There was no light or electricity in Leigh Smith's ground floor flat.
This grim existence had become a reality for the 48-year-old in his final days.
A likeable and well loved dad, his life was sadly blighted by drug addiction.
He was easy prey for a 17-year-old teenage gangster, who netted staggering amounts of money, profiting from human misery.
Just as cuckoos take over the nests of other birds, drug dealers do the same to vulnerable people who are desperate.
Rather than take the risk of using their own homes, flats such as Leigh's provided a safe haven for drugs to be packaged and prepared ready for the streets.
Cuckooing, this evil, terrifying trend, allowed Jacob Cookson to rake in £7,000 a week, peddling crack cocaine and heroin on the streets of Salford.
Leigh Smith was just one part of Cookson's drugs empire.
But he paid the ultimate price after Cookson decided that a challenge to his gangster image could not go unpunished.
He would openly carry knives including terrifying Rambo style blades, to reinforce threats and intimidate people.
Even the death of a 'close friend', another victim of knife crime, did not put off Cookson from carrying blades.
Police discovered a 'Rambo' knife when they arrested Cookson, and a hunting knife in his bedroom.
He was even accused of threatening a co-defendant, who was later acquitted of murder, with an improvised blade during his trial.
Described as being a paintbrush handle which had been sharpened, he allegedly had it in a holding cell before being brought to court.
"Check this out", Cookson allegedly told the teen, before lifting up his top and showing him the weapon, which was discovered in a Lynx shower gel bottle at Wetherby young offender institution.
It was a final act of defiance as he faced the prospect of a life sentence. He must serve at least 19 years before he can be freed.
"I think it's a sad indictment of society today, particularly young people who routinely carry knives," DCI Ben Cottam of GMP said after the case.
"It's a shocking example of how things can go tragically wrong when you carry a knife.
"With Jacob it was more than that, he was using it as part and parcel of his criminal enterprise, and carried it quite openly on occasion, and used it to enforce the intimidation tactics and to help with the taking advantage of vulnerable people."
It was an attack on Cookson which was the catalyst for this brutal killing.
He ended up in hospital, covered in blood, after being hit over the head with a radio in Leigh's flat, by a man he'd just sold some crack cocaine.
Cookson laid the blame at Leigh's door, believing he'd been set up.
Five days later, Cookson, with the help of another member of his gang, 17-year-old Logan Eaton, went to exact revenge.
Tragically, Leigh's life had seemed to be taking a positive turn.
The last time he saw his mother Jackie Roycroft, she believed he'd been making good strides.
Leigh was stabbed seven times
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