Wrexham Council urged to tackle ‘mayhem’ caused by HMOs amid anti-social behaviour complaints

Wrexham Council has been urged to tackle the “mayhem” caused by houses in multiple occupancy (HMOs) in the area.

It follows councillors raising complaints over problems with anti-social behaviour, noise and rubbish arising from some bedsit properties in the county borough.

On Tuesday Wrexham Council’s executive board approved carrying out a consultation on the renewal of a licensing scheme covering about 300 HMOs in the area.

It requires landlords to ensure living standards are up to scratch and that their properties are properly managed or potentially face enforcement action.

However, community leaders have said more needs to be done to address the issues caused by HMOs, particularly in the areas surrounding the town centre.

Cllr Marc Jones, who represents parts of Rhosddu and the middle of the town, said there were 50 licensed HMOs in his ward, accounting for five per cent of all homes.

Speaking at the virtual meeting, he said: “Most are well run and don’t cause problems but where they do cause problems, they cause mayhem for their residents, for neighbours and other residents in the same street.

“I do share the concerns about what this means for the tenants who are going to live there.

“They do play a part in meeting our housing needs, partly because we don’t have enough appropriate housing for single people.

“Despite only making up 0.4 per cent of the housing stock, they make up 15 per cent of all waste complaints and five per cent of all noise complaints.

“You’re ten times more likely to have a noise complaint and 30 times more likely to have a waste complaint against a HMO rather than a normal house or other properties.

“A lot of people have given up making complaints, unfortunately, because we’ve got a very small staff having to deal with almost 300 HMOs.”

Cllr Jones said he was aware of allegations of landlords moving problem tenants from one area of Wrexham to another after receiving complaints.

He said he wanted to see the situation dealt with via the licensing system.

Cllr Paul Roberts said police had been called to HMOs in the Erddig area a number of times, causing worry for neighbours.

He also called for the impact on other HMO tenants who aren’t causing issues to be considered.

He said: “There been several occasions recently where there’s been large scale police operations at certain properties.

“The knock on effect is that the local residents are obviously extremely upset and quite rightly so.

“But I think one of the points that should be touched on is what about the other tenants?

“If it’s a five or six-bedroom house, you potentially could have one individual causing issues for others.”

The report to the executive board highlights that noise complaints, including loud music and parties, were one of the most prevalent issues raised regarding HMOs.

Officials said there was an increase in noise reports for all types of properties last summer as coronavirus restrictions meant residents spent more time at home.

In 2020/21, bedsits also accounted for 12 out of the total of 77 complaints received by the council about the storage of rubbish.

Cllr Graham Rogers said: “Putting it bluntly, it’s a disgrace from the point of view whereby there’s refuse, litter, car parts and cardboard – you name it, it’s there.

“How we’re going to get around that I don’t know as some of the HMOs in my patch have only got one refuse bin, which is overflowing continuously.”

Council leader Mark Pritchard said the authority was looking to deal with some of the problems by taking on extra enforcement staff.
But he said it was also up to North Wales Police to help address the issue.

He said: “It isn’t just about the waste and the noise. It’s about anti-social behaviour and drugs paraphernalia.

“That’s why we have to work with the police and all our partners to improve things.

“I don’t want to demonise every HMO in Wrexham because as elected members have said, the vast majority of them are very well run.
“But we do need to manage the others who are not well run with our partners, including the police.”

Executive board members unanimously approved letting the consultation process go ahead.

A further report on the options available to the council will be brought back to them at a later date.

By Liam Randall – BBC Local Democracy Reporter