Sunday, 26 January 2014
Because We Want To
Imagine this: being refused entry to an open supermarket because it’s Wednesday. Or being denied the use of a road because the council, without justification, feel like it – or because you’ve got funny hair. Or being thrown out of a restaurant halfway through a meal because you asked, politely, for a clean fork. Or thrown off a train for being poor, and in 2nd class.
Not wishing to harp on about those damn Wilsons, but for me the most shocking part of the whole sorry tale is the fact they could evict their tenants because they want to. Much is made by Shelter, the various housing ministers and media about rogue landlords, when for me, the worst problem in the whole rented sector is the sense of insecurity.
It works this way. Tenants move in, and letting agents insist on a six month, assured short-term tenancy. Some – the minority – renew with another contract of similar length. If you’re really fortunate, you’re allowed a whole twelve months. But for others, the contract is not renewed – instead it’s ‘rolled over’. This means you don’t endure the continuous renewal fees payable in England, but the other effect is that occupants need only be issued with two months notice when the urge to turf them out strikes.
No-fault evictions are the bain of every tenant’s life. Rentiers commonly chuck out perfectly fine tenants because they can, and because they want to. No need for a reason – even if the secret, hidden cause is owners thinking they can earn more money, or that tenants have insisted on essential repairs, which is known as retaliatory evictions.
Where demand is high and supply limited, I’ve heard of occupants guessing that their lord and effective master is looking elsewhere only when the front door opens and prospective new occupants are shooed hurriedly around. Oh – and they’ve been texted to explain their task is to clean up and ‘be nice.’
This is all perfectly lawful (if a bit stupid) and tenants must even keep their heads down and be nice to avoid their seigneur cursing them with a bad reference. Landlords keep one eye on making more money, and even issue notice to quit, which is withdrawn if they fail to get a better offer. Yep – this happens, especially in property hot-spots.
This highlights another inherent problem with renting – that of amateur rentiers, who thrive on making sure their tenants i.e. the saps who subsidise their pensions or business portfolio are permanently on tenterhooks.
Precarious life, seeped in insecurity makes people ill. No fault evictions are wrong. They’re helpful to nobody – even landlords suffer. They facilitate prejudice, enhance insecurity, and are curse on long term plans. Simply losing your private sector home is now one the main causes of homelessness, and local council must pick up the pieces from the shattered lives caused by short termist cruelty.
To evict a tenant, rentiers should, be forced by law to provide a damn good , evidenced reason.
Either that or letting renters to be empowered to vacate without prejudice because the owner of their home has bad taste in clothes.
Which brings me back, neatly, back to the Wilsons and their hideous Burberry.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/secure-and-insecurity.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cult-of-insecurity.html
Monday, 20 January 2014
Worried.
For some tenants, renting is a constant source of joy. Just one, vast panorama of happiness. A gorgeous extemporanea full of glee. For others, mostly the impoverished renter, whose work is precarious or those crammed in and insecure where demand is impossible high, it’s horrible.
The device that enables me to see search terms used to reach me here often serves to flag up common concerns. In other cases, people have contacted me to share their stories. The recurring, distressing, but I suppose, inevitable theme is flatmates in shared homes, not just hostile HMO’s, but supposed friendly shared houses with joint tenancies who are very worried about money.
It’s getting quite nasty. Some co-tenants knew each other before moving, others join a new family of convenience, living at close quarters with people they barely know. They share a world of unwanted intimacy, and they usually learn more about each other than is desirable or ideal.
But their lives are linked. I am being told of many examples of austerity biting and damaging the sense of distance most co-tenants seem to want.
One renter tells me of realising food was missing. Nothing major – just morsels really, as if someone had been trying to discreetly and surreptitiously feed themselves. She knew her co-tenant was having a tough time, but realised he was just plain hungry. She did her best to help, by not mentioning it, and offering to share meals, and donating ‘spare’ food. Her flatmate was later seen in tears, holding a parcel from the foodbank.
People everywhere are being forced to share rented homes – that includes claimants under 35, who might - let’s remember - be in work. Life is precarious, job contracts are short-term, pay is low, and people are pushed together. What do you do, when you know that someone is in trouble? When that trouble could affect you?
