A LANDLORD was horrified to return to his property after years and find it looking like a nightmare.
Martin, 65, of Essex, quit being a landlord after discovering his house was in such a state he “couldn’t get anyone to clean it”.
The two-bed recently-renovated house in south east Essex was rented out by a couple for a number of years, and they never seemed to cause any problems.
This was until Martin received an unusual phone call from a social worker trying to get in touch with one of the residents.
The landlord found it suspicious when he couldn’t get in contact with the pair himself.
So he then decided to head over to the house – but what he found left him horrified.
Martin told The Sun: “After I first saw the condition, I shut the door and didn’t go back for a month.”
Rubbish and human faeces were strewn across the floors and smeared on the walls, with piles of rotting waste piled in every room.
After several cleaning companies refused to go near the property, Martin got suited up in hazmat gear and started cleaning.
He was armed with a jet wash, paint, and a wallpaper scraper for the floor.
He described the foil cat food packets that had been left glued to the floor with poo, too stuck to be removed by a steamer.
Disgusting images show the years of rubbish and waste piled up in the £800pcm home.
The property owner had known the tenants before they moved in, so had assumed they would take care of his home.
He said: “There were two tenants, a couple but not married.
“He had an illness and couldn’t get out and about, so she stopped paying rent and stopped looking after him and the house due to laziness.
“After a while, they stopped washing or going upstairs.”
The couple then ditched the entire top floor, using only the downstairs toilet and kitchen sink, both of which were badly blocked.
After obstructing all water outlets, they resorted to a kitchen kettle and lived off Cup a Soups.
Not a single bin bag or rubbish bin ever left the house, Martin said.
Despite being a landlord for over 10 years, Martin decided to quit the profession and sell off the house.
The property owner lost a total of six months of rent from the ordeal, not including removal and cleaning costs.
He said: “I’m definitely not going to be a private landlord anymore. There will be future problems with rental shortages, but I don’t feel it’s a landlord’s problem.
“It’s a bit of a warning to would-be landlords to see what can happen.”
The terraced house has since been sold and is now rented out for over double Martin’s rate.
Landlord horror stories
Martin isn’t alone, a number of properties across the UK are full of unexpected horrors.
Another disgusted landlord was slammed with a huge £16,000 bill after a tenant from hell left the home full of poo and maggots.
The Aussie woman is now considering never renting out her house again after the horror tenant left the home flooded with grime and rubbish.
The stomach-churning “destruction” was found by the landlord after the tenant had fled the home.
Pictures of the property show the revolting state her home was left in, and the 80 bins worth of rubbish and excrement she was forced to clear.
A man was labelled a “rogue landlord” and banned from letting out properties has claimed his tenants “love him” and has hit back at council bosses.
Nilendu Das, 55, was given a ten year ban on letting out properties this week after city council officials took him to court.
The ban comes after Nilednu was convicted of putting tenants at serious harm from fire and exposing them to substandard and dangerous conditions in their homes.
He was ordered to pay over £7,000 in court costs and fines for a list of housing offences as well as health and safety offences at his restaurant.
Das, who has previously been jailed for harassing tenants, was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order in March 2021.
