Jump directly to the content
Pictured
SLUM-DIGS MILLIONAIRES

Inside squalid four bedroom home once crammed with 31 migrants who paid nearly £100k-a-year to ‘criminal landlords’

The Sun was taken on a downstairs tour of the £500,000 house and found every room save the kitchen to be sleeping quarters

composite dodgy landlord

A PAIR of slum landlords stuffed 31 migrants into this squalid four bedroom home raking in around £100,000-a-year in rent.

Council officers found up to six tenants to a room and a woman living in a shack of pallets and tarpaulin.

 Garden shack... woman lives under tarpaulin and pallets
5
Garden shack... woman lives under tarpaulin and pallets

They share two toilets in the property, which is only licensed for seven people.

Tenants paying £65 a week gave The Sun a tour of the £500,000 house.

Every room except the kitchen had been turned into a bedroom.

Bags and tins of food were piled up walls and there were huge holes in the ceiling.

All residents were believed to be shift workers from India. It is not known how many came to the UK legally.

One hotel worker living there three months said: "Some people came here after seeing adverts placed in off licences.

 Squashed... food and belongings are piled up against walls
5
Squashed... food and belongings are piled up against walls
 Bunk-up... property is only licensed t seven people
5
Bunk-up... property is only licensed t seven people

"Others heard about it through word of mouth, after being tipped off by friends or other landlords.

"It was cheap while it lasted, but now we've been told we have to move out.

"I have somewhere I can go but many others don't."

Another said: "I was moving out anyway because of how many people are here. It’s crazy.”

A third man claimed it was still an improvement on his life in India, saying: "This country has money. Our country has no money’."

 Bad nights sleep.... makeshift beds in tiny rooms
5
Bad nights sleep.... makeshift beds in tiny roomsCredit: David New

Brent Council swooped on the property in Wembley, North London, last week.

Cllr Harbi Farah said: “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.”

Mum and daughter Harsha, 51, and Chandni Shah, 27, own the home — one of three their family have in London.

For two years they had let it for £1,500 a month via agents to two men aged 34 and 26. Their whereabouts were unknown yesterday.

 Owner... Harsha Sha seen with husband
5
Owner... Harsha Sha seen with husbandCredit: David New

It is thought they are the focus of the inquiry.

But the council said the owners had a duty to let it responsibly and could charged for breaching the Housing Act.

A spokesman for the family said: “We were out of the country and didn’t know what was going on.”

Topics