Too freaking bad.

If this doesn’t make you blood boil, then nothing will. Someone else’s religious or cultural norms should never be allowed to circumvent common sense and rational thinking, and above all, at the taxpayers’ expense. In the current multi-culti climate, people such as this women feel empowered to make such demands.

It is forbidden for us to enter somewhere where someone has died. It doesn’t matter that the man who died here was not a gipsy. I can feel his spirit and it gives me the shivers.

NOTE: Well then, that rules out visits to the hospital let alone staying as a patient in a room where someone has died. But guess what folks, Gypsies are known to hold huge vigils inside hospitals, seen them myself, so there’s no fear of the ghosts in the waiting rooms and bedsides of NHS buildings, whatsoever. Some can be very superstitious, but they can choose, live in what they’ve been given, or fend for themselves.

Unemployed gipsy mother demands new council house – because her beliefs ‘do not allow her to live in a home where someone has died’

• Lisa Bowden, 40, moved into two-bedroom council flat in October
• When she found out the previous tenant died there she called in a priest
• Now she wants to be moved because she can ‘feel the man’s spirit’ and says if she lived in a caravan it would be burned in similar circumstances
  

By HUGO GYE and SAM GREENHILL

PUBLISHED: 18:00 GMT, 30 December 2013 | UPDATED: 07:21 GMT, 31 December 2013

Complaint: Lisa Bowden says she needs a new council house because someone died in her flat

A jobless mother is being given a new council home after she complained that a previous tenant had died in hers – which she says offends her gipsy culture.

Lisa Bowden, who has not worked in 15 years and collects around £13,000 a year in benefits, was given her current newly-decorated two-bedroom flat two months ago.

But she discovered that a man had died there, and claims it is against her culture to live where someone has passed away.

Miss Bowden, 40, who has four children by two fathers, said she can feel the presence of the deceased man’s ‘spirit’ and insisted that Dartford Borough Council move her to a three- bedroom house with a garden.

Neighbours branded her a ‘freeloader’, but the council has now agreed to give her a new home.

The former traveller, whose flat in the pretty Kent village of Stone, near Dartford, is equipped with mod cons, said: ‘When someone dies from a gipsy culture, we would burn the caravan.

‘It is forbidden for us to enter somewhere where someone has died. It doesn’t matter that the man who died here was not a gipsy. I can feel his spirit and it gives me the shivers.

‘I can’t live here – I always sleep with the light on and would never stay at night on my own. The council need to give me a new home – one with a garden and three bedrooms so my daughter can visit.’

Miss Bowden lives with her nine-year-old son, while her 15-year-old daughter lives with her father, Miss Bowden’s ex-husband. Her other children have left home.

She gets £70 weekly employment and support allowance, and £60 a week in child tax credits. She also receives £80 a month in child benefit, and her £90 weekly rent is paid for by the taxpayer.

Demands: Ms Bowden was given her current two-bedroom flat in Stone, near Dartford, two months ago

Home: Ms Bowden inside the living room of the taxpayer-funded flat, which is equipped with mod cons

Demand: The mother of four says it is against travellers’ beliefs to live in a home where someone has died

Her house has two flat-screen televisions, a PlayStation 3 console, a Nintendo Wii, a new sofabed and a new microwave, kettle and toaster. At Christmas she bought her nine-year-old a laptop computer.

When she was given the flat in October, the council gave her nearly £200 to redecorate, and she got a new bathroom and kitchen. Miss Bowden said she had called in a priest in an attempt to exorcise her flat, but claims she can still ‘smell the death’ inside it.

She claims her ‘haunted’ flat  is making worse a long-standing lung condition, and was recently admitted to hospital for a chest infection. She added: ‘I told them I didn’t want a flat where someone died, but they didn’t listen and told me either I take the flat or I end up on the street.’

One neighbour said: ‘She’s so ungrateful. Beggars can’t be choosers. Nobody should turn their nose up at a free flat, even if someone has died in it. It’s not like he is still in there.’

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