Contemporary art - Bodies bagged up in bin liners, a hunched figure behind a shower curtain, an unseen child screaming. Richard Cork is spooked by a haunting installation

As a raw antidote to the rampant consumerism and sentimentality of the Christmas season, nothing could be more effective than visiting a narrow street in the East End of London. For here, a pair of old houses are transformed by Gregor Schneider into the most relentless, haunting artwork I have ever encountered.

Holding the door key given to me by the site-specific art producers Artangel, which commissioned this macabre project, I approach my destination. Looking up at the faded frontage of the first house, I cannot help shuddering. It looks deserted and forlorn, a place where visitors are bound to feel unwelcome. My disquiet intensifies as I unlock the door and step, very gingerly, inside. Artangel insisted that nobody accompany me. So I stand in the narrow, poorly lit hall, wondering where to go next.

Suddenly the front door swings shut behind me with a startling bang. It makes me feel trapped in this dingy corridor. As I walk hesitantly towards the staircase, my eyes make out a shadowy space beyond, leading down to the basement. But I'm not yet brave enough to explore it. Nor do I feel ready to open the door on the right, even though odd, unclassifiable and muffled noises can be heard behind it. Instead, my feet ascend the staircase on autopilot. The worn steps curve up to a cramped landing, where two doors confront me. And this time there is only silence.

Without bothering to knock, I barge straight ahead, feeling like an intruder. Inside, a white bed with a fake-fur spread fills most of the windowless room. On the floor, resting in a deep-pile carpet, a cheap electric heater emits a purring sound. Then I notice a wardrobe on the right, with three tall mirrors providing reflections of something strange beyond the bed. Very reluctantly, I let go of the door and move deeper into the room. There, sprawled on the floor, is a figure half-shrouded in a shiny black plastic bag. Only the legs are visible, clad in black trousers. They could be male or female, alive or dead. But closer examination reveals they are undoubtedly real. This anonymous slumped body must belong to a victim of some kind. It stirs memories of that claustrophobic house at 10 Rillington Place, where the deadpan yet bestial Christie lured his guests and then, quite systematically, murdered them.

Backing out of the bedroom, I steel myself for another confrontation in the next room. It turns out to be a steam-filled bathroom, and the sound of spraying water prompts me to stare at the shower curtain drawn across the tub. Through the pale plastic, a naked man can be detected. He looks as blurred and alone as a figure in an early painting by Francis Bacon. Hunched and grunting, the bulky nude is turned away from me. But he is clearly masturbating, and my arrival in the bathroom does not even make him pause in his frantic, joyless exertions. Oblivious of everything, he makes me feel like a voyeur. Should I talk to him? Embarrassed, I cannot think of anything to say, and turn away to inspect the bathroom cabinet. Only one thing is identifiable on the shelves: a bottle labelled "Wash and Go". But the noisy wanker with the jerking arm seems bent on staying as long as possible, so I take my leave.

Out on the landing, my sense of relief is palpable. But it does not last. Clambering uncertainly up some even more narrow and winding stairs, I come to an attic door. Although the small floral image displayed at its centre promises a sentimental welcome, I cannot get in. And the child-safety gate lodged in front of the door immediately makes me wonder what might be going on beyond, out of my sight.

Frustrated, I struggle back down to the door on the ground floor. Walking in, I find myself only a few paces away from a fair-haired woman at the sink. Like the naked man upstairs, she is seemingly unaware of my presence. Washing up crockery and cutlery with the aid of red rubber gloves, she appears glumly absorbed in her mundane, endless task. This time, I find the courage to speak. "Have you had your meal, then?" I ask in a faltering voice. She does not even twitch in response, let alone swivel round to look at me. I might as well not exist.

While the scrubbing of plates and glasses continues unabated, my eyes are arrested by an old bamboo curtain slung from an open doorway. Inside, I find a room apparently unaltered since the Second World War. An old-fashioned lamp dangles from the low ceiling, failing adequately to illuminate the faded furniture below. Heavy nets over the blank window reinforce the sense of grubby grimness, while the ash piled in the grate suggests that the inhabitants rely only on coal fire for heat. It looks more like a museum exhibit than a lived-in space, but two plastic bags stuffed with groceries suggest that the woman uses this eerie place as her home. Cigarette butts, stuffed in an ashtray on a rudimentary glass table, add to the suffocating air of gloom.

The basement is now unavoidable. Walking down the shadowy stairs, I find myself confronted by another choice of doors at the bottom. One of them leads into an excruciatingly small room lit by a glaring white light. It is empty apart from a strange stack of lavatory paper rolls, fruit and lollipops tucked away in a corner. They look oddly expectant, as if waiting to be used by some unknown young occupant imprisoned down here. But no hints of life can be discerned, and the other room is even more dismal. Far larger and dimmer, it seems oppressed by a sense of utter dejection.

When my eyes become accustomed to the darkness, I make out a dustbin stuffed with a big, body-sized plastic bag. Further in lurks another bin, this one with a lid mercifully hiding its contents. And a viscous stain spreads out across the floor. Looking up, I notice a green string stretched from one end of the ceiling to the other, where it terminates in an unidentifiable bundle suspended mysteriously in space. And behind the door a wooden chair lies on its side, perhaps testifying to a recent struggle.

But nobody is visible in this damp, inky chamber, and the atmosphere becomes so unbearably ominous that I leave without daring to explore any further.

The second house turns out, uncannily, to offer the same experiences as the first. Everything seems identical, even though the rational part of my mind knows that Schneider has taken an inordinate amount of care to find objects and people resembling their counterparts next door. By replicating the scene in the first house, Schneider appears determined to insist that they are helplessly embroiled in repeating the same manic rituals, over and over again.

I share the sense of imprisonment by venturing so far into the big basement room that the door closes behind me. In the shadows, I discover a decrepit bookcase jutting out from the wall. And fur-ther on, an archway leads through to an unbearably constricting passage. Although I am now very frightened, curiosity impels me to control my accelerating panic and investigate. Eventually, I find myself crouching and peering past an open door with a padlock attached. Beyond, in a cell-like space too small to enter, a dank and dirty mattress lies on the ground. The low arch curving above makes it resemble a coal hole. I kneel and stare, wondering who might be forced to suffer here. Then I hear the distant sound of a child screaming.

It sums up the despair pervading both these benighted houses, where the whole notion of "family" is reduced to such a bleak nullity. All the hopes generated by domestic life have terminated in tyranny, alienation and paralysis. As fast as possible, I leave my traumatic confinement and escape into the London night.

For more information about Die Familie Schneider, visit Artangel's website: www.artangel.org.uk

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