans.

'And we provide a solution for the problems of this homeless family.

-Give me a hug.

-THEY LAUGH

Every year, more of us rent the homes that we live in,

and every year, rents go up.

For those of us choosing cheaper housing, that can mean

enduring living conditions so bad that they break the law.

I'm working alongside the men and women whose job it is

to uphold those laws.

They...are the housing enforcers.

'In Kent, I'm spending the day with Swale Borough Council

'housing officer Glyn Pritchard,

'inspecting a private residence that's now empty

'but has still being attracting complaints from the neighbours.

'Glyn's got 25 years' experience under his belt,

'so it's a pretty safe bet he's seen it all in his time...

'Until today, that is.'

That's the one.

Erm...you can see from the outside

that normally when it looks worse than the rest, there's usually reasons for it.

So, what's the scenario here? Why are we here?

The neighbours complained last year.

The police entered the property to try and find if he was in there,

cos the resident hadn't been seen for a while.

So, there was concerns over him.

They then contacted us to say there was a problem with the condition

of the property, so we then started to try and contact the owner.

He wasn't living at the property.

We couldn't get in, but we could see through the window.

Just so I'm clear again, it was in a state a year ago

-and no-one's been in, we think, in that year?

-No.

We have served legal notice twice to try and resolve the issue

and ultimately he still didn't do the work,

so we've had to get a warrant to get in and now we're actually

executing the warrant to get into the property.

'OK, now I'm really worried.

'Glyn wants us to enter a property that hasn't been touched in over a year with no idea

'of what's inside and he's clearly taking it very seriously.'

Protective mask, gloves...

And what I will do is...

We tend to spray ourselves just in case of any insects,

bugs, fleas or anything like that.

Top to bottom with it.

After doing it 25 years, I cover myself.

THEY LAUGH

-Insurance!

-I've never taken anything home yet.

Right. These are nice, aren't they?

-Here we go. Enter.

-You lead the way.

I'll lead the way and see what we can find.

'Despite the protective gear, I'm still feeling nervous,'

'especially when I discover how Glyn's expecting us to get into the house.'

They've got a window open at the moment, which is...

-Is that the way in?

-That's one way in.

-Right.

And the other way is the door, which is a very tight squeeze.

That's not much of a choice, is it, really?

Glyn, you know what I really like is amongst all this stuff,

which is already humming, there are just...there are two air fresheners.

'Glyn's decided that we're going to have to go through the window with this one.

'I mean, what could possibly go wrong?'

Oh, my God!

Now you've seen it.

That's just like...

It's about four or five foot high.

Oh, my God!

That's incredible.

All I can see is cider cans, videos and tissues.

How can one person drink so much cider?

'And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse...'

Oh, no!

We're not sure,

but those could be full of other things

other than food in Tupperware.

That's not food in there. That's...

Why put it in Tupperware? Why keep it?!

That's the opposite of what you have to do with that!

You're supposed to flush it away, not preserve it!

'Faced with a cocktail of cider cans and human waste,

'I'm not looking forward to going inside.'

-Are you going in that way?

-I'm going to go in...

It is fairly high and we're looking at least five foot in here.

Right.

I'm going to have to... I'm going to have to go in.

If Glyn... If Glyn can do this, I can do this.

I'm going in.

Get in from the outside. Hold on to the top.

'It's not the most graceful way to get in,

'but it's nothing compared to what I'm about to face.'

There's like... The only safe place to step here is on videos.

If you're stepping on videos, DVDs,

then you just about get away with it.

Everything else...

Everything else is disgusting.

The overwhelming smell here...

is of fermenting apples and faeces.

I've never been able to touch a ceiling standing on the rubbish before,

so that's a new one on me.

-It's difficult to avoid it.

-Well...

I mean, at that point there, that's got to be five foot.

It's probably the one I've seen the highest with alcohol cans.

Faeces isn't an issue. I've, you know, that's...

Faeces is an issue, Glyn!

Where are you going to start with this? How can you begin to do this?

'Glyn's experience is doing a good job of keeping him calm -

'well, calmer than me anyway.

'Personally I'm not sure I would ever be able to get used to

'a scene like this, even after 25 years on the job.'

You are kidding me!

I mean, don't get me wrong,

of a weekend, I enjoy watching a film, yeah?

I even enjoy the odd can of cider from time to time.

This is taking it too far!

Do you know what I saw here down here mixed in amongst this?

It's a set of those clippers for doing your nasal hair.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to use them now, though.

No, but I would say that's fine tuning. When you've got a pile...

A five foot pile in your living room of cider cans,

faeces in Tupperware, don't worry about the nasal hair thing.

'And things don't improve as we pick our way upstairs.'

Oh, my God! There's, like, a whole thing of clothes.

