THE kitchen is filthy, the bathrooms are rotting and you can even see the rooms below through the bare, dilapidated floorboards.

Yet its tenants each pay £85 a week rent to live here.

The house in Salford Road, Marston, is so squalid council officers took the unprecedented action of seizing control yesterday morning.

It was the first time in a city of more than 5,000 shared homes that Oxford City Council has used powers to take over the management of a private rented property.

But landlord and owner Ken Herring, of Horseman Close, Old Marston, told the Oxford Mail last night he was working with the council to rectify the issues and to appoint an agent to manage the property.He claimed he had been left thousands of pounds out of pocket by previous tenants, across a number of his properties, who had spent housing benefit payments instead of paying their rent.

An interim management order was served on Mr Herring due to the condition of the property and because it did not have a council licence.

The move is part of a renewed crackdown on the state of rented property that includes an extended council licensing scheme for houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) that sets out required standards.

Ian Wright, the council’s health development services manager, said taking control was the last resort.

He said: “We would call the condition of this property unacceptable. The level of disrepair is significant and so quite a lot of improvements are needed.

“Just look at the state of the floorboards, the kitchen and the bathroom.”

Council teams moved in at 11am, and within minutes the locks were changed and officers were making a detailed assessment of the work that was required.

Tenants were told the aim was to improve their living conditions. They will remain at the property – although the council may rehouse them if the work requires it.

Mr Wright said the council was committed to tackling unfit living conditions across the city and added officers had more miserable properties on their radar.

He said: “Taking a house off a landlord is as strong a message as you can send.”

Mr Wright added: “There is a real danger that people who don’t have many options find themselves in circumstances where they are exploited by landlords as they don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Under the order, the council assumes the role of landlord and collects all rents, using the money to pay for improvement work to be carried out.

Management rights will be returned once all conditions to successfully obtain a licence have been satisfied by Mr Herring Last November, the council took action against an empty, rat-infested house in South Oxford.

The £175,000 end terrace house in Weirs Lane had blighted the neighbourhood for 15 years before council officers gave the owner two months to sell up or clean up.

The nudge worked and the house was sold in January.