Woman found dead inside ‘swamp’ flat after leak complaints

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A man who found the dead body of his neighbour in her bathroom has told how she had been “distressed” by an ongoing leak that had turned her flat into a “swamp”.

Jeffrey Frimpong, a dad who lived in the flat below the home of the woman, claims she had tried to contact the council about fixing the problem to no avail.

Mr Frimpong, 35, called on the woman in March last year after a leak started dripping through the ceiling of his Tabard Gardens estate flat in Southwark, south London.

Once inside, he found the woman’s kitchen and hallway flooded with water. This was the last time he saw her.

Mr Frimpong told MyLondon: “I went into her house on March 9 2022 and there was water all over the floor and the water was covering the kitchen floor and the hallway.

“She was distressed because of the state of the leak and the state of the property. It was terrible.

“She told me that she tried to contact the council herself and she said no one was helping.”

The woman was found dead in the bathroom of her flat on January 6 after Mr Frimpong called Southwark Council’s emergency hotline when the leak started to drip into a cupboard where his gas metre was.

A council employee who attended said they needed to force entry into the woman’s flat.

When they opened the door, Mr Frimpong said they found her body on the bathroom floor. It is unknown how long she had been there.

He said: “The carpenter opened the door and that’s when I saw the body on the floor in the bathroom.

“We struggled to open the door because of the letters and I saw her hair hanging out from the bathroom door.”

Mr Frimpong added that he’d spent the previous nine months emailing Southwark Council weekly about the worsening leak from the lady’s flat, but that no one came to check on the property.

He said: “I was getting nowhere. They [Southwark] kept saying they couldn’t access her property without going through the courts.

“It was at least every other day I was messaging them by September. That’s when I contacted complaints because nothing was being done about the leak.”

Mr Frimpong added: “Her body was there in the bathroom and my bathroom is directly below hers. Water was dripping into my bathroom from hers and if her body was in the water then who knows what was leaking into our bathroom.”

The Met Police said they were called to a property on Newcomen Street in Borough after a woman’s body was found.

She was pronounced dead at the scene and her death is not being treated as suspicious, the Met added.

Cllr Darren Merrill, Southwark Council’s cabinet member for council homes and homelessness, said: “I am incredibly saddened that a woman has been found dead in one of our council properties, and extend my heartfelt condolences to her family and friends.

“We are supporting the police in establishing the exact circumstances, and thoroughly checking all records the council holds in relation to this property and the tenant.

“I know this is an extremely upsetting situation for people living in the block, and I want to reassure them that we will offer as much support as we can.”

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