
A landlord has revealed shocking photos of the disgusting mess that greeted him after his tenants moved out.

Neil Carpenter faced a £2,000 repair bill after a mother and her two sons left excrement on beds and walls at his house in Tow Law, County Durham and used the bath as a toilet.

The two-bedroom terrace had bags of rubbish piled a metre high outside, rubbish strewn about indoors and the toilet had become unusable after being blocked with a child's toy.

These are the horrific scenes which greeted a landlord in County Durham when a mother and her sons left his property

As well as dumping litter in the garden of the two-bedroom terrace home, bags of rubbish covered the hallways

The 33-year-old landlord said: 'The smell was just horrendous. The fridge had been moved to block the door in between the kitchen and the bathroom and when you moved that and went into the bathroom you realised that was where the stench was coming from.

'The carpets were unrecognisable. It smelled like death. That's the only way I can describe it.

'The neighbours had complained previously about the rubbish piled up in the back and I had personally got rid of that for her.

'I visited the house about twelve months after she moved in to complete standard electricity and gas checks.

'The house wasn't clean - it needed to be hoovered, dusted and cleaned but it was in nowhere near the state that I found it in after they left.'

Mr Carpenter said the house 'smelled like death' when he tried to clean it. A picture shows the amount of rubbish left there

As well as using the bathroom as a toilet, the family soiled the carpets in the home and left stinking rubbish in the hallways

The landlord told of his difficulty in cleaning the home due to the scale of the mess left by his tenants

The tenants, who have not been named, lived in the property for 18 months and Mr Carpenter, who works in the construction industry, said he had always received the rent on time because it had been paid through the council.

He said: 'I had no real problems with the tenant so I was taken by surprise to find the state the house was in.

'They moved out in April 2015 and I had to spend £2,000 to get the house right again.

'It needed cleaning right through, I had to get a new bathroom suite and I had to get rid of the shed outside because it had started to rot.'

Mr Carpenter also revealed how he was concerned for the two children living in the house.

Mr Carpenter said he was shocked that two children could have lived in the horrific conditions he uncovered at the house

Photos he took of the mess show rubbish strewn out all over the rural property's carpets and bags of junk left near stairs

He said: 'It was a disgusting environment for two kids to be living in. I sent an email to social services with all the pictures of the property after it had been left.'

After the clean-up had been completed, Mr Carpenter decided to sell the house.

He said: 'This was the first tenant I had that I didn't know and didn't research and I just don't want to go through that again.