A housing association that allegedly failed to act on reports of a powerful stench emanating from one of its properties for five days before a body was discovered has launched an investigation.

Police found the body of a 53 year-old-man in the kitchen of his Metropolitan housing association flat in Ambleside Road, Harlesden, last Friday following reports of a strong smell.

The mother of a prospective tenant for the flat next door, who asked not to be named, said she raised the alarm with Metropolitan five days earlier and made repeated calls throughout the week.

“From Monday I was complaining about the stench,” she said

“There was a stench coming and all flies.

“I thought there’s something not right.

“It smelt like a morgue.”

“I said somebody needs to go and have a look at what is going on.

“Nobody was listening to me.”

She said she was on the telephone for “most of the day” on the Friday to Metropolitan before it finally called the police.

A spokesman for Metropolitan said: “We realise that this is a very sad and unfortunate situation and at Metropolitan we take incidents such as this very seriously.

“We are now conducting an internal review to identify exactly what occurred and will take action to ensure that an incident like this does not happen again.”

A police spokesman said next of kin were informed and a post mortem examination deemed the death as non-suspicious.