-Now, we're into... This is the wardrobe area.

-Yeah.

-Oh, my God.

I think this is probably going to be it,

because every room's the same.

That room you can't get into.

That room is exactly the same as downstairs.

'And it appears the toilet arrangements are the same up here too.'

-All the excrement, everything, is in bags.

-Oh...

-There's an old quilt.

There's definitely evidence of mice, rats...

Even the rats wouldn't live in this.

This is like a combat zone.

It's like he's declared war on the house and himself.

Here we are, standing on a, you know, a house-high pile of faeces

and cider cans.

What do we need to assess, realistically, looking at this job?

Realistically now, this is a full house clearance.

So, it's a contractor in and literally,

they are going to have to strip the whole lot.

There is probably nothing that is salvageable at all in here.

'It might be because of the shock of the mess or

'the smell of a year's worth of human waste,

'but either way, it's really hard to get my head round what could have

'happened to the owner that would make him treat his own home in this way.'

You know, we've had hoarders before that we've seen, and we've seen,

you know, people who clearly have, you know, illnesses that they're

trying to get past which affect their behaviour and the rest of it.

-What's going on with somebody that lives like this?

-We don't know.

I mean, do you ever, I know this is not your job,

your job is to come here, make it better,

but you can't come in somewhere like this and not think to yourself,

"What on earth is going on in this guy's head?"

The thing is, without being able to talk to him,

usually you can assess, you can find,

but on this instance we just cannot even get that, you know,

dialogue going with him, so we need to work from there.

At what point does he lose the right to have this property?

I mean, it's going to be affecting your next-door neighbours

and if he comes back in and does the same thing again,

at some point do you lose the right to own this property?

If we can get a debt on the property under certain circumstances,

we can go through an enforced sale-type procedure.

We can work with him, being an empty property,

to bring it up to standard and possibly get him to rent it out.

And ultimately compulsory purchase is something that is there,

but that is going to be a long, drawn-out process.

Have we done everything we need to do in this property?

I can't go any further and I can't take you any further!

THEY LAUGH

Can we please go? Can we...?

I can't see any more of this and I certainly can't smell any more.

'It is a tragic situation, but the pressing problem now is how to

'sort this place out so it's no longer affecting the neighbours.'

Oh, God!

MATT GASPS

BOTH PANT

I... I've never seen... I've never seen anything like that.

Tissues, Tupperware...

..and just terrible, terrible filth.

You know, if it was...

If it was standing by itself, freestanding, detached...

My honest...

My honest reaction would just be, "Knock the whole thing down!

"Just put everything into a skip and just get rid of it."

'But fortunately, Glyn's 25 years of experience means

'he's able to offer a more practical solution,

'one that involves making the owner take responsibility for this mess.'

We'll get it cleared.

It will be reasonably expensive,

but we will be recovering it off the owner.

He's had the opportunity to clear it.

We've given him two notices in the past, hasn't done it,

and we're left with no alternative.

That's going to be the next step, to get this place back into use is...

That's our main aim.

To satisfy and keep things from the neighbours so they are happier.

I really appreciate it. And you can have your gloves back.

-We'll find some clean ones for you next time.

-Thank you very much!

'That's the other important thing about this disgusting tale.

'It's one thing to destroy your own standard of living.

'It's quite another to start affecting your neighbours too.'

So, you've lived next door to all of that. How has that been for you?

-It's just awful and it turned into a tourist attraction.

-Really?

-It really did.

-What, you've got people coming here to see that?

They were coming up, strolling up the garden path, looking through

the window, because people could not believe what was in there.

It is quite extraordinary, but just to be clear,

-you've had mice coming across?

-Yeah.

-And...

-Rats in the garden as big as cats.

You knew it was bad when the postman, he said,

"That's it, I'm not delivering any more, cos I cannot get up this garden path."

I mean, the smell coming from there.

-I mean, I can smell it now.

-Yeah.

-You've got that all day every day.

-Well, you get used to it.

'Yeah, no-one should have to get used to it.

'Catch up later to see how Glyn manages to get a grip on the grime.'

It is something that we've got to do and we have got to...

We've just found a dead rat.

He's been dead a fair while by the looks of it.

Childhood is supposed to be the happiest time of your life.

But for many of the nearly 100,000 kids living

with their families in temporary accommodation in England alone,

the lack of a safe, settled place to live can make it anything but.

I'm on the Isle of Sheppey with Housing Officer Zana Owen

who's been working with a father from Sittingbourne in desperate

need of a secure home for his sons.

OK, tell me about the family we're about to meet.

Ian and the two boys were living in a family home.

There was a relationship breakdown.

So Ian had to move out of the property

-and the boys have come with him.

-Right.

Ian didn't want to take the boys out of school

and damage their education.