Then there are bills. How do you share the cost, when people cannot afford to pay monthly, or others cannot pay at all? There are communal meals – even trips to the pub, where one tenant is always, always, busy, and the others feel guilty.
There’s rent. People often elect one person to pay from their account, which is tricky if you’re paid late. Someone shares with an old friend who wasn’t paid for months on end, and he had to cover her share. The employer eventually went under, and he was struggling to find enough shifts himself, so it was a nightmare. He found her in tears. She’d taken a payday loan.
They took debt advice, and eventually had their card meter removed, so they could pay regularly throughout the year, instead of massive amounts in the winter. They paid off the arrears, but they had worked together. Not everyone is close enough or kind enough to do that.
It’s the sense of knowing that people are not your responsibility, but caring nonetheless. When, and where do you draw the line - do you feed them, or does concern stop simply run to polite, ‘caring faces’ and platitudes?
This is another problem that will get worse and worse. Renting isn't funny anymore.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/that-joke-isnt-funny-anymore.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/jointly-together-and-simultaneously.html
The device that enables me to see search terms used to reach me here often serves to flag up common concerns. In other cases, people have contacted me to share their stories. The recurring, distressing, but I suppose, inevitable theme is flatmates in shared homes, not just hostile HMO’s, but supposed friendly shared houses with joint tenancies who are very worried about money.
It’s getting quite nasty. Some co-tenants knew each other before moving, others join a new family of convenience, living at close quarters with people they barely know. They share a world of unwanted intimacy, and they usually learn more about each other than is desirable or ideal.
But their lives are linked. I am being told of many examples of austerity biting and damaging the sense of distance most co-tenants seem to want.
One renter tells me of realising food was missing. Nothing major – just morsels really, as if someone had been trying to discreetly and surreptitiously feed themselves. She knew her co-tenant was having a tough time, but realised he was just plain hungry. She did her best to help, by not mentioning it, and offering to share meals, and donating ‘spare’ food. Her flatmate was later seen in tears, holding a parcel from the foodbank.
People everywhere are being forced to share rented homes – that includes claimants under 35, who might - let’s remember - be in work. Life is precarious, job contracts are short-term, pay is low, and people are pushed together. What do you do, when you know that someone is in trouble? When that trouble could affect you?
Then there are bills. How do you share the cost, when people cannot afford to pay monthly, or others cannot pay at all? There are communal meals – even trips to the pub, where one tenant is always, always, busy, and the others feel guilty.
There’s rent. People often elect one person to pay from their account, which is tricky if you’re paid late. Someone shares with an old friend who wasn’t paid for months on end, and he had to cover her share. The employer eventually went under, and he was struggling to find enough shifts himself, so it was a nightmare. He found her in tears. She’d taken a payday loan.
They took debt advice, and eventually had their card meter removed, so they could pay regularly throughout the year, instead of massive amounts in the winter. They paid off the arrears, but they had worked together. Not everyone is close enough or kind enough to do that.
It’s the sense of knowing that people are not your responsibility, but caring nonetheless. When, and where do you draw the line - do you feed them, or does concern stop simply run to polite, ‘caring faces’ and platitudes?
This is another problem that will get worse and worse. Renting isn't funny anymore.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/that-joke-isnt-funny-anymore.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/jointly-together-and-simultaneously.html
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Rein In Those Wilsons.
I’m battling with feeling peeved that it took some media outlets years to wake up to the fact that renting is frequently horrific. I’m pleased for the publicity, feeling vindicated, but equally certain that so much of this new outrage stems from publicity surrounding the vile ,self-satisfied, smug, greedy, pompous, self-entitled, self-justified Wilsons and their ‘…but we have to raise the rents.’
I often wonder, why must rents rise. Is it necessity? Is it the expense of running and managing property? No. It’s done because of high demand, which is blatant profiteering. But you can’t get away with it everywhere.
Rents rose fastest on an annual basis in London, where they increased by 4.4%, followed by the south-west (3.4%) and the south-east (3.2%). Rents fell by 5.5%, or an average of £42, in eastern England, 2.8% in the West Midlands, and 2% in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber. Most of Scotland is falling in real terms, too – except Edinburgh
They’re not rocketing up where unemployment is high, is the basic fact here. So here’s the issue, the mammoth in the room - rent control.
