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Often ‘houses of horror’ where horrific crimes take place are swiftly demolished once the killer is jail – yet others stay not only standing, but also open for offers and willing new occupants.
While many prospective buyers might feel discomfort at the thought of living in a property where, for example, a nanny was tortured over a period of months before her employers burned her body on a bonfire in the garden, others have no such qualms.
Thanet Council in Kent is among the local authorities to resist tearing down a home over concerns about its murderous past – citing the need for social accommodation, meaning the Margate council house where bodies of two victims of serial killer Peter Tobin were found remains in place.
In 2020 a tenant who had lived there for 11 years, with her father and three children said her family ‘didn’t care’ about the property’s past, although her six-year-old daughter wasn’t aware.
Meanwhile, both the North London suburban homes where serial killer Dennis Nilsen murdered his victims are still up, with varying prices seen where he previously lived in flats in first Cricklewood – with values rocketing – and then Muswell Hill.
And the Wandsworth home where nanny Sophie Lionnet was tortured and buried under the patio has more than doubled in value and sold two years ago for more than £1.1 million.
Some properties, though, have been too tainted to survive, including the 25 Cromwell Street home in Gloucester of Fred and Rosemary West and John Christie’s 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill, west London.
Also knocked down, in the 1980s, was the Wardle Brook Avenue property in Hattersley, Manchester, where Ian Brady and Myra Hindley tortured and killed some of their child victims.
This corner property in Southfields, south-west London, provided a setting where twisted couple Sabrina Kouider and Ouissem murdered their au pair Sophie Lionnet
Police descended on a home in Margate, Kent, in November 2007, in a search for bodies buried by Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin
Serial killer Dennis Nilsen murdered his victims at a ground-floor apartment in Cricklewood, north London (pictured), and at his subsequent home in nearby Muswell Hil
Cricklewood and Muswell Hill, London
One of Britain’s most notorious serial killers remains Dennis Nilsen, who is believed to have murdered 15 young men at two homes in North London.
He became known as the ‘Muswell Hill Murderer’, after finally being caught at his property in the leafy suburb’s Cranley Gardens in 1983.
The flat is still standing today and sold for £83,000 in 1996. It changed hands again in December 2024 for £520,000.
The previous year, a one bedroom flat nearby went for £742,500 indicating that the grisly history of the property might have impacted the sale price.
But the ex-civil servant had begun his killing spree at his previous property five miles away, a ground-floor flat in Melrose Avenue, Cricklewood.
Despite it emerging after his arrest that he had buried bodies of some of his victims in the gardens behind the property, the home remains standing – and increasing in value.
The two-bedroom Cricklewood apartment last sold for £493,000 in April 2016, which is in fact a higher value than neirhbouring properties sold for around the same time.
In 2018 a flat a few doors down sold for just £410,000, despite having an extra bedroom.
Similar neighbouring flats have more recently fetched as much as £700,000.
Nilsen would pick up his victims – often gay or homeless – in pubs before taking them back to his home and plying them with food or alcohol before killing them, with strangulation his preferred method.
He is thought to have murdered at least 12 people in Cricklewood then more at his subsequent home of Cranley Gardens, close to Highgate station on London’s Northern Line.
While he would bury his victims in the garden when living in Cricklewood, in Muswell Hill he opted to cut up the corpses, boiling heads on the stove, before stuffing body parts into plastic bags he would send down the pipes.
Nilsen was finally arrested after concerns were raised in Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill
Dennis Nilsen was jailed for life in November 1983 after being found guilty of multiple murders
And while neighbours increasingly complained of the foul stench developing at the block of flats, it was Nilsen himself who called in engineers from Dyno-Rod to report a blockage.
One of the firm’s employees called to the property raised the alert after spotting flesh and bones – and police swiftly put Nilsen under suspicion.
He was convicted of six murders at the Old Bailey and jailed for life in November 1983, with a recommended minimum term of 25 years – though this was later upgraded to a whole life tariff and he died behind bars aged 72 in May 2018.
