A house lived in by a family dubbed “neighbours from hell” will cost more than £20,000 to repair.

The family, who made the lives of other people living on Osborne Road, Willesborough a misery, left the three-bedroom council house they lived in for four-and-a-half years a wreck.

The mum and four teenage boys moved out of 63 Osborne Road a fortnight ago after they were threatened with eviction by Ashford Borough Council. They now live outside the Ashford area.

In a statement this week the council said: “The property has been left with significant damage, which will cost more than £20,000 to repair to a habitable standard.”

The council said it had acted to evict the family after receiving “hundreds of complaints since the beginning of 2007 relating to one tenant”.

Neighbours, the police and the council gathered evidence to prove other residents had suffered racist abuse and passers-by had been spat at and had missiles thrown at them.

Other people living in the otherwise well-kept street had collated a diary to demonstrate the numerous loud family arguments they were subjected to, the amount of times youths congregated in and around the house day and night and the incidents of what is thought to be cannabis being smoked in the garden of the house.

Workmen have started to empty the house of the items the family left behind. Broken televisions, dirty mattresses and rubbish filled two skips.

Inside the house there are piles of rubbish, the bathroom and downstairs toilet are filthy, the floorboards have been left bare, with many of them ripped up, internal doors have been pulled off their hinges and plug sockets have been pulled off the walls.

The walls and ceilings show graffiti, which includes offensive language and the names of each of the four brothers who lived at the house.

The council hopes to have the house renovated by the end of next month and it will be available for rent to whoever is next on the housing waiting list in accordance with the letting policies.

Full story and more pictures in the Kentish Express