21-year-old tenant Sarah Warsama caught the shocking incident on camera. ‘It was really creepy,’ she tells Dazed. ‘He went absolutely nuts’
Yesterday morning, 21-year-old Sarah Warsama and her two housemates went to their estate agents’ office in Camberwell, south London.
Despite the fact that only one of them had been served with a section 21 notice, she tells Dazed that their landlord was insisting that all of them had to vacate the property by April 25. On top of this, the house they’re living in is allegedly an unlicensed house in multiple occupation (HMO), and a landlord of an unlicensed HMO cannot serve a valid section 21 notice. “We said this to the estate agents, and they completely ignored us,” Warsama tells me. “We do pay rent too, we’re not even in rent arrears. It’s really just because they want us out of the house.”
This tallies with her estate agents’ previous bad behaviour. “Last week, three male estate agents just came into our house with no notice,” Warsama claims. “They just walked into the house to show another man around the house. One of my housemates had just got out of the shower and was naked, and they tried to get into her room. It really freaked her out and scared her.”
Following the receipt of the section 21 notice, Warsama and her housemates went into their estate agents’ office, accompanied by renters union representatives. “Our reps basically said you’ve been harassing our members and you need to stop now,” she tells me. “The [agent] just flipped out and said he didn’t acknowledge any of us as tenants and that we needed to show him proof that we were. When our reps said no, they don’t need to show you proof of who they are, he got really aggressive.”
“He was physically pushing us out of the [office]. He went to shove me and I said ‘whoa, don’t touch me’, and he said ‘you’d be so lucky’. It was really creepy – very sexist and demeaning.” Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, the group decided to leave.
Things escalated when the renters union rep muttered “well done, wanker” while walking out the door. The estate agent then turned even more violent. “He went absolutely nuts,” she recalls. “He ran out after us and smacked the rep in the face then kicked him in the groin.” He then picked up a sandwich board, apparently considering hitting the rep with it, before dropping it. All this is captured in a video Warsama took of the incident, which has now amassed over 23,000 likes and been viewed over 1.5 million times on Twitter.
Warsama tells me that she and her housemates have been left “shaken and scared” by the incident. “I’m still processing it,” she tells me.
Since yesterday morning, Warsama has spoken to the police and reported the assault. Her and her housemates have also been in touch with solicitors who have reached out to the estate agents in order to mediate the situation. “We want to come to an agreement,” Warsama says. “That’s what we’ve wanted to do all along.”
Eaton Green did not respond to Dazed‘s request for comment.