A raid on a house has uncovered appalling conditions including a Slumdog Millionaire-style shanty town shack made from wood offcuts, pallets and tarpaulins.
The raid on the Wembley property made by Brent Council’s enforcement team found 31 people living in what was originally a four bedroom house.
The shack, which is in the garden of the house, is unheated and unlit and was being used to house the only woman living at the address.
The property is owned by what the council calls “an unscrupulous landlord” who now faces prosecution.
A council statement said the property had been converted from its original state to have nine bedrooms, each stuffed with bunk beds in order to cram in as many tenants as possible.
It is thought the landlord was earning in the region of £80,000 a year in rent.
A spokesman for Brent Council says the discovery marks “a new low” and adds that the shack “looks like something you would expect to see in a Hollywood depiction of a shanty town, not Zone 4 of London.”