Anti-terror police are still conducting fingertip searches' of a flat in New Southgate where one of the men suspected of carrying out the failed London bombings on July 21 lived.

The painstaking work at Curtis House, in Ladderswood Way, where bombmaking material was discovered last week, follows the arrest of five people thought to have been involved in the incidents in central London two weeks ago including Curtis House resident Yasin Hassan Omar and his associate Muktar Said-Ibrahim.

Omar was traced to an address in Birmingham on Wednesday, and Ibrahim was cuffed by police following a raid on a house in Notting Hill on Friday.

Officers had anticipated their work at Curtis House would be wrapped up by Monday but they were still there yesterday, logging all those entering and leaving the premises. A spokesman for the Met police anti-terror branch said: "Searches are very detailed and it's very difficult to predict how long officers will take."

Residents of Curtis House are slowly coming to terms with the mindblowing news that they could have lived within yards of terrorists.

Karen Chang, who lived opposite Omar's flat, spoke exclusively to the Independent yesterday.

She remembers meeting the duo on several occasions and chatted to them on a neighbourly basis.

She said: "I asked them to participate in a rota to keep our hallway clean, but they declined. They would keep themselves to themselves and the last time I spoke to either of them was about a month ago.

"I was going to talk to them about their habit of smoking in the hallway, but now I think they probably did it because they had explosives in the flat."

She added: "The worst thing was finding out they had been assembling explosives in the flat and putting equipment down rubbish chutes.

"There was always a lot of traffic going in and out of the flat."

Meanwhile, Transport for London (TfL) chiefs said the Piccadilly Line, which has been closed between Arnos Grove and Hyde Park corner since July 7, is set to open before the end of the week.

London Underground staff have been working around the clock to repair the seriously damaged tunnel between King's Cross and Russell Square and have completed their work well ahead of schedule.

A spokeswoman said: "We are due to begin testing on the Piccadilly Line very shortly and hope to reopen the whole line later this week.

"The work of staff has been totally commendable."

If you have any information which could help the terror investigation, call the anti-terrorism hotline on 0800 789321.