The lodger was wrapped in thin nylon sheets, lying on a battered old double bed. His alarm clock had gone off a couple of hours ago, but he was too nervous to get up.
His landlady was coming round later to inspect the house. The lodger hated his landlady.
She had grown to be such a concern that she filled all his spare thoughts, never allowing him to relax. Whenever she came, she always turned the heating down so she would pay less. Why she had included the gas and electric bills in the rent, he did not know.
He sank into despair. Three hours to go. Three hours until she would point out some filth that one of the other tenants had left and make him clean it up.
He really wanted to move out. Since he had lost his job, however, there was nowhere to go.
The benefit cap had forced him out of his last house, which he had rented while he was working, and most landlords and landladies would not let to someone on benefits. “An insurance risk” one letting agent murmured when he asked her why. “They’re harder to evict than tenants in work” another told him.
He was getting desperate when he found this house. The landlady, a shark of a lawyer, took DSS tenants and treated them like her regular ones. That is, very badly. The stress was getting to him, stopping him looking for work. Every week she came round, always on a Wednesday.
The contract had one more month before it needed to be renewed. Getting to his feet, and brushing a half-eaten packet of mints into the bin, he decided not to renew it. Even a B&B would be better than this.
0 comments:
Post a Comment