His Cricklewood flat was bought in 2016 by buyers named in reports only as Bruno and Mathilde, and they told two years later of transforming the property into their dream home.
Bruno, an NHS manager from Portugal, and French-born Mathilde told the Sun: ‘We know a lot of people would not live here. But from the moment people see what the place looks like, it puts that to rest.
‘If you compare what the flat was with what the flat is, it has nothing to do with what happened 35 years ago.’
They admitted they did not know about the flat’s past when they viewed it, but the estate agent had advised them to Google the address.
They added: ‘We looked it up and read all about the history – but it was all 35, 40 years ago. For us it was never an issue.’
Melrose Avenue in Cricklewood, pictured this week, was where Dennis Nilsen used to live
A police officer is seen outside Nilsen’s former Cricklewood home after his 1983 arrest
Officers searched in gardens behind the Cricklewood address after the serial killer was caught
Locals in Cricklewood have been talking about what it is like to live near Nilsen’s former home
Those living near to Nilsen’s old home in Cricklewood have now spoken of needing to walk past the ‘creepy’ house on a daily basis, having read about its historic horrors.
Marketing worker Gemma Cole, a 25-year-old who passes the property each day to walk her dog in the park, said it was difficult not to think about Nilsen’s many victims, adding: ‘It’s a bit weird living near the house.’
She told MailOnline: ‘It’s kind of at the back of your mind as you’re passing. One of my friends did the paper round here when it was all happening – he said you would smell stuff through the letterbox.
‘I don’t think I would want to live in there, to be honest. I guess since it has been stripped back it’s just a house – but it’s creepy.’
Fellow local Xander Povey, a PhD student at Imperial College London, was unaware of Nilsen’s crimes though suggested the name ‘rings a bell’.
He added: ‘I would maybe live there – if I got it for half the price and if I had the money. You’ve got to be scrappy to get on the property ladder these days.’
Another neighbour said the property’s current tenants were ‘very nice’, adding: ‘They have really made it more of a family home. They have done quite a lot of work on it and are taking care of it.
‘I don’t think people talk about Nilsen anymore – it’s all history now.’
PHD student and local Xander Povey, 23, is pictured outside the former home of mass murderer Dennis Nilsen in Cricklewood, north London
A coffin was pictured being taken out of his subsequent home in Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill
Estate agent Leon Roberts is seen here inside the Cranley Gardens flat following the arrest
Kamilah Coles grew up on Melrose Avenue and said her parents would talk of Nilsen as the Melrose Murderer, whereas others knew him as the Muswell Hill Murderer.
The 33-year-old interior designer said: ‘I don’t know the details [of Nilsen’s murders] and I would rather not know.
‘My parents used to talk to me about it – it was like, “There’s this creepy, scary house on the road”.
‘I have kind of avoided knowing anything about it. They’ve done the house up nicely.’
Ms Coles, who admitted she would be put off buying the home because of its past, added: ‘When I tell people I grew up here they say, “Oh, Melrose…”‘
An elderly man from Leeds who moved to the area shortly after Nilsen was arrested said his late wife, who ran a nearby laundromat, ‘always thought he was a weird character’.
The murderer’s subsequent property, in Muswell Hill, now appears on Apple Maps with a star captioned ‘Dennis Nilsen’.
Mother-of-two Joanna Eliades, who has lived nearby for 30 years, said new neighbours had admitted they were ‘chuffed’ to learn of the road’s history, because they are big true crime fans.
Dennis Nilsen is pictured here leaving Highbury Magistrates’ Court in north London in 1983
The murderer is seen being driven to prison after being sentenced to life in November 1983
Cranley Gardens in Muswell Hill, north London, was where Dennis Nilsen was finally caught
Mother-of-two Joanna Eliades says some neighbours are ‘chuffed’ by the Nilsen connection
Nearby flats in Cranley Gardens (pictured) have sold in recent years for up to £700,000
Ms Eliades, 50, said: ‘We occasionally get crowds of people coming along. It doesn’t bother us, really. Occasionally people knock our door and ask which number his house was. People always ask about it when they find out I live on this road.
