Rogue landlords harass or illegally evict tenants

To show the reality of Life for many private tenants, Shelter conducted a survey of environmental health officers and found over 90% who deal directly with private renters had encountered landlords harassing or illegally evicting tenants.

Other results from the survey, conducted through the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, paint a very worrying picture of the massive impact this small but dangerous group of landlords are having on private renters. Headline results include:

• Almost 100% of environmental health officers say they have encountered landlords who persistently ignore their responsibilities
• Half of EHOs believe the main reason for letting unsafe properties is to make as much money as possible.
• Over 90% of environmental health officers said they had encountered cases of severe damp, mould, electrical or fire safety hazards in properties they investigated in the last year.
• Over 60% of environmental health officers said that more than half of their cases involved people from vulnerable groups.
• Over half of CIEH members believe environmental health problems in the private rented sector are set to get worse in the next year.

One officer cited the case of a property he visited that was in such poor condition the property was being rented out with absolutely no heating, hot water or electricity. Another officer witnessed a case where a mother and her young child lived with no kitchen facilities, no fire precautions and only a halogen heater to heat the house.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter said: "It is simply not acceptable that people are handing over their hard earned cash to live in houses that are run-down, squalid and in some cases even dangerous.

"Our investigation shows just how ruthless a minority of rogue landlords can be. But this is not just the odd crook here and there. We know there are people operating in cities up and down the county and it's clear that this is a national problem that urgently needs a national solution.”