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Evicted at a cost of £500,000: 200 squatters who took over four blocks of flats next to £1m homes
Last updated at 09:01am on 28.08.08
With leafy drives, detached homes, a junior school and an old people's home, Atkins Road seemed the perfect haven for working families.
Or at least it was until an army of squatters decided its charms were too good to be wasted on middle-class homeowners.
And so, within the space of a day, the tranquillity was shattered by 200 new occupants, complete with drums, alcohol and their worldly possessions in a few scruffy sacks.
Out: Squatters in front of the flats on Wednesday
Homeowners in the affluent road in Clapham, South London, have endured five months of all-night parties, rubbish and stray dogs.
On Wednesday, as police and bailiffs began to enforce an eviction order, the squatters were unrepentant.
Polish migrant Yusef boasted he earned £500 a week as a builder - more than the average wage. He added: 'I don't want to pay rent because I am saving for my future.'
Moni, 27, who was born in Italy to Indian parents, earns £700 a month in a shop. He said: 'I can afford to eat nicely and travel, rather than wasting my money on a landlord.'
The squatters arrived en masse in March, taking advantage of a council blunder to move into four empty blocks of flats.
Time to go: Police helped make sure the squatters moved out
Police and private security move in to evict the squatters who have been making life hell for surrounding residents
Atkins Road, where homes sell for £1million, became strewn with broken furniture and beer bottles and covered in graffiti.
The squatters include Britons, Argentinians,Poles, Irish, French, Germans and Mauritians.
They acted after hearing the flats - owned by Annington Homes - would become vacant when the lease held by Lambeth Council to use them as temporary accommodation expired in April.
Squatters reveal their reaction to being evicted from the building where they had been living
Upscale: Residents in nearby Atkins Road say they are scared and furious at the takeover of the estate
They moved in during the handover period in March, changed the locks and claimed squatters' rights.
Because the council could not return the flats to the owner, since they were not vacant, taxpayers have had a monthly bill of £50,000.
Barbara Glosby, 70, of the old people's home next door, said: 'We have no peace. At night, all you hear is drums, dogs barking, fireworks and music. You can't sleep.'
Manager Doreen Combs added: 'We have tenants aged 60 to 100 and they've been keeping them awake all night, sometimes till 8am.'
Rubbish tip: Some of the mess left behind after the squatters moved in
Dulce Lopes, 31, who lives opposite, said: 'It's very dirty and there are cars and people coming in the night. Sometimes we feel scared.'
Police and security guards were verbally abused as they began evicting the occupants, who will leave taxpayers with a bill of £500,000 for fees and damage.
Dave McEvoy, chairman of the road's residents' association, said: 'Parties have been going on for months, they are loud and go on all night. The council should have handled the flats better. I don't know why they weren't guarded.'
Three squatters shift their gear using a stolen supermarket trolley
Our right: Some of the squatters defended their right to live in the flats and said they had offered to pay rent
After he spoke to the Mail, 25-year-old Scottish squatter Sasha told him: 'I can only apologise for the fact that you had that experience. I do not want to cause trouble. I squat because it gives you a sense of community.
'My parents don't agree with it. My dad's a fireman, mum's a nurse. We've had many arguments.'
Lambeth Council said: 'We share the concerns of residents and have done all we can to help the property owners to remove squatters as quickly as possible.
'Squatting is an illegal and antisocial activity that results in a cost to the taxpayer.'
Annington Homes said: 'We have agreed a new lease for these properties with a housing association. We took over legal proceedings recently from Lambeth and were granted a possession order.'
Mess: One of the areas in the building which has been taken over by the squatters
Reader views (18)
Good post, Inbreda. Balanced and fair.
- Fedup, Preston, 15/03/2009 23:05
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If you are going to suqat treat the property and area you choose to live in with respect. That way people wont react.
My experience of squatters is they take and do not give.
- Stuart, UK Luton, 28/08/2008 10:39
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Polish? Not surprised.
- Jc, London, 28/08/2008 09:49
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I cannot believe they are evicting people who are willing to pay rent - babies included - just to protect some snobby women with their posh houses (jags and 4x4s). It's a disgrace - they should have let them stay. The government is trying to keep house prices high, so they have to expect that poorer people will have to find some place to live. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Thanks new labour.
