We have lived in our homes for years... but now our neighbours are costing us thousands - it's a race to become last family standing
Residents of a once-proud neighbourhood say their lives are being turned upside down by a wave of out-of-town landlords converting grand family homes into a patchwork of cramped bedsits.
Locals on Greenbank Road in Darlington, County Durham, say property developers are exploiting loopholes to slice up elegant 19th-century townhouses into 'overcrowded rabbit hutches'.
The residential street, once brimming with families, is now 'overrun' with so-called HMOs - homes of multiple occupation - with landlords attempting to cram up to nine tenants inside the three-storey buildings.
The few families that remain on the road fear their value of their homes plunging as the road becomes a HMO valley - and told of safety fears as transient tenants move in.
Matt Fisher, 47, who lives on Greenbank Road with his four children, said the close-knit community had deteriorated.
He said: 'When we moved here 15 years ago these were all family homes.
'There's only four homes on that side of the road now - the rest are HMOs. Landlords are buying the properties for cheap and converting them all.
'It's ridiculous and it's gone way too far. It's almost a race to see who'll be the last family standing.
'We want our kids to play in the neighbourhood with other kids, but there's no neighbourhood anymore.
'You never know who's moving in and out. They swap and change like yo-yos.
'I think about moving all the time and if I could afford it I would. But every new HMO knocks even more money off the value of my home.
'If I could pick up this house and move it a mile away, it would be worth £100,000 more.'
Looking over the road, where HMOs and self-contained flats are easily spotted due to the number of doorbells and buzzer panels, Mr Fisher said he had noticed a surge in drug dealing and anti-social behaviour.
He added: 'There's drug dealing in the middle of the road - really brazen.
'They literally stand in the street to do deals. A quick swap and off they go.'
At one house, work is underway to transform a home into a money-spinning nine-bed HMO after developers secured the property after the deaths of its elderly owners.
Tenants' individual living and sleeping space, plus an en-suite, will all be based in single rooms of the house, with a shared kitchen. Each will likely pay in the region of £400 to £500 a month - generating a significant return for the landlord.
A neighbour told how her life had become a 'nightmare' after enduring months of building work and spoke of concerns about the impact on her house price.
She said: 'I've had the same neighbours for 40 years on both sides. Now I'll have nine people coming and going at all times of the day.
'Who's going to want to buy my house? I might end up with a house that I can't sell.'
Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, described the HMOs as 'overcrowded rabbit hutches' that were destroying the fabric of the community.
John Ridgeway, 65, who lives on Greenbank Road with wife Sharon, 64, is leading the fightback against the scourge.
Referring to a house under development, he said: 'What really started it for us was what's happening.
'The woman who lived there passed away, and her family sold it off.
'The property was bought by a developer up in Newcastle. At first, they were going to put six people in. Then we got a planning notice to say they want to make it a nine-person HMO.
'Round the back, they've added these huge dormers onto the roof - absolutely massive. The backyard is a tip, just piles of rubbish stripped out of the house.
'These houses are lovely. Big, solid family homes. Yes, they're cheap compared to elsewhere. But they're cheap because of the HMOs. Families don't want to move in anymore.
'We're not looking to move, unless we win the lottery - but it's devaluing our homes. Every family house that gets turned into a HMO knocks a bit more off the rest of us, doesn't it? That's what it comes down to.'
According to Darlington council, there are already 400 HMOs in the town. But locals believe the true figure is much higher because landlords do not need consent for less than six occupants.
Grandfather Sandy Duncan, 86, said: 'I've lived here forty-three years. This whole side of the street used to be families - all of it. That side too. It's just not the same anymore. Now it's all multi-occupants.
'I worry about the rubbish and bins overflowing, and the drainage. Can the pipes cope with nine showers in a morning? I doubt it.
'If I wanted to sell my house now, would I get the price I would've got ten years ago? No. I wouldn't.
'There's no regulation. Up to six people, they don't even need to ask anyone. They can just do it. You just wonder where it ends. No one's really stopping it.'
According to council documents, large HMOs are also planned in nearby streets.
In Station Road, developers want to flip a former family home into a six-bed HMO - the same fate as a three-bed semi in Yarm Road. On Greenbank Road, residents have launched a petition in the hope of getting the local authority to clamp down.
It reads: 'Darlington Borough Council has lost control of the HMO situation in our neighbourhood.
'The council planning department currently has no way of knowing how many houses have already been converted into HMOs.
'Planning law means that now only new HMO conversions for more than six people need planning permission.
'They cannot make reasonable planning decisions by assessing the impact of new, large HMOs on our local streets if they don't know the scale of the local problem.'
Residents want to see the council enforce a legal direction known as Article 4, which means all conversions from single household homes to HMOs need planning permission.
The rule has already been enforced in neighbouring cities such as Middlesbrough and Durham.
A spokesman at Darlington Borough Council said HMOs provided 'a valuable contribution to housing provision for people who could not access the housing market through home ownership or rental'.
It added: 'We also recognise that a concentration of unregulated HMOs can cause issues for neighbouring residents.
'We have been working hard to look into measures, such as an Article Four direction, that can be introduced at the earliest opportunity to help control those smaller HMOs.'
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