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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent

Residents warned council landlord about overcrowded flat before fatal fire

The overcrowded flat at Maddocks House, Tarling West estate in Tower Hamlets before the fire
The overcrowded flat at Maddocks House, Tarling West estate in Tower Hamlets before the fire. Photograph: Tarling West residents' association

Residents repeatedly warned a council landlord about a dangerously overcrowded flat but the problem was not solved before a fatal fire left one man dead, the Guardian has learned.

At least 18 men, mostly students and delivery couriers from Bangladesh, were squeezed into bunk beds in a two-bedroom flat in the Maddocks House council block in Tower Hamlets, east London. Some residents slept in the kitchen, a source said, and the tenants together paid the flat’s private leaseholder owner about £8,000 a month.

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