- Inbreda, Notts, 28/08/2008 09:33
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>>Polish migrant Yusef boasted he earned £500 a week as a builder - more than the average wage. He added: 'I don't want to pay rent because I am saving for my future.
Says it all really. Anyone still think uncontrolled immigration is a good thing?
- Adam, Harrow, uk, 28/08/2008 08:26
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Surely the real crime here are properties like that being touted for
£1 Million!
How the hell are normal people expected to live these days?
In hovels?
- Danny, London, 28/08/2008 00:26
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Another reason for getting out of the EU.
- Np, Cornwall, UK (Until the food runs out), 28/08/2008 00:18
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"The real issue is the difficulty of getting housed, due to profiteering through privatisation and gentrification, which leads to unaffordable rents and the need to take personal action." (Nice hot button rationalized cant, as usual from people 'claiming their rights')
...such as moving into properties that have been renovated and are unoccupied only because of that?
...such as moving in on property that was earmarked for someone else that has been waiting at least as long as the squatters?
...such as treating the stolen property like a garbage tip because it isn't theirs and they know they'll compelled to leave at some point
...such as stripping the property of valuable fittings once they move in?
Legal, it might still technically be. But the laws you're using to squat are not meant to deprive other people of THEIR homes - they are to have open property that has been left unoccupied and is unlikely to be occupied anytime soon made available.
It is not a thieves charter. People are all too ready to claim their rights, while trampling other people's rights in the process. THAT is what squatting is seen to be - not the (self-)righteous social exercise of 'rights' its invariably claimed to be.
- Rogan, DFW TX, 28/08/2008 00:14
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Yet another reason for me to be glad I left Britain. Squatting is a crime here in Wisconsin. People who move into empty properties are criminally prosecuted for criminal damage and will receive a civil citation for trespass. And with respect to tenants who stop paying, it takes less than a month to get rid of them, if you follow the rules (I've got rental property and also practice law here).
- Andrea, Wisconsin, USA, 27/08/2008 23:41
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Funny,
You never see people with a genuine need squatting, it is always the same middle class wannabe beatniks, sorry 'performance artistes/aspiring writers ' who create a fantasy land of living together in perfect social harmony at someone else's expense. By someone else's expense, I mean you, me and every other poor soul paying through the nose to maintain a basic existence by working and paying our taxes.
Working class people are too busy working and surviving to have the time to do this type of senseless and parasitic activity!
- Dpc, London, 27/08/2008 21:48
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Squatting is still legal, as specified in Section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The real issue is the difficulty of getting housed, due to profiteering through privatisation and gentrification, which leads to unaffordable rents and the need to take personal action.
- M.T. Holmes, London, UK, 27/08/2008 15:12
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I am disgusted that Lambeth Council has allowed the squatters to get in and waste so much money. It is back to the bad old days of the Loony Left in Lambeth. It is time to sack the Labour councillors at the Town Hall who just don't care about decent local people.
- Lambeth Taxpaer, London, 27/08/2008 13:59
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Would anyone expect anything less from a council?
- N Grinsell, london, 27/08/2008 13:45
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Property is theft! (Pierre-Joseph Proudhon)
- Mick, London, England, 27/08/2008 13:45
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Disgusting
Only in UK would we allow this to happen..
Go and work like I have to. Yes I would rather not have to work 40 hours a week to pay my mortgage but I do.
Change the law so this doesn't keep happening.
- Roberta, London, 27/08/2008 13:30
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I have a young baby and I also struggle to pay my mortgage of over 1k per month. I don't go round squatting though do I?
Sorry I have no sympathy for the squatters - apply for council residence like millions of other and go on the waiting list. Why should you get priority over others? Another waste of my hard earned tax money!
- Smb, London, UK, 27/08/2008 13:11
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I find it amazing that Britain still has these archaic laws relating to squatting. Spain has it right, if you have somebody squatting in your property you telephone the Guardia Civil and within hours they remove the squatters at gunpoint. Squatting is after all property theft.
- Casper Slides, Ibiza, Spain, 27/08/2008 12:09
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Hopefully they'll squat some of the nice houses when their owners go away on holiday!
- Neil, london uk, Airstrip ONE ., 27/08/2008 11:41
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