Rats, mould and dangerous overcrowding - inside illegal house-shares hiding in plain sight

29 minutes ago Share Save Tarah Welsh and Zack Adesina BBC News Share Save

Nazmush Shahadat escaped from a fire at a dangerously overcrowded flat that killed a man

In the middle of the night, says Maria, groups of people can sometimes be seen moving into houses in her neighbourhood, far more than would seem to fit comfortably in the Victorian terraced homes. Each of these houses has 10 to 15 people living inside, she estimates. Maria, an architect, suspects they are being illegally rented. "They're everywhere," she says. Maria contacted Your Voice, Your BBC News after spending years complaining about these homes to her local authority in east London, Newham Council. We began investigating - and found a widespread black-market rental sector where people are forced to live in unsafe spaces. Photos, videos and testimony from the people living in several properties like these showed unsanitary and overcrowded homes, with adults sleeping on bare mattresses in bunk beds, contending with black mould, rats and, in some cases, conditions that proved to be deadly.

Laws across the UK say large house-shares - officially known as houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) - must have a licence, so local councils can ensure each property is suitable for the number of occupants and meets gas, electrical and fire safety requirements. But evidence in three London house-share hotspots we examined suggests that in some places there are more unlicensed, black-market HMOs than there are legal ones. One London borough told us it has 3,000 licensed HMOs, but estimates there are two or three times that number in reality. In shop windows in east London, we noticed many ads for properties that did not appear to conform to licensing laws, often offering a "bedspace" in shared rooms. We also found adverts online that appeared to show mould or dirt in the shared rooms. To investigate, BBC reporter Gopal Virdee responded to some of these adverts and viewed the rooms, filming with a hidden camera.

Secret filming by BBC reporter Gopal Virdee inside a crowded, unlicensed HMO

In one property in Waltham Forest, where there was a shared bedroom advertised at £330 a month, he was met by about 10 young men who all appeared to live there. The room on offer was shared between three people, another was shared between four - and on some of the beds, there was no bedding or even mattresses. One of the men told us they were subletting and admitted there was no HMO licence - as the local authority register confirmed. A company representing the property owner later told us that the tenancy agreement "expressly forbids" subletting and multiple occupancy and that the property had never been let or advertised for those purposes. It said it had taken prompt action when it learned of the contract breach. The man who showed our reporter around later told us he had "no involvement whatsoever in the management, ownership or letting of this property". Waltham Forest Council said it would take action. Overcrowded conditions such as these can be fatal. Nazmush Shahadat escaped a deadly fire in 2023 at an HMO in Shadwell, east London. He had moved in as a last resort, after coming to the UK to study law and finding that the housing he had been promised had fallen through. The "stench" hit him when he first arrived, Nazmush says, "like an old gym with the men's sweat". He says he was bitten by bedbugs and could see mould across the ceiling from his top bunk. On the night of the fire, there were 18 people crammed into the two-bedroom flat.

Tower Hamlets Council The bunk beds where the flatmates slept were burned in the fire

Many of Nazmush's flatmates worked as food-delivery riders, and the fire started because of a faulty e-bike battery charging under a bunk-bed. When the tenants' attempts to put the blaze out failed, they fled the smoke-filled flat. Nazmush says they thought everyone had got out - until the emergency services carried out a man on a stretcher. "That's when it hit us straight away, that body - it could be any one of us," he says. Mizanur Rahman had only lived in the flat a few days. He died later in hospital aged 41, leaving behind a wife and two children in Bangladesh. Earlier this year, the landlords - husband and wife Aminur Rahman and Sofina Begum - were fined £90,000 for multiple housing offences, including cramming more people into the property than three people the licence permitted.

