It’s barely eight o’clock in the morning, but on the first-floor landing of a block of flats in Hackney, a wide-awake group of men has gathered. They are an anxious landlord, a High Court enforcement officer and a locksmith. And while the first two are standing outside the door of No 41a, the third is trying (unsuccessfully) to open it.
“I think it’s been bolted from the inside,” he says. “I’d better get the sledgehammer.”
And off he goes, back down to his van in the street below. On the way, he passes a fourth man, dressed discreetly in black, who is standing just a little bit back from everyone else, and whose jacket bears the legend “Landlord Action”.
Meet 37-year-old Paul Shamplina, a man who, to put it bluntly, has made a living from evicting people. At the last count, he has done about 14,000 tenant removal operations, of the kind we have come here to perform. Mention of sledgehammers, therefore, does not unduly alarm him; he’s seen it all before.
“Actually, where the landlord has been smart here is to bring a locksmith with him,” observes Paul. “That’s because he’s a professional. Your more amateur landlords, the kind who just own one or two properties, quite often find the door has been bolted and they haven’t got a Plan B.”