Rent control is what we need. Labour are against it, as are Shelter. But rent control is essential, to stop rentiers thumbing their noses at reason, and indulging their rapacious acquisitive natures. The odious Wilson’s insist it is their feudal right to charge as much as they see fit, not because of their own costs or any justifiable need, but because they want more money. Rents rise because of a degenerate, over-arching desire for profit, not because of the need to cover necessary prices involved in letting homes – not even interest rates, and rises outstrip inflation.
Before the usual suspects whine that renting was stagnating in the 80’s, that was because of the large amount of owners and the reasonable price of home-owning – more owner-occupiers means less tenants, so lower rents. Buying the first of several homes cost just 2.5 of the average income, and wages were higher with bills much lower in comparison.
But here’s the point. These buildings are homes. Vital, essential, necessary homes for people to live in, not holiday cottages, or your pied-a-terre in the city. It’s a home.
When people can’t afford a home, or worse- nobody will let to them, then where will they live? The streets, that’s where, and homelessness, actual rough sleeping is on the rise.
Certain property ‘professionals’ are delighted by the rise in rents. They forget that increasing rents because of demand is profiteering. When house-building gets under way the likes of the Wilsons will get their richly deserved come-uppance. They lord it over people’s lives, masters of their security, peace and fate. Worse still dubious, flaky wealth-on-paper has made them judgemental. They don’t understand that they benefited from state ‘hand-outs’ – the Wilsons are the scroungers, not their benighted tenants.
Meanwhile note to the odious, rent profiteering Wilsons – local housing allowance is paid one month in arrears, even before Universal Credit/Cockup is introduced.
But then, those Wilsons resemble Edward and Tubbs from The League of Gentleman, which keeps me smiling. I take my fun where I can at times like this.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/feeling-validated.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/why-do-rents-rise.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/rents-are-rising-or-are-they.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/think-of-number.html
I often wonder, why must rents rise. Is it necessity? Is it the expense of running and managing property? No. It’s done because of high demand, which is blatant profiteering. But you can’t get away with it everywhere.
Rents rose fastest on an annual basis in London, where they increased by 4.4%, followed by the south-west (3.4%) and the south-east (3.2%). Rents fell by 5.5%, or an average of £42, in eastern England, 2.8% in the West Midlands, and 2% in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber. Most of Scotland is falling in real terms, too – except Edinburgh
They’re not rocketing up where unemployment is high, is the basic fact here. So here’s the issue, the mammoth in the room - rent control.
Rent control is what we need. Labour are against it, as are Shelter. But rent control is essential, to stop rentiers thumbing their noses at reason, and indulging their rapacious acquisitive natures. The odious Wilson’s insist it is their feudal right to charge as much as they see fit, not because of their own costs or any justifiable need, but because they want more money. Rents rise because of a degenerate, over-arching desire for profit, not because of the need to cover necessary prices involved in letting homes – not even interest rates, and rises outstrip inflation.
Before the usual suspects whine that renting was stagnating in the 80’s, that was because of the large amount of owners and the reasonable price of home-owning – more owner-occupiers means less tenants, so lower rents. Buying the first of several homes cost just 2.5 of the average income, and wages were higher with bills much lower in comparison.
But here’s the point. These buildings are homes. Vital, essential, necessary homes for people to live in, not holiday cottages, or your pied-a-terre in the city. It’s a home.
When people can’t afford a home, or worse- nobody will let to them, then where will they live? The streets, that’s where, and homelessness, actual rough sleeping is on the rise.
Certain property ‘professionals’ are delighted by the rise in rents. They forget that increasing rents because of demand is profiteering. When house-building gets under way the likes of the Wilsons will get their richly deserved come-uppance. They lord it over people’s lives, masters of their security, peace and fate. Worse still dubious, flaky wealth-on-paper has made them judgemental. They don’t understand that they benefited from state ‘hand-outs’ – the Wilsons are the scroungers, not their benighted tenants.
Meanwhile note to the odious, rent profiteering Wilsons – local housing allowance is paid one month in arrears, even before Universal Credit/Cockup is introduced.