Father of two Mizanur Rahman, 41, died from smoke inhalation after the flat fire

Because such overcrowded properties are undeclared, the true number of unlicensed HMOs across the country is unknown. But an experimental data project to try to detect them has been developed by Ben Yarrow, who runs the landlord and letting agency review website, Marks Out Of Tenancy. It flags potential unlicensed HMOs by searching through a range of financial data sources to identify properties associated with large numbers of people who have different surnames. It has some limitations - it cannot find people relying on cash with no formal paperwork, and in some cases households with big families can be wrongly flagged. We asked Mr Yarrow to scan specific postcodes in three boroughs which we knew were HMO hotspots. In part of Newham, where there are only 75 licensed properties, he found more than 700 possible HMOs. In part of Tower Hamlets, he found nearly 500 suspected HMOs. The council has publicly listed only 50 HMO licences here, although it said more properties were licensed. And around Southwark's Old Kent Road, Mr Yarrow found more than 300 possible HMOs, although only 232 were licensed. Southwark Council told us it actively works to identify suspect properties and protect tenants. Tower Hamlets Council said it thought the data was incorrect and that it actively investigates reports of unlicensed properties. Newham Council said it uses advanced systems to identify unlicensed HMOs and follows up all resident complaints, but it said enforcement is time-consuming because tenants are often "among the most vulnerable members of society". It said it had investigated 2,307 alleged failures to licence properties between January 2023 and March this year.

Many council enforcement teams appear to be overstretched. According to responses to Freedom of Information requests, only about a third of complaints raised by renters in England between 2021 and 2023 were followed by a local authority inspection. The government's Renters' Rights Bill, currently passing through Parliament, is due to create a national database of private rented properties in England, which will help councils "clamp down on unlicensed properties", London's deputy mayor for housing Tom Copley told the BBC. The growth of unlicensed HMOs means it is not only single renters caught up in them - sometimes entire families are crammed into single rooms in shared houses. Marius Judzinskas, who is originally from Lithuania, moved into a shared house in Greenwich, south-east London. Shortly afterwards, his wife joined him. A council officer later said in a report that the property should have been licensed as an HMO.

Marius Judzinskas says he had no choice but to bring up his family in a single room in a shared house

The couple spent nine years there, and went on to have a family in their small room, squeezing in two cots and all their possessions. "People like me, we don't have a choice," he says. The family had to wait to use the bathroom or the cooker, and conditions were unhygienic, he says. They captured video of rats in the kitchen. Relationships with the landlord and other tenants broke down and Marius was asked to leave, he says. The family returned home one day and found the locks had been changed, he says. They tried to climb in through an open window so they could put their nine-month old baby in the room to sleep, but the police were called. They were evicted.

A security camera filmed rats (circled) in the kitchen of the house Marius shared

Marius is now taking legal action against the people who managed his former home, through a rent repayment order, to try to claw back some of what he paid. Renters in homes where landlords have broken the law, including by failing to register an HMO, can claim up to a year's rent back. Eviction is a particular risk with unlicensed HMOs, says Roz Spencer from Safer Renting, which helps tenants in disputes with landlords. The issue of unlicensed HMOs is growing, she says. "We are being referred more people and I believe the problem is spreading and the non-compliance issue is endemic."

Police arrived when Marius and his family were locked out of the house

Chris Norris, chief policy officer for the National Residential Landlords Association, says most landlords operate within the law and only have one or two properties that are well looked after. But he says: "There is this view or perception that landlords can get away with it because, frankly, some landlords do." Local authorities do not have the capacity to enforce the licensing regime, he says, but it is only a "tiny minority" of landlords responsible for these bad practices. The government says the Renters' Rights Bill will address the situation, "empowering" tenants to act without the threat of retaliation. It says it expects local authorities to "clamp down on rogue landlords" and "HMOs must be safe, well-maintained, and properly managed". But in the meantime, many thousands of people are likely to be stuck in potentially dangerous homes.

The BBC World Service has pieced together the stories of Layan al-Majdalawi, two, and Mira Tanboura, six, both killed in Gaza in separate incidents in November 2023, in areas where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was operating.

In response to our findings, the IDF said the details of Layan and Mira's cases had been recorded and "will be examined by the competent authorities". It added: "Intentional harm to civilians, especially children, is strictly prohibited."

Layan and Mira are just two of more than 160 cases of children shot in the war in Gaza, for whom we have gathered accounts.

We found that in 95 of these cases, the child had been shot in the head or chest. In 59 of those, we obtained testimony from eyewitnesses, either directly or via human rights organisations and medics. The witnesses alleged that 57 of these children were shot by the IDF, and two were shot by Palestinians - one in celebratory gunfire and the other in a gang conflict.

For the remaining 36 out of the 95 cases, we have no account of what happened. Israel bans foreign reporters from entering Gaza independently, and the destruction and displacement make gathering details difficult.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has told the BBC the world cannot accept as a "new normal" the type of warfare that allows so many children to be shot.

