Two months earlier, Sheila’s skeletal remains had been found on the sofa in her third-floor flat in south London, where they had remained undetected for around two-and-a-half years, despite repeated attempts by neighbors to persuade police to break in. go down her door and check on her well-being. “The priest said she was loved by her friends and family and neighbors — but, when you looked out into the audience, there was only one person there,” says Christine, an events manager who lived across the street from her (and asked for the actual her name not to print). She had asked Peabody if she could attend the service, but no one had sent her the details. Instead, she was later emailed a link to watch a recording of the event. Sheila, who was 61 when she died, received a traditional Christian service. pallbearers had placed an arrangement of white flowers on her wooden coffin. “It was very sad,” says Christine. It’s been five months since the police finally broke down the doors of Sheila’s flat in a trendy brick block in Peckham. Among her former neighbors, there is growing anger at the way they say the police and housing association ignored them when they tried to raise the alarm. A long-delayed independent report is due to be published later this week to coincide with the inquiry. Whatever the report’s conclusion, the case is already raising questions about whether or not the concerns of social housing tenants are still being systematically ignored, in ways that echo events leading up to the Grenfell disaster. And it has left many wondering about modern isolation and how a resident of a bustling city of 9 million can die and not be missed for years. Despite the enormous media interest in Sheila’s story, very little has emerged about her identity. Before her death, none of her neighbors even knew the name of the woman in apartment 16. “I could hear her keys jingling in the door. I think she had a typical nine-to-five schedule, but I barely saw her,” says Christine. “I probably knew her better than anyone else on the block, but we never really spoke – just hi and that was it. Christine never went inside, but she occasionally saw a neat and tidy interior when she knocked to pick up the deliveries Sheila had signed for. It was only after her neighbor’s death that she found out she was working as a receptionist in medical services, working for a testing agency. “It was an admin-type job. she was always dressed in black pants, courts, white shirt. I was surprised to learn she was 61 – she looked much younger.’ An ambulance that visited the apartment building where Sheila lived. Photo: SWNS He doesn’t remember ever seeing visitors. “It’s so hard to understand why she didn’t miss any of her friends or colleagues or her boss. No one came to look for her.” Another neighbor down Sheila’s corridor, Donatus Okeke, who works in construction and is originally from Nigeria, says he had a polite long-distance relationship with the woman he lived a few meters from for several years. “She always greeted my children, but I didn’t know her name and I never went inside her apartment. In this country, you don’t communicate with your neighbors.” Sheila’s body might still remain unaccounted for if not for Storm Eunice, which swept across Britain on February 18, causing transport chaos and power cuts – and blowing open Sheila’s balcony door. Her downstairs neighbor was disturbed by the sound of the glass door slamming in the wind and called the police, asking them to check on the occupant’s well-being. That night, police officers broke down the front door with a battering ram and found her body. A neighbor leaned out their window to film men, possibly undertakers, wheeling a body bag out of the building and packing it into the back of a car. Police said Sheila’s death was unexplained rather than suspicious, but residents remain puzzled by the events since becoming concerned about their neighbor. Tired of waiting for the results of the independent report, the tenants do their own detective work with the help of Peckham Labor MP Harriet Harman. Their investigation reveals a shocking contradiction between what the housing association says happened and the reported actions of the police. There is a quiet irony in the way Sheila’s death has brought her neighbors together. Their building is a 20-level block, with thin walls and flimsy doors, where cooking smells and half-voices mingle in the communal corridors. For years, its tenants have lived in conversation with other families they rarely spoke to. Now, as they try to unravel the truth about Sheila’s fate, they are forced to meet each other. Their investigations reveal that the last definite proof that Sheila was alive was in August 2019, when she paid her rent by debit card to Peabody for the last time. A month later, neighbors began calling the housing association, reporting a foul smell in the building’s hallways. “Flies started coming through my windows and there were maggots on the windowsill,” says Sheila’s downstairs neighbor, a woman who has lived on the block for 17 years (she also asked not to be named). “In August or September of 2019, I called Peabody to report it, but they said it wasn’t flies and that I should call a pest control company. I found maggots crawling on the furniture and had to buy bleach to clean everything.” A short time later, he says, he called them again to ask: “Are you sure no one has died on the block?” She can’t remember exactly how they answered, but she knows her worries went away. Donatus’ wife, Evelyn Okeke, remembers having to hold her nose every time she left the apartment to take her three children to school. She started spraying air freshener and deodorant all over her house to mask the smell. According to her diary, Okeke first called Peabody on October 10, 2019. Her husband was so bothered by the smell that he went to the doctor. “I told the doctor I thought someone had died in the apartment and the smell made me sick,” she says. “It was a very noxious smell. we couldn’t deal with it. We wanted to leave.” Also concerned in apartment 17, which shares a wall with apartment 16, was an Iraqi-Kurdish family of six who moved in a decade ago. They started putting old clothes at the base of their front door to stop the smell from the hallway leaking out. The eldest son, now 21, then a university student working towards a degree in construction management, worried about what might have happened to his neighbour, who he often dropped at the bus stop in the morning. “I think she used to look happy. we would say hello and goodbye,” he says. He struggles to remember much else about her. “I think he was walking quite slowly – maybe he had asthma or something.” The rental bike outside Sheila’s apartment sat there for months. Photo: Provided image In retrospect, he recalls that sometime in late 2019 he stopped seeing her. “We could hear her through the walls. then it stopped.” After several fruitless calls to Peabody, he walked two miles to the Peabody management offices, sometime in late 2019, he believes, to register his concerns. “I sat in an office with a woman who was writing things on a computer,” he says. A member of staff came to the block and opened some corridor windows. Some residents said the problem was poor garbage disposal by tenants, or possibly moisture or outside drain pipes. It was obvious to the other tenants in the block that the tenant of flat 16 no longer lived there or lived there. Community cleaners moved her mat to wash the floor and left it leaning against the wall, where it remained for months. Her mailbox in the entrance hall became so full that the post began to overflow onto the door mat. The kids played with the letters and some of them ended up in a pile at the bottom of the elevator. In early 2020, Christine took one of the letters and opened it. “I know you have no intention of opening other people’s letters,” he says, “but I was worried. It was a letter from Peabody saying she hadn’t paid her rent since September 2019.” She called the owners to say she was worried. At this point she was buying scented candles and putting towels under her front door. “Sometimes I wanted to shut up.” He called the police twice. “I told them my neighbor was missing and there was a bad smell. They came and stood outside the door and said they couldn’t smell anything. They said maybe she had run off and left a pet behind, or maybe some food had gone and rotted. I knew he didn’t have a pet. they are not allowed in this building. I wanted them to break down the door, but they said they couldn’t without a warrant. They said the owner had to deal with it.” The second time he called the police – he doesn’t remember exactly when – he found their response even less helpful. “They seemed quite annoyed – as if we were just a bunch of indifferent neighbours. They said there was nothing they could do.” It was clear that no one was entering or leaving the apartment. In March 2020, engineers came three times to try to do an annual gas safety check and finally stuck a note on Sheila’s door, noting that they were unable to gain access and promising to return to force entry in April 2020. covid lockdown started and forced entry never happened. The letter sat open for more than a year until decorators came in to repaint the interior hallways and doors. they moved the notice and painted Sheila’s door while it was locked. Someone transported a Santander bike up to…
