A NEIGHBOUR from hell whose flat had blood-stained walls and syringe-covered floors has been evicted.

Dereck Clarke was thrown out of the property he was renting in Campbell Court, Farnworth, after Bolton at Home staff discovered thousands of pounds of damage and evidence of drug use at the flat, as well as receiving reports of anti-social behaviour.

Bolton at Home found smashed and boarded-up windows at the flat during an estate inspection last August.

They later found that every internal door was damaged, with many hanging off their hinges, rooms were full of rubbish and dirt, and floors so covered with debris, syringes and needles that the carpet could not be seen.

There were also blood stains on some walls and ceilings.

In February police carried out a search warrant and seized drugs and drug paraphernalia.

Housing officers found that the electricity meter had been bypassed and another inspection found the condition of the property was worse than previously seen.

Nearby residents spoke to The Bolton News on condition of anonymity.

One said: “It’d take me about three days to tell you everything — there was trouble all the time. He made people’s lives a misery.

“My family were afraid to come here at night.”

Another said: “I heard he’d bypassed the meter. I’m glad he’s gone but there are police around here all the time anyway.

“They’ll just move him somewhere else and he’ll do it again.”

Tenancy enforcement manager Denise Kehoe, from at Bolton at Home, said: “Attempts were made to get the tenant to rectify the issues but he failed to work with us so we were left with no choice but to seek possession of the property.

“Bolton County Court granted us immediate possession based on the evidence we supplied on damage caused, use of the property for the taking of drugs, tampering with the electricity meter and the intermittent nuisance to neighbours over a period of four years.

“This case should serve as a warning to tenants who aren’t maintaining their properties to a satisfactory standard, and not using them in the correct manner, that we will take enforcement action against them.”