Council prosecutes man barred from own house after dangerous DIY work
A local authority has succeeded in having a homeowner banned from living in his own home after he carried out a series of "potentially dangerous and illegal" DIY alterations.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council later prosecuted the man for failing to comply with an order barring anyone from living in the semi-detached property.
The local authority had received numerous complaints from neighbours about the works. Investigations by its environmental health officers found that the house had:
- No heating throughout the property
- No fixed lighting for the entire property
- Internal cavity wall insulation removed
- No provision of a kitchen and no hot water for a kitchen, and no work surfaces or storage cupboards
- Low headroom and not enough space to sleep in a converted loft, used as a bedroom
- No fixed form of stairs to the loft, no handrail or guards on ground floor stairs
- No hot water to the bathroom sink, and an open drain inside the back of the property
- All electrical sockets for the entire property moved to one central downstairs location
- An unsupported chimney, after the chimney breast column was removed
It subsequently emerged that despite a magistrates’ ruling that the house was uninhabitable, the homeowner had been renting the house out after making further alterations to the property. The council has now identified suitable alternative accommodation for the tenant.
Cllr Gwen Hassall, cabinet member for housing and neighbourhoods at Stoke, said: “The home owner had systematically carried out a range of changes to his property over a number of months. But the changes he made were staggering, and beggared belief.
“He had gutted every room in the property, stripped the walls back to bare brick, raised the height of the ground floor and first floor ceilings, and had been sleeping in a converted loft that was no bigger than three feet in height, because of his alterations.
“The changes created serious hazards, including excessive cold, food safety and personal hygiene hazards, and also damaged the adjoining semi-detached property. He had exposed so much of the ground flooring of the property that the damp proofing course had been removed. This means that ground water can come into the property and damp and mould can grow.”
Cllr Hassall said that all of the changes were carried to the property without the necessary building regulations.
She added that officers had been working closely with the homeowner to help him improve the property in the interests of health and safety, and since then, work had been done. But officers found that staircases had been rebuilt using wooden crates and fastened together with string, internal walls had been rebuilt, using 25mm insulation boards, and plastic coverings had been put across all the exposed brickwork and windows.
The homeowner was taken to court in August. He was fined £910 and ordered to pay £622 in costs to the authority.