Kyiv toll rises to 26 after wave of Russian strikes defies Trump ceasefire demand

58 minutes ago Share Save Jonathan Beale Defence correspondent in Kyiv Paul Kirby Europe digital editor in London Share Save

Watch: Explosions seen in Kyiv during Russian attack

The death toll from a barrage of Russian drones and missiles that struck several districts of Kyiv early on Thursday morning has risen to 26, including three children, while 159 others were wounded, officials said. The attack brought down an apartment block. A six-year-old boy and his mother were among the dead, as more than two dozen locations across the Ukrainian capital were hit. Ukraine's interior ministry said three children had died and 16 were among the wounded. Kyiv's mayor said it was the biggest number of children hurt in one night since the full-scale war began. Russian attacks have continued despite US President Donald Trump's threat to impose tougher sanctions on Moscow if Vladimir Putin does not agree to a ceasefire by 8 August.

The toll was revised after "rescuers retrieved 10 bodies from the rubble of the residential building in Sviatoshynsky district, including the body of a two-year-old child", Ukraine's interior ministry posted on Telegram. "Both Russia and Ukraine must negotiate a ceasefire and durable peace. It is time to make a deal," acting US representative to the United Nations John Kelley told the UN Security Council on Thursday. "President Trump has made clear this must be done by 8 August." The high-pitched hum of Russian drones could be heard for hours over the city, interrupted by the occasional loud thunder clap of a missile strike. Russia launched 309 drones and eight cruise missiles during the night, according to Ukraine's air force. And although officials say air defences did manage to destroy many of them, there were numerous hits including from cruise missiles. A red-orange glow indicated destruction on the ground. These were the biggest airstrikes since Trump brought forward an earlier deadline to Putin. The threat of more US sanctions appears to have done little to persuade the Russian president to change course. Meanwhile, Russia claimed further success on the battlefield, declaring that it had captured the strategically important hilltop town of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region. Ukraine denied it had fallen, however, and military analysts said fighting there was continuing.

Roman Petushkov/Global Images Ukraine Three people were killed when an apartment block was brought down

Three of the fatalities in Kyiv were at the site of the residential apartment block. "An entire entrance was destroyed. Rescuers are clearing the rubble," said Ukraine's interior minister Ihor Klymenko. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the capital was the focus of Russia's overnight attacks. "The world has yet again seen Russia's response to our, America's and Europe's desire for peace. More demonstrative murder," he said on social media. "This is why peace without strength is impossible." Kyiv's Sviatoshynskyi and Solomyansky districts were hit hardest in the attack. The windows of a hospital ward for children in Shevchenkivskyi district were blown out by a shockwave, Kyiv's mayor said on Telegram. One of the city's higher education institutions, a school and a kindergarten were also damaged. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a "horrible morning" in Kyiv, and that there are "still people under the rubble". Sybiha added that Trump had been "very generous and patient" with Putin, but now it was time to put "maximum pressure on Moscow" through sanctions.

Reuters

US envoy to visit Gaza, as hospital says dozens killed seeking food

'I invite Mr Witkoff to see for himself,' says American doctor in Gaza

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said 111 people had been killed, 91 of them while seeking aid, in the 24 hours before Thursday midday.

Witkoff, who is on a visit to Israel, also had a "productive" meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the press secretary added.

Leavitt said Witkoff would visit the territory along with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and "secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear first-hand about this dire situation on the ground".

US special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Gaza on Friday to inspect food distribution sites, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has confirmed.

Shortly after his envoy's arrival in Israel, US President Donald Trump wrote on social media: "The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!"

Israeli officials have threatened that if there is no progress in the coming days on a ceasefire and hostage release deal, then they may take new punitive steps against Hamas. Israeli media reported that those could include annexing parts of Gaza.

Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said Israeli forces fired at the crowds gathered around aid lorries. The Israeli military said troops fired "warning shots" but that it was "not aware of any casualties".

Footage showed casualties from the incident near the Zikim crossing being taken on carts to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

A hospital director told the BBC that more than 50 Palestinians were killed and 400 others injured while waiting for food near a crossing in northern Gaza on Wednesday.

Witkoff's Gaza visit is 'reflection of close work' US has been doing, says State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce

Witkoff will visit Gaza a day after his meeting with Netanyahu, where they focused on "dilemmas" such as food and aid in Gaza, Leavitt said.

The announcement comes after reports that he would visit food distribution sites run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

In Gaza, the health ministry said on Thursday that 111 people had been killed and 820 others injured by Israel's military offensive in the last 24 hours.

