Residents demand action after a council flat in Cradley Heath has been uncleaned for weeks after a body was left undiscovered. A Sandwell Council spokesperson told the Express & Star: “At this difficult time, our thoughts are with everyone who knew the resident. We can assure people that circumstances such as this, while extremely sad, are very rare.”
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00:00Hello this is Adam Smith from the Express and Start. We're at Newpool Road in
00:05Cradley Heath. This is a very sad scene and a very smelly scene because on July
00:13the 12th sadly a dead body was found in a flat behind me but they'd been left
00:19for several months and even to this day almost two weeks afterwards it still
00:27hasn't been cleaned. So the residents found out about the body
00:32because of the smell and now they're having to carry on living with the smell
00:37and also knowing that this is the third time somebody has been found dead after
00:42several months in the same row in the last five years. It's the third time and
00:47we've got Simon, a local resident, and we've got Ray from the Reform Party who brought this to the public
00:53attention. Tell us what it's been like Simon. Well, basically you just can't seem to get through to anybody.
01:02People have phoned, there's even been an auditor here on two occasions and he
01:08spoke to the lady upstairs and when she says because he tried to gain access to
01:14the property and when she said well he could be dead in there he said well lift
01:17the door up, lift the letterbox up and smell and if he is, well he's dead as he
01:22walked off. Right, and that's a kind of, there's less resources for social
01:29services to check on people, but what's it been, the lady who lives underneath
01:33understandably doesn't want to be on film, but you can describe the smell, how
01:40would you describe it? Well just like rotten meat. Yeah? Yes, I mean being left
01:45there that long, I mean you don't know what's still in the flat, nothing's been
01:48cleaned up, there's been no team down here at all. How long was he left there for?
01:52I'd say between four and five months. Four and five months, and how many times have you heard of this
01:57similar happening within, where we can see now? Three times in this row. In the last?
02:03Five years. And that's people who have been left? Yeah, left. And we'll ask Ray, who used to be the
02:10Conservative leader at Samoa Council, now Reform, he understands how social
02:14services work, what's the problem? Why are people being found and all left for
02:20dead in their own houses? This didn't used to happen. No, no, in a nutshell it's a multi-agency
02:26failure. We've not only got social services, we've got adult services, we've
02:30got the post office, we've got the chemists, the doctors, you name it, even
02:35the rent and the council tax office. Surely somewhere a flag should have been
02:40put up saying there's nothing happening, there's something gone wrong here, but
02:45they kept, you know, not even a question with regards to the doctor, not even
02:50who's paying for the council tax, why did not anything get flagged up and, you know,
02:54come down and break an entry? It's such a sad, but... Who owns these homes? I believe these are
03:01SMB, Samwell Council. These are not in a housing association.
03:06That's as far as I know. There's simply somebody somewhere who, the book stops mid-journey,
03:13they should be their responsibility to say, hey, why hasn't the rent been paid?
03:17But we've got another thing as well though, Adam. If a person makes a complaint, a concerned
03:22resident makes a complaint, why wasn't that complaint actually pushed through?
03:26Why wasn't it flagged as a major crisis? And let's get in. I understand the poor
03:32soul who's passed was actually known to the council. He had got some issues.
03:37So surely, I cannot see, everything seems to have failed.
03:42And that's the one part, sorry, Ray. So what about the fact that a flat where somebody died has not been cleaned in, what is it, nearly a fortnight?
03:52I can only go back to what it was like, say, ten years or so ago, where I know there could be a deep-cleaning team out here within the hour.
04:00I know that for a fact. I need to put the other residents' minds at peace.
04:04But why it's not happening now, only the council knows.
04:08Tell us about a road, somebody who died in Lawrence Lane, where the only way they found out was because of maggots through the roof.
04:14Is that an urban legend, or did that actually happen?
04:17No, it's actually happened. Yeah, it's up Lawrence Lane, on the corner of Lawrence Lane and Clyde Street.
04:22And there's a lady underneath, she complained for quite a while, and it wasn't until stuff coming through the ceiling
04:28that they actually did something.
04:30This isn't Victorian Britain, this is Craigley Heath, 2024.
04:34Yeah.
04:35And let's see what we can do about it.
04:37The reason why I'm dressed like this is because I will now go into the vestibule where the body was found,
04:47so we'll describe exactly how the smell was.
04:50So if you're wondering why I'm dressed like this, that's why.
04:53Thank you. Adam Smith, Express and Star, July 2024.