I unknowingly lived in flat below my neighbour’s dead body for two years… there were MAGGOTS in my light fittings
A WOMAN who unknowingly lived in a flat below her neighbour’s dead body for two years said there were maggots in her light fittings.
Chantel – not her real name – said it “was like living in a horror movie” after Sheila Seleoane’s body was found in February 2022.
The 61-year-old passed away in August 2019 but was not found for another two years.
Cops investigated after neighbours heard buzzing in her flat and flies were seen coming under the door while maggots infested other flats.
In February last year, police broke into the South London home where Sheila’s remains were discovered.
At least three officers were filmed going into the flat after neighbours complained more than 50 times of a rotting meat smell.
Months earlier, even though she was dead, Sheila’s neighbours still felt her presence.
Chantel has now revealed that she was horrified to find the maggots falling from the ceiling when she changed her lightbulb.
She told the BBC: “I’ve got them in the bedroom, the living room, and the bathroom. And more or less all over my furniture.
“You’d sit down on the sofa and after a period of time you’d find a squashed maggot.
“It was like living in a horror movie.”
The resident added that when she complained she was told housing association Peabody’s pest control “don’t deal with maggots”.
She added: “It’s just really sad that somebody could be in their flat for so long and not be found, nobody going out of their way to gain contact with her.”
And other residents are said to be unhappy with Peabody after they claimed they contacted them numerous times before Sheila’s body was found.
As the weeks and months passed, neighbours were left unable to sleep due to the stench coming from her flat.
Residents became increasingly concerned when Sheila’s mail began piling up and a forced entry notice for a routine gas check appeared on her door in 2020.
Iyesha, who lived on the same floor, said “nobody came” from Peabody, despite her complaints to them that “there’s a smell of death”.
Other neighbours on the same floor say they tried putting towels and sheets under the door to try to keep the smell out.
“We couldn’t even sleep in the flat. You couldn’t even eat because it was a very, very bad odour,” says Donatus Okeke, who lives in the building with his wife and their three children.
Another neighbour kept a written record of when they first called the landlord to complain – October 10, 2019 – two months after Shelia is thought to have died and more than two years before she would eventually be found.
Only one family member went to her funeral – her estranged half-brother who hadn’t been in contact with her for years – and a representative from Peabody.
In a statement, Peabody told the BBC it was “devastated” by what happened to Sheila, adding it had been “open, honest and transparent about what went wrong”.
After Sheila died, her rent stopped being paid, so Peabody sent letters, emails and left voicemails.
But in the following year, no-one visited to check up on her despite her always paying her rent on time since she’d moved into the flat in 2014.
A year after she died, Peabody did eventually visit the block in response to the neighbours’ complaints.
It asked the police to check on Sheila but when officers knocked on her door and no-one answered, it decided it didn’t have enough justification to knock it down.
Crucially, a mistake by the police operator meant a false message was sent to Peabody saying Sheila had been seen alive and well.
It would be another 16 months before Sheila’s body would be discovered.
The Metropolitan Police apologised and said if the operator responsible had not since retired, he would have been referred for an investigation.
An independent report commissioned by Peabody after Sheila was discovered found there had been multiple “missed opportunities” to find her body sooner.
It said Peabody’s “silo working” meant all the reports from neighbours and incidents like the unfulfilled gas safety check were dealt with in isolation.
The organisation “appears not to have seen the triggers, listened to… neighbours, or to have joined the dots”, the report said.