In a separate statement, the ministry said two people had died of malnutrition in the past day, bringing the total number of malnutrition deaths since the start of the war to 159, including 90 children.

On Tuesday, UN-backed global food security experts warned that the "worst-case scenario of famine" was "currently playing out" among the 2.1 million population.

UN agencies have said there is man-made, mass starvation in Gaza and blamed Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies to Gaza. But Israel has insisted that there are no restrictions on aid deliveries and that there is "no starvation".

Despite that, four days ago it implemented measures that it has said are aimed at helping the UN and its partners collect aid from crossings and distribute it within Gaza, including daily "tactical pauses" in military operations in three areas and the creation of what it calls "designated humanitarian corridors".

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday that 43 aid packages containing food for residents in southern and northern Gaza had been airdropped, and "it would continue to work in order to improve the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, along with the international community".

The UN's humanitarian office has said the tactical pauses do not allow for the continuous flow of supplies required to meet the immense needs of the population, and that desperately hungry crowds continue to offload supplies from lorries as they pass through Israeli crossings.

The director of al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told the BBC on Thursday morning that it had received the bodies of 54 people who were killed in the incident in the Zikim area on Wednesday, as well as 412 injured people.

On Wednesday night, the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency told AFP news agency that at least 30 people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd waiting for aid there.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that its al-Saraya field hospital and al-Quds hospital in Gaza City had received a total of six dead and 274 injured from the same incident.

The IDF said in a statement that "dozens of Gazans was identified gathering around aid trucks in northern Gaza, and in close proximity to IDF troops operating in the area".

"The troops fired warning shots in the area, not directed at the gathering, in response to the threat posed to them," it added.

"According to an initial inquiry, the IDF is not aware of any casualties as a result of IDF fire. The details of the incident are still being examined."

International journalists are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza independently, so it is difficult to verify what happened.

However, one man interviewed by a local freelance journalist working for the BBC said he knew a teenage boy who was killed.

"In the current situation, there is no food or water. People go to get food from the Zikim area, where they are targeted. He went to bring flour but came back carried in the flour bag," he said.

"What was his fault? They sniped him in the middle of his head. He wasn't carrying a rock, or a weapon, or doing anything wrong. His only fault was being Palestinian and living in Gaza."

Abu Taha al-Kafarneh, a unemployed father of two who was the main breadwinner for his family, was also among the dead, another man told the BBC.

"He went to get a bag of flour to secure his food for the day... He didn't want to trade it, sell it, or profit from it like many of the looting merchants," he said.

He added: "They [Israel] claim they let food in, but instead increase the number of those killed and martyred as much as they can. The morgue is full."

On Wednesday morning, hospital sources told the BBC that six people were killed near an aid distribution centre run by GHF in the Rafah area.

The IDF told the BBC a "gathering of suspects" it said posed a threat to its troops were told to move away, and subsequently the army fired "warning shots" at a distance of "hundreds of metres away" from the site.

The military also said that "an initial review suggests that the number of casualties reported does not align with the information held by the IDF".

The GHF said no killings took place at or near its sites on Wednesday.

Radioactive wasp nest found at old US nuclear weapons site

Investigators say the contamination is not related to a nuclear waste leak, and that there was no impact to "the environment, or the public".

"The wasp nest was sprayed to kill wasps, then bagged as radiological waste," says a US Department of Energy report released last week. No wasps were found at the site near Aiken in South Carolina.

A radioactive wasp nest with radiation levels ten times of what is allowed under regulations was found at a facility that once produced parts for US nuclear weapons, federal officials said.

The nest was discovered by workers who routinely inspect for nuclear radiation at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, on 3 July.

It was found on a post nearby to where millions of gallons of liquid nuclear waste are stored, but there was no leak from the waste tanks, the report said.

Investigators attribute the dangerously-high levels found on the nest to what is called "onsite legacy radioactive contamination" - the residual radioactivity that remains from the time when the site was actively producing parts for nuclear bombs during the Cold War.

The site opened in the 1950s, when it was creating plutonium to be used in the core of nuclear bombs. It continues to operate today, but with a focus on nuclear material for power plants.

The energy department report notes that the wasps that lived within the nest would have significantly lower radiation levels than the nest itself.

It also points out that wasps generally fly only a few hundred feet from their nest, and that the nest was found in the middle of the 310-square-mile Savannah River Site - meaning there is little chance they flew outside of the facility.

