An incredible ‘Steptoe’ character died of cold sur

An incredible ‘Steptoe’ character died of cold surrounded
by piles of his beloved junk.

It was stacked from floor to ceiling in every room of his
Victorian basement flat, an inquest was told today Wednesday.

When police tried to force his front door they could not budge
it because of the rubbish piled behind it and all along the
hallway.

PC Martin Spencer said when he finally forced his way
through the back door he had to make his way through a
thin ‘corridor of rubbish’ wide enough for one person.

In the front hall of the basement flat he found bachelor
Sydney Jenkins, 69, lying naked and dead among his treasured
possessions which were stored and piled up the walls rather
than strewn about.

When he was alive he had given his occupation as ‘salvage
collector.

‘
Southwark Coroners Court was told that police were called
after long suffering neighbours on the upper floor told their
council landlord in February that they had not seen him since
before Christmas.

His windows were boarded up and they thought he had moved.

They were also concerned about the ‘mounds of rubbish’ littering
the front and back gardens of the elegant old house in Brunswick
Park, Camberwell, SE London.

When police broke in on February 14 his body had started
to decompose.

Pathologist Dr Vesna Djurovic said he had died of hypothermia.

He had apparently stripped off his clothes as he became
increasingly confused as his body temperature dropped in the
cold flat.

She said the phenomenon was called ‘paradoxical hypothermia.

‘
Recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner Sir Montague
Levine remarked: ‘What a sad case this is.

Not only was he a
recluse but he had an obsession with taking home anything he found.

The whole house was a mass of rubbish.

‘There were mounds of papers, old bits of metal, tins, broken
TVs, traffic cones, bits of bikes – anything.

‘His living space became smaller and smaller and smaller until
he was surrounded by this mass of unsaleable rubbish which should
have been taken away and destroyed.

‘The only food in the house was a tin of tomato soup.

‘
ENDS
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