But then, those Wilsons resemble Edward and Tubbs from The League of Gentleman, which keeps me smiling. I take my fun where I can at times like this.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/feeling-validated.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/why-do-rents-rise.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/rents-are-rising-or-are-they.html
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/think-of-number.html
Sunday, 5 January 2014
I Look Down On You Because…
In every city, on every street, across the country, in every building, a quiet battle is taking place, between ‘them’ (who’s ‘them’?) and us (who, exactly, is ‘us’?) The battle lines are fixed, and the adversaries are owner-occupiers, and tenants. Neither is innocent. Neither is blameless, both misbehave.
My experience was of glowering frostiness, then simple simmering fury - an icy chill whenever I saw my neighbour. I had no idea why. Then, by power of thought alone, I worked out what the problem was. This was after she had insulted Landgirl, and just been, well…odd. The problem was that I should have been cleaning the landing floor. I thought it was down to the caretaker, or ‘factor’ as we say in Scotland, but no – the occupants were supposed to mop the floors. The eternally and splendidly useless letting agents had failed to let me know. The grimacing continues.
In certain other buildings, absentee buy-to-let rentiers rent out homes to tenants who embrace the freedom and transience renting offers – short-term at least. In some extreme cases, they hold frequent noisy parties, scream loudly on the way home at night, do not empty the bins, leave litter lying around etc. They even – literally – shit on their own doorstep. But since they could be moved on, or choose to move every six months, so why bother building happy friendships?
I’ve many tales of recent graduated young-professionals, saving to buy, in place for as short a time as possible. Students are sometimes unpopular for similar reasons, but their transience is virtually guaranteed. Nasty for my friends partner, who works shifts as a nurse. But when you might be turfed out in six months time, it’s difficult to summon any enthusiasm for the communal cleaning rota or regimented weeding. But at least you could take out the bins on time.
It’s not always true that tenants don’t care. Some - I’d even venture, most - tenants behave in an exemplary fashion. They smile at neighbours, check on the elderly, bake for the street etc.
Much of this antipathy is caused, I suspect by snobbery, by a variant of the diktat ‘show me someone in rented housing beyond the age of twenty-five and I’ll show you a failure.’ Tenants are viewed as too poor to own, and therefore feckless, with little understanding that even in an HMO, they will be likely to be employed, disastrously paid, and goaded by disrepair, will leave ASAP.
This can result in hatred. One friend was subjected to a campaign of hostility and intimidation. She had moved in to what had previously been home to her unpopular rentier, so neighbours blamed my friend for the floods caused by his refusal to repair. But as a tenant, at least she could move. It was costly, and onerous. But move she did.
If you, the owner occupiers, realised just how much we, the temporary tenants envied you with your security, choice, and safety. This situation will worsen. That’s my prediction for 2014. One of them, at least.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/marching-into-studentland.html
My experience was of glowering frostiness, then simple simmering fury - an icy chill whenever I saw my neighbour. I had no idea why. Then, by power of thought alone, I worked out what the problem was. This was after she had insulted Landgirl, and just been, well…odd. The problem was that I should have been cleaning the landing floor. I thought it was down to the caretaker, or ‘factor’ as we say in Scotland, but no – the occupants were supposed to mop the floors. The eternally and splendidly useless letting agents had failed to let me know. The grimacing continues.
In certain other buildings, absentee buy-to-let rentiers rent out homes to tenants who embrace the freedom and transience renting offers – short-term at least. In some extreme cases, they hold frequent noisy parties, scream loudly on the way home at night, do not empty the bins, leave litter lying around etc. They even – literally – shit on their own doorstep. But since they could be moved on, or choose to move every six months, so why bother building happy friendships?
I’ve many tales of recent graduated young-professionals, saving to buy, in place for as short a time as possible. Students are sometimes unpopular for similar reasons, but their transience is virtually guaranteed. Nasty for my friends partner, who works shifts as a nurse. But when you might be turfed out in six months time, it’s difficult to summon any enthusiasm for the communal cleaning rota or regimented weeding. But at least you could take out the bins on time.
