A landlord has been ordered to pay nearly £19,000 after his tenants were found to be living in unsafe, squalid conditions with an infestation of mice.

Nine unrelated people, including an 18-month-old baby, were packed into the five-bedroom home in Ilford.

Redbridge housing standards officers found that the three-storey house had no fire alarm system, no guarding on the staircase, all fire escapes obstructed and a defective electrical installation.

Properties with three or more floors, five or more tenants or two or more families must have a Multiple Occupation licence, which landlord, Abdul Rashid Warishaully, 44, did not have.

He was served with an Emergency Prohibition Order to prevent the home being occupied but continued to rent out the house in Cavenham Gardens after reconnecting unsafe electrics.

Warishaully failed to attend court on July 11 and was found guilty in his absence of 15 offences under the Housing Act 2004, which included management offences, breaches of the emergency prohibition order, failing to license a multiple occupancy home and failing to provide the council with safety certificates.

Warishaully was fined £16,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,794 and a victim surcharge of £120. He denied responsibility for the state of the property and claimed it was due to “the way the tenants chose to live”.

He said: “I had nothing to do with people living there. One of the tenants moved all the other tenants in, not me.” He added that a tenant had made electrical repairs without his permission and “done them wrong”. He also claimed that tenants had “poured 10 kilogrammes of roti flour into a drawer” despite his warnings that it would attract rodents. Warishaully claimed he missed his court date because of illness.

Councillor Muhammed Javed, cabinet member for housing in Redbridge, said: “The conditions found at this property were truly appalling and it has placed the tenants’ safety at considerable risk.”

Redbridge has an amnesty until August 31 for landlords of multiple occupant homes to apply for an HMO licence.