The boys have been living with their father

since the irreparable breakdown of his relationship with their mother.

But with a shortage of temporary accommodation,

the council's had to put them up in Sheerness,

over ten miles from home.

I mean, what's the pressure like on housing in this part of the world,

in Sittingbourne, at the moment?

The housing situation down here is dire.

It's so hard to find somewhere.

Luckily, all that's about to change.

So what is it that we're there to do today?

We're there to let them know today that the temporary

accommodation they're in at the moment, they're going to be

moving out of, and they'll be moving into a three-bed property

in Sittingbourne that's going to be more suitable for their needs.

So this is... It's going to be really good news.

Yeah, the boys will have their own room, they won't all be cramped

into a small space any more.

Hello, Ian. How are you doing? I'm Matt.

-Nice to meet you. Are you all right?

-Yeah.

-Are we all right to come in?

-Yeah. Come in.

-Thank you very much.

'First, I want to know how Ian, who's hard of hearing,

'and his boys have been coping with having to move to a completely

'different town on top of the stress of the family breakdown.'

It sounds, Ian, like you've got quite a full plate here.

You've got a disability you're dealing with,

you're outside your comfort zone, your normal neighbourhood.

How long have you been in this place?

-We've been in this place for five days now.

-Five days?

-Yeah.

And how's it working out?

It's nice, it's a nice property but it's a different area for the boys.

It's alien to them.

Ian and the boys have been sharing one bedroom

and moving miles away from home

has been especially hard for eldest son Chris, who's autistic.

Chris, how are you finding it here?

Well, it's not good, actually.

All my mates and friends and family are in Sittingbourne.

We don't have anyone around in Sheerness

so we're just tired,

fed up and bored, getting depressed

and it's just getting on our nerves, basically.

'Ian's also worried about the distance to the boys' schools

'once the new term starts, particularly as it's much further

'for Chris to get the assisted transport he relies on.'

'And it's clear he's also worried about the effect that sharing their accommodation with strangers

'could be having on them.'

You've got boys who are going through a really critical period

of their growing up and you're trying to do it by yourself

and then you're in these constantly changing environments.

You've got drug people in there, you've got alcoholics.

So it's not an ideal environment to take two boys to.

I mean, you must be desperate for somewhere where you can just shut

the front door and just say, "Right, at least they can do that bit

"of their adolescence with a bit of...

-"They're coming home to me and I can control home."

-Yeah.

-Cos you can't control home at the moment.

-I can't, no.

Ian's struggled, Chris has struggled.

They've had their moments where they've got angry at the situation.

And me as well, I've despaired as well.

But, like you say, we've got to get on with it.

There's nothing that anyone can do, the situation is what it is.

Later, learning that someone can do something is too much for Ian.

And for the boys.

He's been under a lot of stress.

Too right, Chris.

Defending our right to a safe place to live is

the job of housing officers right across the UK.

This is not really an acceptable way of leaving the property behind.

Do you think?

'I'm working alongside the men and women that do exactly that.'

-Top marks.

-Yes.

I'm hitting the streets.

Hello, can you open up?

There's definitely somebody inside because we've seen movement.

'Finding out what's happening on the front line...'

The cistern's in the bath.

I don't know how they flush it.

And learning what it takes

to make sure a house is a fit place to call a home.

I'm very shocked. This is ridiculous.

You shouldn't have people living in here.

Earlier, I visited an abandoned house of filth,

so disgusting it even left experienced housing officer, Glyn Pritchard, shocked.

All the excrement, everything is in bags.

I can't go any further and I can't take you any further.

Can we please go?

Well, the good news is that Glyn is back and I'm not.

And he's managed to convince some very brave souls

to help him clear the house.

Today we've got the contractors in and they're busy doing all

the clear-up. The owner still hasn't responded to us

and, as you can see at the moment,

they can't even get into the property still.

We've been here about 45 minutes so far.

How long do we think it's going to take?

-A couple of days.

-Two or three days?

-Two or three days?

And we haven't even made a dent to get in through the front door yet.

But the task is proving a little easier said than done.

I'm actually hitting the floor.

One of the precautions they've got to take is we know there is mice

and rats been in the property,

so they will take that necessary precaution.

They're not going to be eating their sandwiches straight after

being in there without washing their hands, or anything,

but it's something we've got to do

and we have got a... We've just found a dead rat.

He's been dead a fair while by the looks of it.

Given the scale of the challenge,

the team aren't taking any chances.

You just don't know what's in there.

It's all mould and things like that,

and that's what's going to affect your health,

so you do have to take precautions.

It doesn't really bother me but it's the smell.

The stink of it afterwards, you keep on smelling that smell.

The incredible thing is

that the telly is still on standby.

Where's the remote?

There we are, we've got a telly.

I've got no signal.

