I destroyed my £150k house ‘brick by brick’ in 17-year tenant war… the bank repossessed it, now I live in a caravan

A desperate landlord who erupted in fury and started dismantling his house amidst a 17-year war with his ‘squatting’ tenant has told how he has been left penniless and living in a leaking caravan after the property was repossessed.

Louis Scudder, 53, was forced to give up his childhood home, which has now been sold off at auction, after falling into arrears with the mortgage payments.

He claims his tenant drew up a 25-year tenancy agreement without his knowledge or consent which allowed her to stay renting the three-bed property in Sheerness, Kent at a fixed rate of just £400-a-month.

His mortgage payments are more than twice that at £850-a-month and despite numerous attempts since 2007 to have the tenant Ayesha Kramer removed, the courts have always ruled in her favour.

Mr Scudder, 52, snapped last summer when he climbed onto the roof of his £150,000 home and embarked on a one-man wrecking mission, ripping off tiles and smashing windows with his bare hands.

Bleeding from injuries to his hands, he shouted down to riot police during a 24-hour stand-off: ‘I’m not coming down until I’ve destroyed the whole place. I’m going to take it apart brick by brick.’

A year on from his rooftop siege, Mr Scudder said his failed almost two decade battle to take back control of his former home had left him ‘a broken man’.

He now lives with his partner Zoe Clulow and her eight-year-old son in a dilapidated caravan on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

A desperate landlord who erupted in fury and started dismantling his house, pictured, amidst a 17-year war with his ‘squatting’ tenant has told how he has been left penniless

Louis Scudder, 52, snapped last summer when he climbed onto the roof of his £150,000 home and embarked on a one-man wrecking mission (Pictured: the damage to the property)

He now lives with his partner Zoe Clulow and her eight-year-old son in a dilapidated caravan on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, pictured

Mr Scudder, pictured in 2024, was forced to give up his childhood home, which has now been sold off at auction, after falling into arrears with the mortgage payments

Speaking for the first time, he told MailOnline: ‘My tenant has made my life hell. I struggle to get out of bed most days. All I can do at the moment is just survive.

‘I can’t move on because I’ve still got a load of legal issues hanging over me. I’m 52 years old and I’ve not had a stable life for God knows how long and any money I’m likely to make is probably going to have to go to the bank or the tenant, it’s like the final kick in the face.

‘I wasn’t able to sell the house because I had a sitting tenant with this ridiculous tenancy so nobody would entertain buying it.

‘I couldn’t even remortgage, redevelop the house and get someone else in who would pay a decent rent.

‘In the end, the bank took the house from me and I’ve lost all trust in the system.

‘Now I’m living with my partner and her eight-year-old son in a caravan, which is slowly falling apart.

‘The room meant to be our bedroom has a huge tear in the corner of the wall.

‘Our electricity comes from an extension lead from a kind neighbour so we only use the bare minimum and have a diesel heater for warmth.

‘We don’t have a working toilet either. It’s really basic but at least I have a roof over my head. That’s something I suppose.’

As he struggled to keep up mortgage repayments on the house, it was repossessed by the bank and put up for auction.

It had a reserve price of £115,000 when it was put up for sale by estate agents Barnard Marcus at an auction at the Grand Connaught Rooms in central London in April.

It eventually sold for £134,000 and is believed to have been purchased by a property developer.

The sale catalogue pointed out that auctioneers had not been able to inspect the freehold home and that purchasers would have to ‘rely upon their own enquiries as to the internal layout of the property’.

No viewings were conducted and auctioneers explained ‘no keys will be provided to the property upon completion. The property was being sold ‘by order of the mortgagees’.

Mr Scudder took matters into his own hands after growing increasingly frustrated that he had been unable to live in his property.

Fearing the authorities were against him in March last year, Mr Scudder waited for Ms Kramer, 51, to go out before climbing in through a window to gain entry.

He removed her possessions and dumped them outside before changing the locks but was ordered by a court to quit the property and hand back the keys.

As a legal battle rumbled on, Mr Scudder returned in June last year where he began slowly dismantling the property.

He was arrested and was bound over to keep the peace for 12 months for causing a public nuisance and breaching an injunction.

During his rooftop siege, Mr Scudder ripped off tiles and smashed windows with his bare hands

As a legal battle with tenant Ayesha Kramer rumbled on, Mr Scudder returned in June last year where he began slowly dismantling the property

A dilapidated chimney and police tape are just two of the sorry sights to meet neighbours 

Part of the roof of the property was dismantled brick by brick by its owner in a rampage

Mr Scudder said his failed battle to take back control of his former home had left him ‘a broken man’ after Ms Kramer allegedly drew up a 25-year tenancy agreement without his knowledge

But two months later, he returned with a sledgehammer to finish the job leaving behind a scene of devastation that shocked neighbours likened to ‘a disaster movie’.

Officers in riot gear were drafted in while specially trained negotiators tried to coax him down from the rafters of his wrecked property.

