Category Archives: Other Writing

Thought Savage Woman, by Blessin Adams.

I have a few spec fic books lined up for later this month and July, but I felt the need for history. I’m also trying to work through my TBR pile. A lot of my books have been packed, but there are a lot more to go.

I’m being evicted. It’s a Section 21 no fault eviction, but it feels like an insult and injury. I’ve lived here for 9 years, I wasn’t planning to move for a few more years, but the landlord obviously doesn’t want to comply with the Renters Rights Act. It came into force on May Day, so his agent sent an eviction notice 30th April. I officially have to move out by midnight 6th July.

That’s probably not going to happen. According to Shelter, so long as I keep paying my rent and keep the landlord or their agent updated, they can’t throw me out without a Section 8 notice from the courts, so that’s the plan. Also, my rent payment covers 21st to 20th of the next month; if I move out before 20th July, I’ll be demanding my rent back.

The violence of the private renting system is revolting. I’m limited in my ability to work so I rely on the state for most of my income, but I have to pay about 1/3rd of that to a private individual, my landlord. Essentially, tax payer money is funnelled to private individuals. The government is funding the lifestyles of landlords, while blaming the poor and disabled for being poor and disabled, a drain on public finances, putting us under increasing scrutiny. Did you know that PIP fraud accounts for 0.4% of all PIP payments? But we’re regularly threatened with prosecution if we so are seen on a good day doing a normal activity.

Twas ever thus.

Both the scrutiny of those in receipt of state support – we all pay taxes by the way, so the whole ‘tax payer supporting the scroungers’ narrative is bullshit – and the state propping up landlords.

Historically, landlords were literally that landed Lords. Who owned everything under the monarch (fucking Normans!). They controlled everything and demanded labour, the results of that labour, and money in return for allowing a person a roof over their heads and land for subsistence farming.

It got worse when the enclosures started and the commons were taken away. This forced people into towns and cities, and into the power of employers, who might house them, at a price. Long hours and poor pay, with limited ability to provide for yourself unless you were one of those lucky enough to make significant income, and become part of a Guild.

The came the Industrial Revolution. The skilled trades were pushed out by machines and factories. Desperate people will work for less when their skills have become so devalued. And still, they paid what they earned to landlords who owned their tenements. Food prices fluctuated wildly, made worse by government policy and the greed of landowners.

And if they were disabled by their labour they were thrown out. If they were lucky they might get a pittance from the parish, or they might end up in the workhouse, labouring for meager meals, separated from spouse, parents, children. Scrutinised, bullied and insulted because they couldn’t work or there was no work available.

Everything changes and nothing changes. When capital is king and decent housing is a privilege there will always be those who scapegoat the most vulnerable and let the wealthy do what they will.

I hate it. I hate that I, and everyone else in the 99%, are at the mercy of the 1%. I hate that they turn us against each other to maintain their position. I hate that 50 families in the UK own 90% of the land, and that houses stand empty when there are people in need of homes. I hate that it took so long for a government to provide even basic rights and protections to renters.

I hate that the government are yelling ‘Build! Build! Build!’ but very few of those houses will be council housing. The councils could just buy some of those houses to house all the people on the waiting lists. In Grimsby there are loads of new houses, but lots of people are stuck in cold, damp badly built houses because they can’t afford these shiny new houses – to buy or rent – or even to move. The council could sort that easily, if the government really means what it says.

But we know they don’t and won’t. Can’t have the needs of the people coming before the needs of landlords and builders, can they? After all profits for shareholders are more important than the people who are paying for it all through taxation.

Right, rant over, I’m going back to reading about female killers.