It’s not always true that tenants don’t care. Some - I’d even venture, most - tenants behave in an exemplary fashion. They smile at neighbours, check on the elderly, bake for the street etc.
Much of this antipathy is caused, I suspect by snobbery, by a variant of the diktat ‘show me someone in rented housing beyond the age of twenty-five and I’ll show you a failure.’ Tenants are viewed as too poor to own, and therefore feckless, with little understanding that even in an HMO, they will be likely to be employed, disastrously paid, and goaded by disrepair, will leave ASAP.
This can result in hatred. One friend was subjected to a campaign of hostility and intimidation. She had moved in to what had previously been home to her unpopular rentier, so neighbours blamed my friend for the floods caused by his refusal to repair. But as a tenant, at least she could move. It was costly, and onerous. But move she did.
If you, the owner occupiers, realised just how much we, the temporary tenants envied you with your security, choice, and safety. This situation will worsen. That’s my prediction for 2014. One of them, at least.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/marching-into-studentland.html
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
The Five Horseman of 2013.
2013 has been every bit awful as I feared, due to the five horsemen of indifference. Cruel policies implemented – or rather inflicted - by a party of out of touch millionaires caused chaos, despair, hunger, isolation and homelessness.
First The Bedroom Tax. Or ‘spare room subsidy.’ Which it isn’t. Rich people watched a documentary about social housing which show that some people - mostly older tenants - cling to their homes when their family and dependents have moved on.
They’re not evil. They simply wish to stay because their friends, social network and support are close by, and in any case there’s nowhere else to move to – the private sector is tenuous, expensive and actively discriminates against claimants or the poor (openly displaying signs reading ‘No DSS’).
So money was taken from their allowance to cover the ‘cost’ of this so-called spare room. The result was arrears and therefore, debt. They didn’t move. There is nowhere else to live. Labour have promised to repeal this stupid tax. I await the proof of this. I also await the mass evictions, which will start next year.
Next, The Benefit Cap. This too is vile. Hideous. People are limited to how much they are entitled to, not on the basis of dependants (I wonder if this includes disabled children and elderly parents…) and not on their need. It is an arbitrary red-line. It will force low paid workers from property hot-spots – which in truth means London. So who will serve in the shops, clean the homes, work as clerks, nurse, study and set up new businesses in the capital? I’m curious, that’s all.
Rising rents are a nightmare, but this isn’t true everywhere. Prices are still stable and reasonable where work is scarce and supply plentiful. Even so, letting-agents try to insist that rents must be raised.
So, yay letting agents, once more. My friend was house hunting in Scotland, where fees payable by tenants are unlawful. She was being shown a ‘studio’ by an agent, and when they reached the flat, it had no central heating (in Scotland, this is just plain intolerable). To make matters worse, she was informed that the owner would not permit Calor gas heaters. Sarcastically she suggested an open fire in the bedroom. ‘Burning what?’ demanded the agent, obviously immune to irony. ‘Well, the documents which set out the fees you’re illegally trying to charge me.’ She replied. Oh – the fiends from last years roll of shame who claim to be ‘Licensed by ARLA’ in their bumph, posters and ads continue to do so. For now…
The cheering news saving my endangered sanity was the spirit of Digs aka Hackney Renters, and other tenant rights organisations, who are angry, but increasingly organised. This means that I believe for the first time the tide might well turn, with better prospects for rent control and long term tenancies.
Turning my deeply etched frown upside down, I would like to thank and remember the following, who are wise and make me smile.
For his patient demolition of SEO cowboys, and also his blog on housing law - @nearlylegal, aka Giles Peaker http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/
There’s @BenreeveLewis. Stern, brave and increasingly furious, he’s a Tenancy Relations Officer. Do not mess with him. He also makes me laugh. Which, things being as they are, is very much appreciated.
First The Bedroom Tax. Or ‘spare room subsidy.’ Which it isn’t. Rich people watched a documentary about social housing which show that some people - mostly older tenants - cling to their homes when their family and dependents have moved on.
They’re not evil. They simply wish to stay because their friends, social network and support are close by, and in any case there’s nowhere else to move to – the private sector is tenuous, expensive and actively discriminates against claimants or the poor (openly displaying signs reading ‘No DSS’).
