In early 2021, the ITV reporter Daniel Hewitt visited a block of flats in Croydon, tipped off that the Covid lockdown was being used by some landlords as an excuse not to do repairs. What he found made him and his cameraman physically ill. You might remember the footage – it was broadcast and went viral. Ceilings and walls utterly covered with furry black mould. Dirty water pouring into buckets and on to electrical sockets. The squelch of the sodden carpet. Most shocking of all, though, were the emails Hewitt and his team started to receive after his story aired. Croydon wasn’t an exception. It was just the beginning.
Over three years later, The Trapped is an eight-part series that reveals – in horrifying detail – exactly what they found next. For those who want visual evidence, there’s an accompanying website with photos, but it’s hardly needed. The descriptions are so vivid and harrowing you don’t need much imagination to picture the reality for the people who have been “left to rot like the walls around them” in properties not fit for animals, let alone human habitation.
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