Furious neighbours claim hoarder next door has refused to 'empty his bins for 25 YEARS' causing infestation of two-foot rats in their homes
Furious neighbours have claimed a hoarder pensioner living next to their homes has refused to empty his bins for 25 years - causing an infestation of two-foot rats.
Locals in Thornhill, Cardiff, said neighbour Glynn Cross, 80, is making their lives hell with festering mountains of junk and bins piling up in the gardens of his three-bed detached bungalow.
One neighbour said he even has a 4ft-high pile of empty milk cartons which he refuses to throw away.
Now, following a court case in Cardiff this week, retired chemistry teacher Mr Cross has been fined and issued with a criminal behaviour order over the clutter at his home on the smart housing development.
The order means Cardiff council officials can enter his property by force and clean it up. He was also fined £100 for failing to comply with a previous order to tidy up his jungle-like garden.
Mr Cross's long-suffering neighbours are now waiting to see whether or not he will roll his sleeves up and clear the clutter - or have it done by force.
One fed-up neighbour, retired merchant navy worker George Davis, 89, said the stress of living next door to Mr Cross and his vermin have made his wife, Gillian, 85, ill with heart trouble.
'I know it sounds incredible but she has had 81,000 passing-out episodes in the past 10 years because she has been in such pain from her heart and the doctors and specialists have all put it down to living next door to this man,' Mr Davis said.
He added: 'His house and the gardens around his house are an absolute bloody mess.
'Everything he's ever owned is piled up indoors and the gardens are full of whatever he can't fit inside.
'I've never seen the man empty his bins for 25 years.
'As a result, dozens and dozens of rats are nesting in and around his house and they scamper around the estate here looking for food.
'We see three or four every day running across our garden and they are huge. They at least 2 foot long, plus the tail.
'I saw three of them sitting on a branch on a tree in our garden. They were like monkeys.
'My wife was sitting on the patio at the back and she looked down and saw a giant rat sitting next to her. She was terrified.
'I feel sorry for the man, I really do, because clearly this hoarding habit is a psychological problem, but he just has to clear everything out and keep only what he really needs. Why should we all suffer because of his issues?'
Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, told how Mr Cross even grabbed anything he could from skip on their driveway when they were renovating their home on the estate a few weeks ago.
The house owner, a man in his early-30s who works as a mortgage broker, said: 'We were stripping the house out and throwing everything into a skip at the front of our house and one evening Mr Cross called round and asked if he could grab some things out of the skip and take them home with him.
'I didn't have a problem with that because I kind of think, as the saying goes, a rich man's rubbish is a poor man's gold.
'He dived straight into the skip and took just about everything – all the wood, roof tiles, some bricks, anything he could find in there. I've no idea what he did with it.'
Next door neighbours Michael and Diane Clarke, said they wish Mr Cross would leave the estate and find somewhere else to live.
Retired education and careers advisor Mrs Clark, 83 said: 'I've had as much as I can take now.
'I wish him no ill but he is a nightmare to live next door to.
'I don't think he has ever taken any of his rubbish out. He just collects and hoards. It's all there under his roof and in the garden.
'Some of the rooms in the house are so full of his junk that you can't get into them. I've seen the state of the place through his front windows.
'I've asked him to tidy his garden up but he just says 'Diane, you've no idea how people live in the countryside, have you?'.
'It's no wonder we've all got rats terrorising us when he keeps his place like this.
'The other day I was putting dinner out on the dining room table and looked out of the window and saw a huge female rat giving birth. It wasn't a sight we wanted just as we were sitting down to eat.
'Needless to say, my husband and I were not hungry after that.'
Cardiff council's cabinet member responsible for Shared Regulatory Services (SRS), councillor Norma Mackie, said: 'The owner of this property is causing unnecessary suffering to his neighbours due to the state of his back garden.
'This has been going on for two years and his neighbours should not have to continue tolerating it.
'We have tried to help on numerous occasions but even when our contractors went to clear the accumulation of waste on his behalf he refused them access.
'There was no alternative but to take action against him.
'Now that the criminal behaviour order is in place the council has powers to enter the property by force to carry out the work if we need to do so.
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