So money was taken from their allowance to cover the ‘cost’ of this so-called spare room. The result was arrears and therefore, debt. They didn’t move. There is nowhere else to live. Labour have promised to repeal this stupid tax. I await the proof of this. I also await the mass evictions, which will start next year.
Next, The Benefit Cap. This too is vile. Hideous. People are limited to how much they are entitled to, not on the basis of dependants (I wonder if this includes disabled children and elderly parents…) and not on their need. It is an arbitrary red-line. It will force low paid workers from property hot-spots – which in truth means London. So who will serve in the shops, clean the homes, work as clerks, nurse, study and set up new businesses in the capital? I’m curious, that’s all.
Rising rents are a nightmare, but this isn’t true everywhere. Prices are still stable and reasonable where work is scarce and supply plentiful. Even so, letting-agents try to insist that rents must be raised.
So, yay letting agents, once more. My friend was house hunting in Scotland, where fees payable by tenants are unlawful. She was being shown a ‘studio’ by an agent, and when they reached the flat, it had no central heating (in Scotland, this is just plain intolerable). To make matters worse, she was informed that the owner would not permit Calor gas heaters. Sarcastically she suggested an open fire in the bedroom. ‘Burning what?’ demanded the agent, obviously immune to irony. ‘Well, the documents which set out the fees you’re illegally trying to charge me.’ She replied. Oh – the fiends from last years roll of shame who claim to be ‘Licensed by ARLA’ in their bumph, posters and ads continue to do so. For now…
The cheering news saving my endangered sanity was the spirit of Digs aka Hackney Renters, and other tenant rights organisations, who are angry, but increasingly organised. This means that I believe for the first time the tide might well turn, with better prospects for rent control and long term tenancies.
Turning my deeply etched frown upside down, I would like to thank and remember the following, who are wise and make me smile.
For his patient demolition of SEO cowboys, and also his blog on housing law - @nearlylegal, aka Giles Peaker http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/
There’s @BenreeveLewis. Stern, brave and increasingly furious, he’s a Tenancy Relations Officer. Do not mess with him. He also makes me laugh. Which, things being as they are, is very much appreciated.
Monday, 23 December 2013
Cancel Xmas. To Pay The Rent.
Too many people can't pay their rent. Due to a noxious combination of low wages, high rents, soaring utilities, job insecurity (zero hours contracts with exclusivity clauses) and the looming threat of redundancy, I've been contacted by several readers who can't pay. But here are the measures taken and lengths, deprivations endured and humiliations tolerated to cover their essential rent.
No xmas presents. None. Nothing whatsoever at all. One of my friends can't buy even a tiny gift for her new nephew, another has nothing to thank her supportive family. Yes, xmas is a febrile fiesta of escalating greed, even so, this has happened for the third year in a row, which is demeaning. Not everyone can make something. But she needs to pay her rent.
Porridge for xmas brunch (late to rise to stay under the warm duvet for as long as possible). Porridge for dinner. Porridge for every meal over the xmas holidays. People are not eating properly, if at all, but at least they're paying their rent.
Meeting a potential work colleague in a coffee bar, hoping for seasonal freelance work. My friend had just enough in her purse for one coffee, a rare treat to be cradled and savoured. Contact arrives, but oops - he'd forgotten his wallet. She had enough for herself and the fare home in the darkness of midwinter. Desperate for work, keen to show willing - if not ingratiate herself, she 'loaned' her contact a coffee, and walked home in the sleet. Because she couldn't afford to dip into her rent.
The worry, fretting, not sleeping then simply panicking. The stress is remorseless, unrelenting and worsens. Bellies half-full, minds in turmoil, life lived on a day-by day basis. So tenants can pay the rent.
Kids, who overhear their parents agree to ask for cash and to put into the household budget. So they can pay the rent. Fine dining on value brands and gratefully accepted food-bank bounty. So they can pay the rent.
There are days of holiday in the cold weather, when warm libraries and museums are closed, so pondering a bracing country walk, which is free, but does create a healthy appetite, which you can't feed. Mothers deciding to stay huddled with miserable, fractious, disappointed children under a blanket, afraid to boil the kettle. So they can pay the rent.
