A 75-year-old man who kept valuable classic cars buried in undergrowth has been left heartbroken after the city council ordered waste removal workers to clear some of them away.
Rein Perens said he "couldn't believe it" when the council moved in using pest control legislation to remove three of the vehicles, which he had kept behind padlocked timber sheets in his overgrown front garden. Several of the other cars, which include Porsches, Mercedes-Benzes and other vehicles, are still at a separate rented site in Cardiff which had become so overgrown that many of the cars were hardly visible.
The thousands of people who drive down busy Llandaff Road in Pontcanna every day would have had little clue as to what lay behind the timber sheets guarding the front entrance to the rundown, overgrown terraced home that has belonged to Rein ever since his godmother died. Yet its neglected state led him into conflict with the city council.