While Glyn takes a less hands-on approach,

the guys inside find an interesting clue that tells them

just how long it's been since the place enjoyed a spring clean.

January 2007, eight-and-a-half years ago.

With the contactors succeeding in clearing safe passage inside,

Glyn decides it's now time to brave going in.

I have to wipe my feet before I come in now, it's that clean so far.

You've made a bit of progress in here.

I was going to say, can we tell what colour the carpet is?

It's pink over here, green there and blue over there.

Nothing worth salvaging at all.

I don't think they'll get a refund for that.

It's clearly a thankless task for everyone involved

and the progress is slow, but sure.

That's the first skip gone, so hopefully, it gets easier.

Someone else who's clearly delighted to see the back of the rubbish

is neighbour, Terry.

Incredible.

I'm so glad the council have really got their act together

on our behalf and have made a good job of it.

One week later, and Glyn is back.

The contractors have gone, but what about the rubbish?

They've cleared up and they've done a pretty good job.

There's a path, I didn't even know there was a path here.

It's a good start, but let's see if Glyn can get into the house

using the front door.

He's got his nice jacket on.

And that's what the door actually looks like,

and I can actually open the door.

As they say in all the best makeover shows,

here comes the reveal.

The difference is amazing.

And the staircase, which I think had rubbish up to about here,

you can actually see.

You couldn't get to the kitchen the first time,

because we had to walk down a pile.

And we have a kitchen.

They earned their money doing this job, that was for certain.

No kidding!

Upstairs, where it was, well, horrible...

Just take a look.

The bathroom is a bathroom again.

It's amazing that a mess that took years to create

has been removed in just under a week.

If someone saw it now, they wouldn't realise what was in here or

what had actually happened in here.

Which just leaves the small matter of what happens next.

If the owner did turn up tomorrow, the first thing we'd be doing

is giving him the bill.

If he still chooses not to pay it or doesn't contact us

or discuss it with us,

we have the ability to put it as a charge on the property

and/or take him to court.

Well, even if the owner never bothers to return,

there are plenty of very happy neighbours who I'm sure

would give you a pat on the back, Glyn.

From our point of view, it's a good job well done.

On the Isle of Sheppey, single dad Ian Foster

and his two sons have been in temporary accommodation since

the breakdown of his relationship with their mother left them homeless.

It is a struggle. I've despaired. But we've got to get on with it.

There's nothing that anyone can do. The situation is what it is.

Well, you say that, but today I've come along with

Swale Borough Council Housing Officer Zana Owen to give

Ian and the boys some brilliant news that's going to change everything.

So we've come with a little bit of an update

for where we are, going forwards today.

The council, Swale, has found you a property in Sittingbourne.

We're hopeful that next week, as soon as next week,

you can be moving into a property with three bedrooms.

So a bedroom for each of you,

where you can start again in Sittingbourne, where you know,

and it's in time for term to start as well.

So you've got a week to get yourself sorted before school and college.

'After months of worry,

'finally being able to give his sons a safe, secure place to live

'back in their home town of Sittingbourne

'is all too much for Ian.'

-OK?

-(Yeah.)

Give me a hug. You all right?

-Lovely.

-OK.

'Clearly, Ian isn't the only member of the family

'who's relieved to hear the good news.'

What does this mean now, going forwards?

It's going to be a lot better.

-I'm happier.

-Yeah.

'Worrying about his dad has also clearly taken its toll

'on eldest son Chris, who suffers with autism.'

He's been under a lot of stress.

You all right, Chris?

Just surprised.

I didn't think you'd be able to do it.

'I'll be honest, I was expecting the family to be pleased

'but realising just how relieved they are is heart-breaking to watch.'

This is supposed to be a happy thing, you know.

Everyone's in tears - I don't know what I've done!

LAUGHTER

-Well, that was emotional.

-Yeah.

I really didn't expect to have

a room full of sobbing blokes on my hands there.

But I suppose when you hear what Ian's been through with those boys...

-Yeah.

-..actually you can understand the relief...

-Yeah.

-..must be more than anything.

Yeah, and hopefully we can get things rolling quite quickly,

get them in, get them settled

and then the boys can concentrate on school.

Is it too early for a little knuckle bump, like that?

I think that's fair enough, given the circumstances.

Three weeks later,

Ian and the boys have moved back home to Sittingbourne

and are already settled into their new flat.

This is the kitchen.

You've got the basics - cooker, washing machine,

we've got a fridge and a freezer.

It makes a big difference being able to cook different things, you know,

and it's been a pleasure for me,

like, to actually sit down and have a meal with them

and spend time with them.

Struggling to learn how to cook but we'll get there eventually.

With any luck, this place will be

just the fresh start they've been looking for.

That's it for today.

Join me next time back on the road with the housing enforcers.