"No contamination was found in the area," the report notes. "There were no impacts to workers, the environment or the public,"

Savannah River Site Watch, a watchdog group that monitors the site, said that many questions remain unanswered.

"I'm as mad as a hornet that SRS didn't explain where the radioactive waste came from or if there is some kind of leak from the waste tanks that the public should be aware of," spokesman Tom Clements told the Associated Press.

The site once generated more than 165 million gallons (625 million litres) of liquid nuclear waste, according to Savannah River Mission Completion.

There are still 43 of the underground tanks in use, while eight have been closed.

April 3, 2005. It's 02:00 in Washington.

Stephan Weiler is woken by a "dreaded call". A voice said: "Is Becky Zerlentes your wife?'

"I said 'yes', and the official from Denver Health Medical Center and Hospital told me I need to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Her condition was deteriorating."

Up until that day, a female boxer in the United States had never died in a sanctioned fight.

In succumbing to that devastating blow, Zerlentes - who three years previously won a regional boxing title - had rewritten history.

While the tales of fighters like Johnny Owen and Jimmy Doyle, external are enshrined in history, the impact of Zerlentes' death on the community in Denver and on those who loved her has remained private.

Zerlentes' love affair with combat sports defined her life, an overwhelming rush every time she stepped inside the confines of a boxing ring or MMA cage.

Like most amateur fighters, 34-year-old Zerlentes embraced a career away from the ropes, working as a geography and economics professor at Front Range Community College's Larimer County campus, earning a master's and PhD.

The buzz she enjoyed inside the classroom was complemented by her love of sport, especially in combat.

On that fight night, Weiler remained in the capital of the US, continuing his three-year stay at the Federal Reserve, the country's central banking system.

He had constantly been asked by Zerlentes to return to Fort Collins, the former military outpost nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and promised he soon would.

Facing Heather Schmitz, Zerlentes was taking part in the Colorado State Boxing Senior Female Championships at the Denver Coliseum in Colorado, a venue that has crammed more than 10,000 people in when the Rolling Stones or Rage Against the Machine have been in town. Both women wore protective headgear.

For two rounds Zerlentes worked, trading punches with Schmitz until the third.

With a blow to the head, just above her left eye, Zerlentes staggered forward, struck the canvas and fell unconscious - a state she would remain in until her death the following morning.

"The doctor in the ring said her pupils were fixed and dilated when he saw her first and already there was a chance that brain damage had occurred," Weiler, now a professor, said.

By 06:30 Weiler was on a flight to Denver and immediately made his way to the hospital. There he saw Zerlentes.

"The amount of damage to Becky's brain was remarkable given that it was a fairly glancing blow," he said.

"It was not a hard hit... but the brain had become bruised to such an extent that it could no longer operate."

The life support Zerlentes had been placed on was beginning to fail, and that "clinically she was probably already dead in the ring", Weiler recalled.

And then he had to make a choice.

"At about noon that morning, the decision was made, knowing that her condition was deteriorating, I made the choice that it was time," he said.

The reaction to her death was immediate.

Tributes flooded in across Denver. Colleagues, students and others who knew Zerlentes described the warmth and tenacity of one of the college and community's pillars.

Everton have had an offer of £27m rejected for 19-year-old Southampton winger Tyler Dibling.

The Toffees retain an interest in the England Under-21 international and are expected to make an improved offer to land the highly-rated attacker.

Dibling has attracted interest from a number of Premier League clubs after scoring twice in 33 Premier League appearances for the relegated Saints last season.

He also scored a double against Swansea City in the third round of the FA Cup in January.

Everton have struggled to strengthen their squad this summer, with manager David Moyes saying the club are "running out" of time to sign players despite having money to spend.

They have signed striker Thierno Barry from Villarreal for £27m, young left-back Adam Aznou from Bayern Munich and reserve keeper Mark Travers, but five experienced starters, including Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Abdoulaye Doucoure, have left the Merseyside club.

Everton failed in their attempt to sign Kenny Tete from Fulham earlier in the transfer window with the Dutch defender opting to sign a new deal at Craven Cottage.

Watch Pape Sarr scores from near that halfway line, as Tottenham claimed a 1-0 pre-season victory over Arsenal in the first north London derby outside of the United Kingdom.

READ MORE: Sarr scores winner in first overseas north London derby