Woman lay dead in her London flat for nearly THREE YEARS despite neighbours complaining to council more than 50 times over ‘rotting meat’ smell, flies and maggots – before police found the 61-year-old’s skeleton on the sofa
- Neighbours complained of smell coming from Peckham flat in October 2019
- Protestations continued for two years as letters overflowed from her letterbox
- Police finally broke down door and found body of Sheila Seleoane on Friday
- One neighbour said she had reported the smell of ‘rotting meat’ up to 50 times
- Do YOU know Ms Seleoane…? Email [email protected]
Do you know Sheila Seleoane?
Do YOU know Sheila Seleoane…? Email [email protected]
A woman lay dead in her London flat for nearly three years despite neighbours complaining to the council more than 50 times over the smell of ‘rotting meat’, flies and maggots – before police found a skeleton on the sofa.
The skeletal remains of Sheila Seleoane, 61, were found on the living room sofa of the one-bedroom flat in Peckham on Friday.
Shocked officers also discovered bright pink birthday balloons close to her body after smashing down the door into the third-floor flat.
Neighbours first complained of the ‘horrific stench’ to housing association Peabody in October 2019, with protestations continuing for more than two years before police finally forced entry last week.
Residents have told how their concerns repeatedly fell on deaf ears before Covid restrictions left them feeling abandoned. It is also thought the flat may have been the subject of a break-in last autumn, but still no action was taken.
Mother-of-four Ayesha Smith, a neighbour, said a smell of ‘rotting chicken’ had filled her flat for more than two years.
She added: ‘I contacted the housing association at least 50 times to complain. They always said someone would come out but nothing was ever done.
‘Then on Friday the police came with a battering ram and knocked down the door. They said they had found a skeleton on the sofa.
‘It was so frightening the way they came in. My son said he froze. They took out some of her stuff. Her bag and her coat and left it outside the door and there were pink party balloons which had been tied up but all the air had gone out of them.’
The carer said neighbours throughout the block of 20 flats were told there was a problem with the drains when concerns were first raised.
They claimed they were later informed that no one would come out to investigate during lockdown as it was not an emergency.
Emergency services were called to the scene after police made the discovery
Neighbours began complaining to the housing association landlord about a ‘foul smell’ in the building in October 2019
Pictured: Italian woman dubbed ‘loneliness personified’ found mummified in a chair after dying TWO YEARS ago. Neighbours assumed she’d moved away during lockdown
The first image has emerged of a woman whose mummified body was found in a chair at her home two years after she died.
The decomposing corpse of Marinella Beretta, 70, was found in her living room in Prestino, near Lake Como, on Friday.
Marinella Beretta’s body was found two years after her death
Police stumbled upon her remains when they made a house call during high winds in Lombardy, which risked uprooting neglected trees in her garden.
The neighbours, who had not seen Beretta since September 2019, assumed she had moved away at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which hit northern Italy in 2020, the reports said.
Ms Smith said: ‘We were getting fobbed off. It seemed like they just didn’t care. At one point in 2020 we were told that the lady had been taken out of the house.
‘The smell went away for a period of time but then it came back. They said it was coming from the drains but it didn’t smell like drains. It smelt like something was rotting.
‘Then there was a very loud bussing noise coming from inside from all the flies. There were huge ones and tiny ones in the corridor that would come into your house when you opened the front door.
‘What has happened is horrible. All of us tenants reported it time and time again but we weren’t listened to. Then when the pandemic happened we were calling constantly throughout the whole of lockdown but they said no one would come out as it was no emergency.’
She added that she was pregnant at the time, but the smell had left her feeling ‘physically sick’, while her 11-year-old son was complaining of headaches.
Of the the Ms Seleoane, Ms Smith said: ‘It was mostly just “Hi, how are the kids?”, she was nice. She liked to keep herself to herself for so long, she looked a bit lonely.’
Another neighbour, who lived in the flat directly below the victim, told of how she raised concerns in the summer of 2019 when her flat became infested with maggots and flies.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said: ‘They started coming through the window into my house in the June or July. It went on for about a month.
‘It was warm so I had the window open and they were dropping in from somewhere. I would come home and find 30 to 50 dead flies a day.
‘I first reported my concerns to the housing association in November 2021 when I first became aware that the balcony door had been opened in the early hours of the morning. There had been scaffolding put up around the building and I was sure that somebody had broken in.
‘The housing people said they would get someone out and check but I didn’t hear anything more. The banging got really bad on Friday during the storm so I called the police this time.’
Another neighbour, Lola Johnson, said: ‘We complained about the smell in the block. We thought it was rats because we have had a rat infestation.
‘I live two floors down from her and the smell was bad for us. It went through the whole building.
‘It seems unbelievable that she would be left like that for more than two years. No rent was getting paid and no council tax but this is what things are like now. It seems nobody cares.
‘She was a very quiet, lovely woman. She was always friendly asking about the kids but she seemed very lonely.’
Neighbours became increasingly concerned when letters began to pile up in the letterbox
Residents became increasingly concerned when letters began to pile up in the letterbox of the woman, who locals say owed thousands of pounds in rent, and when they spotted a forced entry notice for a gas check on the door of the flat in 2020.
One neighbour, who lived next door to the victim, said she had been forced to put a towel under the door to stifle the smell coming from the flat within the three story complex.
‘It’s disgusting and I’m shocked,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know her very well, but she would sometimes collect my deliveries for me.
‘I came back from a trip abroad in September or October 2019 when I noticed a horrific stench in the building. It was so bad, I had to put a towel under the door.
‘We repeatedly called the housing association because it was weird – her letter box was full and I could see from the letters she hadn’t been paying rent. I called them up again and said I hadn’t seen this lady in months.
‘The police came but they said lots of people had moved out of London during the pandemic and she could be abroad.’
A short while later, a bike was abandoned in front of her door and neighbours complained that it had not been removed.
Police finally broke the door down this week to find the deceased woman.
‘They broke down the door and it revealed what I had feared the whole time – that she was dead,’ the neighbour added.
‘They told me she was basically a skeleton and asked me to confirm her ethnicity.’
A spokesperson for the force said: ‘At 19:01hrs on Friday, 18 February police were called to a flat in St Mary’s Road, Peckham.
‘Concerns had been raised about the welfare of a woman who lived at the address.
‘Officers attended and forced entry. The body of a 61-year-old woman who was deceased was found inside.
‘The woman’s death is being treated as unexplained but not suspicious. A file will be prepared for the coroner.’
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