“Some people have just moved into another flat and are serial killer enthusiasts. I don’t think they knew [about Nilsen living on the same road] until they moved in, but they seem to be pretty chuffed.”
Another resident on the road, 26-year-old Louis Salem, said: ‘You often get weirdos standing outside the house, taking photos and stuff. Some people ask you, “Which was Dennis Nilsen’s house?” It was on the market a couple of years ago but I don’t think anyone wanted to buy it.’
An elderly couple who have lived in the area for more than 45 years admitted it was ‘very scary’ at the time of the murders, as they would walk their children past the home every day on the way to school.
The woman said: ‘This is a nice neighbourhood where we don’t expect to hear about those sorts of atrocities happening.
“It’s amazing how quickly the house was normalised – they refurbished it and it was sold shortly after Nilsen was caught.
“It’s what everybody says whenever anything horrible happens in their neighbourhood – I can’t believe it happened here. It caused a lot of shock. We were pretty unhappy but one character does not take away from it being a nice area.’
True crime author Robin Jarossi, who has written extensively about murders including the still-unsolved so-called ‘Jack The Stripper’ slayings in mid-1960s ‘Swinging London’, says he would be wary of staying in such ‘haunting’ surroundings.
He said: ‘I wouldn’t want to live in Dennis Nilsen’s flat on my own, for example – you can be as level-headed as you like, but when you know what’s happened there then it must be difficult to put it out of your mind.’
Margate, Kent
‘Freaked out’ neighbours have meanwhile been telling MailOnline how it feel to live beside the ‘house of horror’ where serial killer Peter Tobin buried two of his victims.
Tobin raped and murdered several women including Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, whose body was discovered under the floor of a Glasgow church in 2006.
Tobin, 76 when he died in 2022, also received life terms for the murders of 15-year-old schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton in 1991 and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol the same year.
The bodies of Vicky and Dinah were only found in 2007, when police raided and searched the garden of one of his old homes in Margate, Kent.
Tobin had buried his two victims there in a 6ft-deep pit in 1991, before he moved to Hampshire two years later.
Residents say they remember all too well how police descended on Irvine Drive in November 2007 after Tobin’s past finally caught up with him, – and how the chilling echoes still resonate.
Jacob Smith, 22, who lives with his parents opposite Tobin’s former home, was just four when the gruesome discovery was made – but his father recalls vividly the unexpected police operation.
Alan Smith, 68, told MailOnline: ‘We lived nearby at the time, I can remember it being all over the news, the tent outside and everything.’
Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin is seen here under arrest in April 2007
Neighbours have been speaking about how it feels to live close by the home where two of serial killer Peter Tobin’s victims were discovered back in 2007
Alan Smith (right), 68, pictured with son Jacob, 22, remembered police arriving nearby in 2007
And yet when asked whether the property’s notoriety gave him any qualms, he said: ‘I’d live in it, if it was rent-free.’
His son Jacob said: ‘It’s just a house – if the man lived there now, I wouldn’t want to live here, but it happened before we turned up.
‘It does freak you out a little bit, to hear someone is that messed-up in the head to do something like that.’
Yet neighbours have since come, and sometimes gone, with no knowledge of the terraced home’s dark history – including recent arrivals Joe and Victoria McDonagh.
When told about the 2007 police discoveries, Victoria, 29, said: ‘I am surprised – the fact that we didn’t even know about it is quite worrying.”
But her husband Joe, 30, said: ‘Finding something in the garden, that doesn’t bother me – it’s not the dead you need to worry about.’
One neighbour, who would only give her name as Karen and who was 10 when she moved a street around the corner in the 1980s, said: ‘I would’ve been the age of those girls, which is creepy to think about.
