These are the appalling living conditions suffered by vulnerable tenants at the mercy of Manchester’s worst slum landlords.

Raids on scores of privately rented properties across the city have revealed horrific living conditions - including homes with no heating, dangerous electrics, appalling damp and broken and rotting windows.

Children were living in some of the homes, while other landlords were mainly renting to vulnerable people.

Many of the properties raided by Manchester’s housing officers were above shops, including on Hyde Road in Gorton and Wilmslow Road in Rusholme. In most cases the landlord in question owned scores of homes across the city.

Images at one Hyde Road flat reveal a children’s buggy propped up against a mouldy wall, rotting window-frames and a huge hole where the floor had disintegrated.

Officers say the landlord has 50 properties across north and east Manchester, where he rents to tenants ‘who are often vulnerable and generally do not complain to the council about property conditions’.

On Clarendon Road in Whalley Range, flats owned by Stockport-based Beckhall Properties - who had already been fined £12,000 for safety regulations at other properties a few months earlier - featured rotting window frames, water leaking through the ceiling and a broken back window that hadn’t been fixed.

“Regular requests for service were received from tenants regarding disrepair, and there had been delays in carrying out works and previous non-compliance with enforcement notices,” according to the council.

They were subsequently slapped with a record fine of £114,000 for a string of regulation breaches - including a broken fire alarm and fire doors, disconnected smoke and heat detectors, failing to provide gas and electrical safety certificates, a dangerous staircase, dampness and overgrown land.

Another landlord who owns scores of homes across Crumpsall, Blackley and Cheetham Hill - whose residents were reluctant to complain or deal with the council - was slapped with a string of hazard warning letters. One home was found to have no heating at all, with the tenant forced to pile extension cables into dangerously overloaded sockets in order to warm it with fan heaters.

All the landlords have been fined or face ongoing legal action and some have since begun to improve their properties, although the town hall admits improving the city’s worst rentals is a work in progress.

The specific crackdown was linked to a similar initiative by Salford council, which the M.E.N. revealed earlier this week. Officers there discovered sheds being rented out as family flats for £80 a week.

Both operations - which took place last year - were the result of one-off £60,000 government grants to each council.

Coun Bernard Priest, Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council, said: “The focus was to tackle known rogue private sector landlords in specific problem areas where we already have held intelligence that there may be sub-standard properties blighting the families and tenants living there.

“Disrepair, overcrowding, lack of heating or hot water were common problems, and non-compliance with building regulations were putting lives at risk. Poor or non-existent property management meant many of the tenants were unable to improve their situation, or were unclear on their rights as tenants.

“Our targeted, pro-active approach has made sure that we have secured some long-term improvements at these homes, but this is likely the tip of the iceberg and it’s important that we can broaden the scope of private sector enforcement action to see a wide-scale improvement in private rented properties.”

Generation Rent, the national organisation that lobbies on behalf of private tenants, said the appalling conditions uncovered in Manchester were all too common.

Spokesman Dan Craw Wilson said new powers for councils to ban rogue landlords altogether - due to come in October - should be exercised to the full, as well as new abilities to track landlords and hold onto the fines slapped on those who break rules.

“Currently a lot of people are finding themselves in mouldy, cold properties but the landlord isn’t doing enough and not even the council is in a position to force them to do it,” he said.

“But this will give councils more powers to proactively intervene. They’ll need to be working proactively with tenants to identify problems before they become an issue and there’ll need to be pressure on them to make sure they make the most of these new powers.”

Manchester town hall is now rolling out a ‘selective licensing scheme’ in parts of the city believed to be a particular problem, starting with Moston and Withington.

That would require landlords in those areas to acquire a license before renting out properties, giving the council more control over standards.

The scheme is now out to consultation at www.manchester.gov.uk/consultations .

- Have you struggled with bad housing conditions at the hands of a rogue landlord? Send your stories and pictures to jennifer.williams@trinitymirror.com.