The rising demand for rental accommodation combined with a cap on benefits is slowly turning parts of London into a third world ghetto. According to a story I read in the Guardian, greedy landlords are exploiting the demand for accommodation and renting out illegally converted sheds and outhouses, very often to illegal immigrants, and it is not unusual for landlords to charge hundreds of pounds per week for a section of floor space in an overcrowded house with too few bathrooms, no fire alarms, dodgy wiring, and with resident rats and cockroaches to boot.
Can you imagine living in a converted shed with no hot water or insulation, in the middle of winter? No, nor can I, but increasing numbers of tenants are being forced into renting rooms and hastily converted outbuildings to avoid living on the streets and council planning enforcement inspectors are getting used to finding tenants living in overcrowded conditions or spaces so small even your dog would object.
It might seem difficult to understand why people would choose to live under such conditions, but when all you can afford is a mattress on the floor of some squalid house in one of the cheaper boroughs of London, choice probably doesn’t come into it. But on the other side of the coin are the landlords who trade in human misery, cashing in on the plight of so many vulnerable and desperate people, many of whom are in no position to make complaints about their living conditions.
So if you are picturing a 19th century slum, you’re in the right era, but sadly this unhappy state of affairs is unlikely to improve any time soon.