‘But even if you showed me a picture of him I don’t think I’d remember him.’
Some neighbours have arrived with no knowledge of the terraced home’s past
Locals have told of finding the history of Tobin’s former Margate property ‘creepy’
Peter Tobin murdered (pictured left to right) Angelika Kluk, Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol
Yet she added: ‘There are people living in the house now, aren’t there? Stuff that, stuff that. I couldn’t do that, it’s just creepy.”
Another resident, who asked not to be named, said: ‘There was some talk about whether it should be pulled down, but it’s a perfectly good home for a family, whatever happened before.’
Back in 2007 when police descended, the then-tenants of the property were horrified and later moved elsewhere – but new residents arriving in 2009 have spoken about new home of the three-bedroom council property.
Self-confessed ‘true crime’ fan Abigail Dengate has previously told KentOnline: ‘Even though people might have thought it strange that we wanted to live here, to us we didn’t care about what had happened in the past – it’s a house.
‘I stand by my kitchen window when I smoke and I see people go past, slowing down, pointing out, “That’s the Tobin house” – probably thinking, “Wow, someone’s actually living there”.’
Similar neighbouring properties in the street have gone on sale for £265,000 in recent years.
There had been calls, in the aftermath of Tobin’s capture, for his former home to be demolished.
But Thanet Council in Kent opted to keep the Margate property standing, on the basis the area needed social housing to be kept available for anyone happy to live there.
Southfields, south-west London
Evil couple Sabrina Kouider and Ouissem Medouni tortured and murdered their French au pair Sophie Lionnet in an opulent home in south-west London.
They killed the 21-year-old in Wimbledon Park Road in Southfields, over a twisted fantasy their victim had been having an affair with Kouider’s ex Mark Walton.
Former Boyzone band member Walton had never even met Ms Lionnet, who the killers believed had been spying on his behalf before murdering her and burning her body outside.
The four-bedroom freehold terrace, which was raided by police who found sickening footage of Ms Lionnet’s treatment, stands on the junction of a handsome terraced street in Wimbledon.
Property records show it was last bought for £415,000 in January 2006 and sold for £1,165,000 in 2022 – after more than doubling in price
But neighbouring homes have sold in recent years for more than £1.5million, indicating that the history of the property may have had some impact on the price.
Kouider and Medouni were convicted of murder in May 2018 and subsequently jailed for life, with both given minimum terms of 30 years.
Their sadistic violence was highlighted as a jarring contrast with their affluent south-west London abode, with well-heeled neighbours in multi-million-pound terraced houses and an ‘outstanding’ primary school for Kouider’s children.
Kouider was living in a rented £550,000 ground-floor apartment as she and her boyfriend subjected Ms Lionnet to months of abuse, culminating in the nanny’s death.
Sabrina Kouider and Ouissem Medouni were found guilty at the OId Bailey in June 2018 of murdering their French nanny Sophie Lionnet at their home in south-west London
Sophie Lionnet (pictured) was tortured and killed by the twisted couple in Southfields
Pictured is the patio where the couple tried to dispose of their nanny’s body
Ms Lionnet became a prisoner in the flat – forced to sleep on a desk and into making confessions that were never good enough to placate her abusers.
Instead the pair increased the pressure on her, using their mobile phones to make videos and audio recordings of 19 increasingly ‘brutal and oppressive’ interrogations of their ‘terrified’ victim.
In the final video, shot a few hours before her death, Sophie was pale and withdrawn as she apparently parroted lines about drugging the family’s drinks.
In the days before she died, Sophie suffered fractures to her sternum, to four of her ribs, and to her jawbone.
She also had bruising to her left arm, back and chest, and on the night before her death she was tortured in the bath.
In her evidence at trial, Kouider claimed that Medouni had waterboarded the young nanny – covering her face with a towel and then pouring water over it.
Ms Lionnet’s remains were too badly burned to establish a cause of death, but it was suggested she drowned in the bath having been punched in the face.
