As a journalist, it is part of our job to go out and meet people, carry out face-to-face interviews and see first hand what it is we’re writing about.

In reality, the pressures of daily web deadlines, general workload and not being on patch mean that isn’t always possible and sometimes we have to resort to sitting firmly behind our desks with the phone in constant use.

When Melissa Lennox contacted me a few weeks ago to tell me that she was being forced into a cockroach-infested flat in Tottenham, I knew this was something I had to see for myself. I am not a glutton for punishment but this was definitely one of those occasions where seeing this with my own eyes was an absolute necessity. And no discredit to Melissa, but I had to see if this was really true or just an exaggerated story in a ploy to get moved.

I can safely say that the day I visited the Russell Road hostel was the saddest and hardest day of my journalism life. When I said in my initial story that cockroaches roamed the corridors, leaving their egg sacks everywhere, I was sparing the readers the details. I was horrified that anyone lived in this sad excuse for accommodation and even more horrified that the council seemed to believe it was suitable living conditions. I wonder if any of them had actually been down to Russell Road and seen what I saw.

It was easy for me. I interviewed Melissa, the photographer took photos and we walked away as she cried at her predicament. It took me 24 hours to feel physically rid of the effects of the block. My shoes are still outside my house though as I’m scared I stepped in an egg sack and could infest my house with cockroaches.

It took me 24 hours but for the people living there the nightmare continues.

Last week another resident contacted me from the same block. She told me that she had lived there for years. She has a child. She sent me pictures of the mice she had caught in a glue trap she put down. Those were the mice she caught, I dread to think about the ones that escaped.

As the story has unfolded and I have spoken to more residents the picture I am building up of this hostel is disgraceful. Rats, mice and cockroaches seem to be roaming freely, leaving their droppings and egg sacks along their way. I’ve seen and heard enough to know that this place should be shut down for good. But it won’t be, because there’s nowhere else to put these people who have been waiting for some more permanent accommodation for years.

Haringey has nearly 5,500 people in temporary accommodation and I am sure Russell Road is not a one-off story. I have already spoken to another man in temporary accommodation in Tottenham who has been dealing with a cockroach infestation for the past three years. It’s a really sad reality that these people can do very little else but accept their fate and it’s even sadder that Haringey Council, for all its attempts to be seen to be doing the right thing, is failing these people.

Everyone deserves a clean and safe roof over their head. Rich or poor, old or young, it’s really not much to ask. The Russell Road block is nothing short of an outrage and whoever is ultimately to blame should hang their head in shame for allowing anyone to live even for one night in these conditions. No one deserves to live among vermin and disease.

Of the hundreds of stories I have written for this paper, and the hundreds of people I have interviewed, this tale is the single most distressing I have come across. This isn’t about exclusives or hard-hitting headlines, this is about real people and real lives being affected daily by incompetence and disregard.

I’ve never felt more strongly. Haringey Council, do something. Now.