Selling everything (I mean everything - that is, absolutely everything) other than basic essentials. So you can pay the rent.
Actually begging in the street to see if you can raise something, to buy food, so you can pay the rent. Lunching on tiny bite-size samples of xmas food. Overhearing your richer friends complaining that you've never repaid that tenner from a few months back. Because you need to pay your rent.
No headache pills or plasters, eking out toothpaste, rationing toilet paper, painful lumps in over-darned socks. Cuts from blunt razors, clothes un-ironed, length of shower rationed on the electrical appliances and scant telly time. Because you paid the rent.
Fearing the unexpected, or anything outside of your strict, regimented budget, such as leaking shoes, a coat being stolen, or a broken pay-as-you-go phone. So you can pay the rent.
Cancelling xmas, because if you do that, you might just if you squeeze, and don't eat for a day (it's only one day, right?) then might just about be able to pay your rent.
Will 2014 be the year that we descend upon Downing Street with pitchforks? I hope so. Because we need to comfortably pay the rent.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/heartwarming-festive-tale.html
No xmas presents. None. Nothing whatsoever at all. One of my friends can't buy even a tiny gift for her new nephew, another has nothing to thank her supportive family. Yes, xmas is a febrile fiesta of escalating greed, even so, this has happened for the third year in a row, which is demeaning. Not everyone can make something. But she needs to pay her rent.
Porridge for xmas brunch (late to rise to stay under the warm duvet for as long as possible). Porridge for dinner. Porridge for every meal over the xmas holidays. People are not eating properly, if at all, but at least they're paying their rent.
Meeting a potential work colleague in a coffee bar, hoping for seasonal freelance work. My friend had just enough in her purse for one coffee, a rare treat to be cradled and savoured. Contact arrives, but oops - he'd forgotten his wallet. She had enough for herself and the fare home in the darkness of midwinter. Desperate for work, keen to show willing - if not ingratiate herself, she 'loaned' her contact a coffee, and walked home in the sleet. Because she couldn't afford to dip into her rent.
The worry, fretting, not sleeping then simply panicking. The stress is remorseless, unrelenting and worsens. Bellies half-full, minds in turmoil, life lived on a day-by day basis. So tenants can pay the rent.
Kids, who overhear their parents agree to ask for cash and to put into the household budget. So they can pay the rent. Fine dining on value brands and gratefully accepted food-bank bounty. So they can pay the rent.
There are days of holiday in the cold weather, when warm libraries and museums are closed, so pondering a bracing country walk, which is free, but does create a healthy appetite, which you can't feed. Mothers deciding to stay huddled with miserable, fractious, disappointed children under a blanket, afraid to boil the kettle. So they can pay the rent.
Selling everything (I mean everything - that is, absolutely everything) other than basic essentials. So you can pay the rent.
Actually begging in the street to see if you can raise something, to buy food, so you can pay the rent. Lunching on tiny bite-size samples of xmas food. Overhearing your richer friends complaining that you've never repaid that tenner from a few months back. Because you need to pay your rent.
No headache pills or plasters, eking out toothpaste, rationing toilet paper, painful lumps in over-darned socks. Cuts from blunt razors, clothes un-ironed, length of shower rationed on the electrical appliances and scant telly time. Because you paid the rent.
Fearing the unexpected, or anything outside of your strict, regimented budget, such as leaking shoes, a coat being stolen, or a broken pay-as-you-go phone. So you can pay the rent.
Cancelling xmas, because if you do that, you might just if you squeeze, and don't eat for a day (it's only one day, right?) then might just about be able to pay your rent.
Will 2014 be the year that we descend upon Downing Street with pitchforks? I hope so. Because we need to comfortably pay the rent.
http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/heartwarming-festive-tale.html
Monday, 16 December 2013
Wring Out Your Onesie
There’s a bizarre sloshing sound in both owner-occupied homes and those lived in by tenants right now. It’s this. Since there is no greater fear than turning on the heating, people wear multiple layers, until they end up looking like the Michelin Man. Warfare breaks out between couples and flatmates, with one sneakily boosting the thermostat, the other then sneakily lowering in once more.
One of my friends even works at home clad in paper overalls, which he claims keep him toasty. There’s woolly hats, fingerless gloves, and scarves in the privacy of your home.