Neither Kouider nor Medouni would admit to being responsible, each claiming they were asleep when their victim died.
They had hidden the body in a suitcase, before trying to get away with murder by burning her body on a bonfire in the garden of their flat.
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
Levi Bellfield is serving two whole life orders for killing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange, as well as the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy.
He received a whole life sentence for the murder of Ms McDonnell, 19, in 2003, Ms Delagrange, 22, and the attempted murder of Ms Sheedy, 18, in 2004.
He was already serving his sentence when he went on trial for killing schoolgirl Milly, who was snatched from the street walking home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in March 2002.
He was found guilty of abducting and killing the 13-year-old following a trial at the Old Bailey in 2011.
Jurors heard how Milly is believed to have spent her final moments trapped in his lair in Collingwood Place, in the commuter belt Surrey town.
Former wheelclamper and bouncer Bellfield then drove the lifeless body to a remote patch of woodland 25 miles away and dumped her in the undergrowth.
The Walton-on-Thames flat was only yards from the route Milly Dowler would take home from school.
It would be nine years after the murder for him to be convicted of her killing, after CCTV footage revealed she vanished right outside Bellfield’s apartment – to which he had access while otherwise living with his partner in West Drayton, west London.
Levi Bellfield abducted and killed 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who is thought to have spent some of her final hours at his flat in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey – close to her route home from school
Levi Bellfield is serving whole life orders for killing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange
Bellfield is known to have murdered three people, including 13-year-old Milly Dowler (pictured)
He also killed 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell (left) and 22-year-old Amelie Delagrange (right)
The two-bedroom ground-floor flat in Walton-on-Thames is last registered online as having sold for £78,500 back in 1997 – while now being valued at around £373,000.
Bellfield, who remains behind bars, was revealed last August to have been blocked from going through with a civil partnership after new rules came into place preventing the most serious offenders from getting wed in jail.
Previously Bellfield had applied to marry his girlfriend and made a bid for legal aid to challenge a decision to block his marriage.
But the Ministry of Justice announced a new law, part of the Victims and Prisoners Act, aiming to ‘deny the most heinous criminals from enjoying the important life events they callously took from their victims’ – applying it to those serving whole life orders.
Fulham, south-west London
The murder of BBC presenter Jill Dando officially remains unsolved, after Barry George’s conviction was overturned.
The newsreader and Crimewatch host was shot dead outside her Gowan Avenue home in Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999.
The property had been bought four years earlier for £265,000 before being sold for £360,000 three months after her death.
Since then the value has continued to soar, switching hands for £811,00 in September 2006 and £1million in March 2009 – while other Gowan Avenue homes have subsequently been bought for £1.8million last July and £2.3million the next month.
The Gowan Avenue home where Dando lived was advertised for sale last year for £2.75million, with a listing saying: ‘A beautiful fully extended Victorian family home, finished to a good specification and located in the Munster Village area of Fulham.
‘Arranged over four floors the house offers light and airy living accommodation with well proportioned rooms and a charming garden with a southerly aspect.’
The property has been owned since 2009 by a banker.
A west London property expert told MailOnline: ‘The house and that street will always be synonymous with the Jill Dando murder, there’s no escaping that.
‘However it’s a beautiful home and Munster Village is a very sought-after location with lots of green space, handsome Victorian and Edwardian houses and great transport links. It feels like a village in the middle of west London.’
Murdered broadcaster Jill Dando presented programmes including Holiday and Crimewatch
Popular BBC presenter Jill Dando was shot dead outside her home in Fulham, south-west London, in April 1999
Floral tributes to the broadcaster are seen outside her home after the killing in April 1999
Jill Dando’s murder remains officially unsolved after Barry George’s conviction was overturned
Barry George, now 64, was tried and convicted of the presenter’s murder but was later cleared
A friend and neighbour who found Ms Dando dead outside her home last year told of being left with traumatic memories that still haunt her.
