Rachel Clark got a shock when she returned to find a hole into the next door business

A WOMAN in Kilburn came home from work earlier this month to find a hole in the wall she shares with the kebab shop next door.

The gap meant she could see into the kitchen of Dubai Shawarma, where repair work was being done.

“I’ve had a bit of a sleepless night,” said Rachel Clark, the day after the incident.

The football-sized crater – bricked up on the restaurant’s side the next morning – narrowly missed gas and water pipes running into her building. Dubai Shawarma has said the hole was accidentally created during planned works to fix a problem with the restaurant’s ceiling, and that they have tried to cooperate with Ms Clark to fix it.

She said: “This is the entrance and exit for three flats. They had no respect for the fact that the whole place could have been flooded or set on fire.”

She said she has asked some friends in the building industry to come over and help her convince the builders next door of the risks.

“They wouldn’t come out to talk to them. They would only speak to them through the hole,” she said, adding: “For me, there’s too much of this in Kilburn. You see it all up the High Road, everyone is cutting corners.”

The hole through to the Dubai Shawarma

Ms Clark, who has owned her flat for eight years, called Camden Council, the police and the Fire Brigade to ask for help with the hole in her wall but was told that none of them could give her any answers about what to do.

She added: “The problem is I obviously don’t trust [Dubai Shawarma’s] workmanship now. I’d like someone I know and trust to fix it, rather than the person who made this mess in the first place.”

Rachel Clark says she doesn’t trust the kebab shop’s workers to fix her home

A spokesperson for Dubai Shawarma said steel beams were being installed to fix a sagging ceiling.

“During the works, we accidentally made a hole through the party wall,” they said.

“It was initially a crack, but as we removed the pieces it revealed a bigger hole near the pipes, which we were very careful not to damage. After the accident, we immediately sealed the hole in the wall on our end, but Ms Clark has declined to cooperate with us further or grant access to the building. “We apologise for any miscommunications and remain hopeful that this can be resolved amicably.”