Others use improvised insulation, like blankets on the wall, polystyrene plastered to ceilings etc. You never know – it could work.
But the fear of switching on the heating causes another problem – and it’s a big problem. The name of this big problem is… condensation.
This wearing of jumpers under blankets in the lounge is done under duress as occupants watch their own frozen breath snake upwards to the ceiling, where this deluge is distilled until it flows in rivulets down the walls. There it used productively, to irrigate vast fields of mould and mushrooms, with plantations springing up all over the place. Last year I found mould growing on my pillow.
This has been troubling me for some time. Yes, the energy companies are greedy. Yes, older homes – i.e. those built over fifteen years ago let the arctic winds waft bracingly through the walls. Cavity walls were intended to let homes breathe, but are now being systematically and in my experience – inexpertly - filled with insulation. Insulation is now universally regarded as a good thing. Nobody questions this, well, except for a few shy voices whispering at the back.
These voices ask a question. State funding for what is sneeringly referred to by our condem overlords as ‘green crap’ has been insulating lofts and packing cavity walls with warmth promoting material across the land. It’s universally accepted as a brilliant idea, and judging from my experience, lagging the loft makes the place so much warmer. But it also seems to make condensation worse. So that home of yours is warm, but steamy, and opening the window isn’t an option, since the icy hand of frost will barge inside, rendering the energy saved useless.
You can’t leave the vents open. You can’t leave the heating on. Dehumidifiers can help, but they’re electric and so costly in own their way. I’m left wondering if, in a few years time, homes that have become pulsing with groves of toadstools on the ceiling will be visited once more, this time to remove the insulation. In the meantime, I’m still looking at passivhaus developments, with envy.
One friend’s rentier knows of a leak in the roof, but blithely lets the water seep in, because it’s being sucked up by the posh new loft insulation. What a stupid man.
There we all go, sloshing around the xmas tree, wringing out our onesies, contemplating mushrooms. There must be a better way. Perhaps we should wear wetsuits. Constantly.
One of my friends even works at home clad in paper overalls, which he claims keep him toasty. There’s woolly hats, fingerless gloves, and scarves in the privacy of your home.
Others use improvised insulation, like blankets on the wall, polystyrene plastered to ceilings etc. You never know – it could work.
But the fear of switching on the heating causes another problem – and it’s a big problem. The name of this big problem is… condensation.
This wearing of jumpers under blankets in the lounge is done under duress as occupants watch their own frozen breath snake upwards to the ceiling, where this deluge is distilled until it flows in rivulets down the walls. There it used productively, to irrigate vast fields of mould and mushrooms, with plantations springing up all over the place. Last year I found mould growing on my pillow.
This has been troubling me for some time. Yes, the energy companies are greedy. Yes, older homes – i.e. those built over fifteen years ago let the arctic winds waft bracingly through the walls. Cavity walls were intended to let homes breathe, but are now being systematically and in my experience – inexpertly - filled with insulation. Insulation is now universally regarded as a good thing. Nobody questions this, well, except for a few shy voices whispering at the back.
These voices ask a question. State funding for what is sneeringly referred to by our condem overlords as ‘green crap’ has been insulating lofts and packing cavity walls with warmth promoting material across the land. It’s universally accepted as a brilliant idea, and judging from my experience, lagging the loft makes the place so much warmer. But it also seems to make condensation worse. So that home of yours is warm, but steamy, and opening the window isn’t an option, since the icy hand of frost will barge inside, rendering the energy saved useless.
You can’t leave the vents open. You can’t leave the heating on. Dehumidifiers can help, but they’re electric and so costly in own their way. I’m left wondering if, in a few years time, homes that have become pulsing with groves of toadstools on the ceiling will be visited once more, this time to remove the insulation. In the meantime, I’m still looking at passivhaus developments, with envy.
One friend’s rentier knows of a leak in the roof, but blithely lets the water seep in, because it’s being sucked up by the posh new loft insulation. What a stupid man.
There we all go, sloshing around the xmas tree, wringing out our onesies, contemplating mushrooms. There must be a better way. Perhaps we should wear wetsuits. Constantly.
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