TV producer Helen Doble, who lived just two streets away from her friend in Fulham, had spotted the broadcaster’s car outside her home and so made a point of looking at her door to see if she was there to chat.
Ms Dando, who mainly lived with her fiancé Alan Farthing at his home, had called in to her own house in what is believed to have been a spur of the moment decision – and was shot dead by an unknown gunman.
Ms Doble told MailOnline last year: ‘Taking in the horror, it took me a few seconds to realise that the person slumped on the doorstep and sprawled on the tiny path was actually Jill herself.’
She added that Ms Dando’s ‘beautiful engagement ring’ – which she said represented the ‘hope, dreams and optimism for her future – was still on her finger.
Ms Doble added: ‘With one step, everything changed on that dreadful day 25 years ago.
‘One moment I was walking my usual route along a lovely leafy residential road in Fulham, and the next moment, with no time to prepare, in broad daylight, I saw the most terrible scene.’
Ms Dando’s murder prompted a huge investigation led by the Metropolitan Police which resulted in Barry George – a local loner and fantasist who had already served a prison sentence for attempted rape – being convicted of her murder in July 2001.
He was granted a retrial on appeal and was acquitted by a jury in August 2008.
Islington, north London
A green plaque is placed on the wall of the building in Noel Road, Islington in north London, where acclaimed playwright Joe Orton was murdered in August 1967.
The author of provocative black comedies such as Entertaining Mr Sloane and Loot was bludgeoned to death by his lover Kenneth Halliwell.
The killer then took a fatal overdose the day before he was due to be sectioned.
The same upper-floor apartment last sold for £177,500 in January 2005, while a similar two-bedroom flat a few doors away went for £985,000 in January 2023.
Two years previously, a four-bedroom property next door fetched £2.15million.
Orton and Halliwell had lived together for almost 15 years, but their initially promising careers in the theatre had gone in different directions – with aspiring actor Halliwell increasingly resentful of his partner’s critical and popular acclaim.
Halliwell launched the attack as Orton slept, hours before the playwright was due to attend a meeting about his draft screenplay that was considered for a potential new movie starring The Beatles.
Orton was described at his funeral by fellow playwright Harold Pinter as ‘a bloody marvellous writer’.
A green plaque marks the building where playwright Joe Orton was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell in 1967, in Islington in north London
Joe Orton is pictured here outside his home in Noel Road, in Islington in North London
Both his and Halliwell’s ashes were scattered together at Golders Green Crematorium in north London, six miles away from Noel Road.
One woman now living along from Orton’s former home told MailOnline she had not known about the brutal murder until arriving there.
Emily, 29 said: ‘We moved in around three years ago. We know about the murder and we still live here.
‘My mum bought me a book called Bloody London around the time we moved in, and this house was in it.
‘There was a drawing and our door was in it.”
Emily, who bought her home with her partner, admitted she probably would not have bought a flat in Orton’s old building.
She said: ‘If it was this house, I don’t think we would have bought it. But, also, it was a long time ago.”
Many other residents on Noel Road said they were unaware of Orton’s murder, despite the faded plaque stating he used to live there – but not adding how he had also died there.
The ‘Historic House’ green plaque records how Orton lived there for seven years in the 1960s
Orton, seen inside his flat, wrote 1960s plays including Entertaining Mr Sloane and Loot
Current residents of Noel Road have said they only learnt of the Orton link after moving in
Not far from the home where Halliwell killed Orton is the Islington flat where troubled record producer Joe Meek shot dead his landlady Violet Shenton and then himself six months earlier in 1967.
Meek had a home studio in his apartment, where he produced chart-topping hits including John Leyton’s Johnny Remember Me and the Tornados’ Telstar.
The building at 304 Holloway Road now bears a ‘black plaque’ commemorating his presence there.
Meek’s former home is above a 24-hour grocery store and not far from busy local developments taking in trendy Upper Street and Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.
