FAMILIES who claim empty houses are turning an area to squalor say they will stop paying council tax unless something is done.

Residents of Grangetown, east Cleveland, claim the area's high proportion of abandoned houses have become magnets for rubbish and discarded needles.

They say those who remain there have to put up with rats and an unbearable stench. They say the problems have made their homes practically worthless.

After a year of asking Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council to bulldoze the problem houses, residents say they have finally had enough. Julia Prior, of Granville Road, Grangetown, said the situation is intolerable.

"On my side of the street, there are only about 14 occupied houses out of 30," she said.

"A lot of the empty ones have no floors and they are all open, so children could just walk in and fall through the holes.

"They are full of rubbish and the stench is terrible."

Mrs Prior said the properties, which are mainly owned by housing associations and private landlords, also attract local hoodlums.

"We have got a house about five or six doors away that is known as somewhere kids go to take drugs," she said.

"Another one has a mattress, which the boys and girls use for sex."

The mother of one estimates that the empty houses have caused her own to fall in value from £18,500 to barely £4,000, but she said she would rather move than subject her seven-month-old son to the hazards.

In the meantime, she said, withdrawing her council tax seems the only option.

"I'm seriously thinking about not paying it," she said.

Paul Tuffs, chairman of the Grangetown Residents' Association, said: "The council doesn't seem to want to know, so I've contacted a solicitor, who says it's obliged to do something about the health hazards."

Andy Powell, Redcar and Cleveland council's acting director of housing, said: "We have been working with residents for some time to find the best ways of tackling the eyesore caused by these houses.

"Some £1m is being invested into Grangetown North, and improvements to the Granville Road area will be carried out.

"The council has also decided to appoint an empty property enforcement officer to deal with uninhabitable properties.