Ambulance crews and fire fighters were also called in amid fears damage to pipes and cables could cause an explosion.

Walls came crashing down and pipe work was shattered as Mr Scudder rained blow after blow on the property reducing brickwork to piles of rubble.

Mr Scudder grew up in the house with his hard-working single mother Angela and younger brother.

He bought the property from the council in the early 1990s from money he earned as a carpenter but towards the end of the decade fell on hard times and was forced to leave the area for a number of years after finding himself in ‘a challenging personal situation’.

An aunt suggested he arrange for it to be rented out to help him pay off his mortgage but Mr Scudder claims that unbeknown to him a 25-year tenancy agreement had been signed.

In 1999 Ms Kramer moved into the property and it was there that she brought up her three daughters – twins aged 27 and their older sister who is now aged 31.

Mr Scudder said: ‘I knew nothing of the tenancy agreement until I went to court in 2007.

‘By that time, I’d got myself together and wanted to get my home back and life back on track so I served Ayesha notice but she refused to leave.

‘I applied for a Section 21 eviction notice through the courts but when I got there she produced this tenancy in front of everyone.

‘She had the council on her side, she had solicitors. I didn’t have anyone with me and didn’t understand the court process. I was complteley unprepared and unaware.

‘The judge asked me if it was my aunt’s signature on the agreement to which I replied ‘I think so’. But I’ve since checked with my aunt, she remembers signing Ayesha’s rent-book but not a 25-year tenancy agreement.

‘Even if my aunt had signed such an agreement, it shouldn’t be legally-binding because only my name and my mother’s name were on the deeds of that property.

‘Within that tenancy agreement there was no clause to say that the rent could increase at any point with inflation. It was to remain at £400 a month for 25-years…for a three-bedroom house in Kent.

‘She was paying that right up until about four years ago – when the council upped her disability benefit payments and she started paying £650.

‘But for the best part of 17-years she made out that that house was hers and took full control of it.

‘She wouldn’t let me in to my own home to carry out any repairs nor for any maintenance issues like boiler checks.

‘She even refused to pass on my post and also had a garden patio laid without consulting me and against building regulations because it was built so water ran down to the house and caused untold damp problems through the walls.

‘It’s a ludicrous situation. I’m a homeowner who is homeless, I’ve had to live in motor homes, boats and sofa-surf in friends’ houses. Now I’m in a caravan.’

Mr Scudder claims that Ms Kramer was told by the council and homeless charity Shelter last year that she was legally able to remain in his house until he served another Section 21 notice.

But he said: ‘I didn’t have the money to go back through all that again. Plus in order to get a Section 21, I have to have my gas and electricity certificates all in order – but she wouldn’t let me in to do the checks.

‘When the court ordered myself, Zoe and her son to leave and remove all our belongings from my home, I snapped.

‘By this point I’m a broken man and I’ve had a complete mental breakdown and I’ve gone up to the roof and started to tear it down with my bare hands.

‘Ayesha had been offered multiple council houses but she turned them all down and kept refusing them because she wanted a two bed bungalow with a garden.

‘In my eyes I thought ‘if you want a bungalow…I’ll give you a bungalow’ and I took my roof down.’

He said: ‘Now I’m living with my partner and her eight-year-old son in a caravan, which is slowly falling apart’

He added: ‘The room meant to be our bedroom has a huge tear in the corner of the wall’

Mr Scudder grew up in the house with his hard-working single mother Angela and younger brother

Mr Scudder says he is currently awaiting the outcome of a contempt of court case with the maximum possible sentence being two years.

He is also being chased by Ms Kramer for £34,000 in damages for removing her property from the house last year when he and Zoe temporarily moved back in.

He added: ‘Some of the items in her claim are, frankly, ridiculous including huge sums for things like paper plates and outdated second-hand items being valued as new.

‘Additionally, I have photo evidence showing that her possessions were carefully packaged and bubble-wrapped for her to collect. She was repeatedly invited to do so but chose not to, seemingly preferring to pursue financial compensation instead.’

Ms Clulow also spoke to MailOnline to defend her partner and said: ‘Louis isn’t a dangerous person, he’s a broken man who feels failed by the legal system.

‘After 17 years of fighting just to live in his own home, he now faces serious legal consequences, emotional trauma, and financial ruin. His goal was never violence—it was simply to get his home and life back, something most people would take for granted.’

Friends of Ms Kramer, meanwhile, told how she too has been left traumatised by the experience – losing her home and most of her possessions including treasured family photographs.

Neighbours – who were ordered to evacuate their homes during Mr Scudder’s rampage – say they are now hoping the house can be made habitable again and they can return to their peaceful lives.

Tanya Gray, who has lived in the streets for 28 years, told MailOnline: ‘We’ve heard someone from London has bought it. They must be planning to do it up. Good luck to them.

‘There must be even more damage now because it’s been left open to the elements for nearly a year. Hopefully that’s the end of it. This is a family-orientated area and it would be nice if a nice quiet family will move in now.’