'We live on ghost housing estate plagued by squatters and anti-social behaviour'
Residents say the estate is blighted by crime and bad behaviour as most people have moved out.
Residents living in a condemned ghost London housing estate which is set to be demolished said the building is plagued with squatters and anti-social behaviour.
Most of the residents in the 2,000 properties on the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth, South London, have left as it is poised for demolition. Just 30 remain in their homes.
The building has a strange mixture of people waiting to be rehoused and others who refuse to move.
A mum-of-one described being "scared" as the only noise she hears is shouting and an increased police presence in the last week.
Software engineer Brunla Isku, who has a six-year-old daughter, fears her flat could be easily broken into, which she learned when her neighbour was locked out and a man kicked it open with one blow.
Another tenant reported squatters breaking into one flat twice in a week.
Police had to board up the window of his flat, where he lives with his elderly parents, after a group smashed it in to try and live there.
The 25-year-old bartender, said: "Our window has been boarded up by police because some people tried to break in a couple of months ago. They smashed it in and tried to unlock the door from the inside.
"We were inside so they ran away. I’ve lived here my whole life, there’s about eight people on this whole floor now - it feels like a ghost town, it’s so silent, and if you do hear a sound you don’t know if it’s good, bad.
"People run around shooting fireworks at each other because there’s not many people here so they can get away with it."
Aysen Dennis, 64, is fighting to save the building.
Speaking from flat, she said: "It’s normal this quietness, this sadness for everyone, everyone. Because I know my neighbours, none of them is willing to move out."
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She has spent three years without heating in the two-bedroom fat. A pipe burst in a vacant flat above her and flooded her flat.
And she had to use buckets to empty the water as no one from the council was able to help.
At one point, she called London Fire Brigade as the water was affecting the electrics in the flat.
As there are hardly any residents left, she speaks of the "quietness and sadness."
She said: "In the first years I lived here you’d meet all the cleaners, smiling in the corridors, we’d give them a tea, coffee if they’re in the area. Everyone knew each other, chatted to each other.
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Ms Dennis said: "But people have an attitude towards you if you live in a council flat, I don’t know what they think we are, but we are normal human beings.
"They’ve been portrayed and stigmatised - they’ve been saying lots of crime, drug businesses, no, no.
"Everyone says hi, bye. We left our keys in the door several times, and we’ve had neighbours in the middle of the night walk past and knocked and said you’ve left your keys in the door - that is the stigma, too much people think oh no, it’s a crime area.
"I know some homeless people to try to break in, to sleep inside. Where they are breaking into empty place to live in.
"Why not? Crime is making them homeless, what’s making them homeless? Because they are homeless doesn’t make them criminals."